Salt, Timber, Time

Every house at Saltmarsh is clad in unfinished timber, and every buyer asks the same question within the first ten minutes: how long does it last, and what will it cost me. The answers are better than the question expects.

What silvering is

Cedar and larch left unfinished lose their surface colour to ultraviolet within two seasons and settle into grey. This is a surface effect a fraction of a millimetre deep. It is not decay, and applying a finish to prevent it commits you to reapplying that finish for the life of the building.

Near the water it happens faster and more evenly, because there is more light and more airborne abrasion. Sheltered elevations silver slowly and unevenly, which is why the north face of a Saltmarsh house often looks newer than the south.

What actually fails

Not the face of the board — the ends, the fixings, and anywhere water is held against the timber rather than shed. End grain absorbs many times faster than the face. Fixings in a marine atmosphere need to be stainless, and where they are not, the staining tells you long before the failure does.

Detailing matters more than species. A well-detailed larch elevation will outlast a badly detailed cedar one.

What to ask

Ask what the fixings are. Ask whether the cladding is ventilated behind — a drained and back-ventilated rainscreen dries out after weather, a board fixed tight against a membrane does not. Then look at the bottom two hundred millimetres of the seaward elevation, which is where a coastal house tells the truth about itself.