Learn

The questions we answer
on the phone, written down.

We mill, char and coat this timber ourselves, so most of what is here came off the shop floor rather than out of a brochure. Five guides — this page is just to tell you which one you want.

A member of the Tiny Temple team talking a customer along the sample run inside the mill, boards laid out down the bench
The sample run at Pomathorn. Most of these guides started as this conversation.

Five guides, and what each one is for

  • Start here

    Beginner's Guide

    Never specified timber cladding before

    What it is, what it costs, how long it lasts and what happens to it over the years. The whole subject in one read, with the questions people actually ask us on the phone.

    Read it →

  • Specifying

    Profiles and sizes

    Choosing how the wall will look

    What the board looks like in section — shadowgap, secretfix, rainscreen, tongue and groove — which widths each is priced at, and why you never get as much wall as the board is wide.

    Read it →

  • Specifying

    Counter battens

    Working out the build-up behind it

    What goes between the wall and the boards, and why cladding must never be fixed straight onto a membrane. The batten sizes we make, square and sloped.

    Read it →

  • Finishes

    Factory coatings

    Deciding whether to keep a colour

    How to hold a colour instead of letting it silver — the coating systems, what each costs you in maintenance, and what a factory finish does that a site finish cannot.

    Read it →

  • Finishes

    Shou Sugi Ban

    Thinking about charred timber

    What the fire does to the board, the difference between deep char and char-and-brush, how black it stays and how much comes off on your hands.

    Read it →

Or start from the question

Not on the list?

Ask Tiny Tony, bottom right — he answers out of these same pages and says so when he does not know. Or put it to the mill, and one of the people in that photograph will answer it.