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Fire-Retardant Thermo-Ayous Cladding: A Custom Burnblock®-Treated Profile in Cheltenham

2 min read

Modern two-story house with wood siding, large glass sliding doors and windows, a glass balcony, dark metal trim, and a green lawn under a blue sky.

Duffield Timber supplied Thermo-Ayous cladding, machined to a custom horizontal profile and treated with Burnblock® fire retardant, for a contemporary new home in Cheltenham built by Marcus Homes.

Marcus Homes is a family company that has been building in Cheltenham and across Gloucestershire since 1974, and its developments have won several Cheltenham Borough Council Civic Awards. For this contemporary new home in Cheltenham, it turned to Duffield Timber, a family business since 1957, for fire-retardant timber cladding in a profile of its own.

Modern two-story home with stone ground floor, wood upper level, blue-trim gable roof, glass balcony, and tall wooden garage door; gravel driveway.
Cheltenham new-build with a Cotswold stone ground floor and Burnblock®-treated Thermo-Ayous cladding above

The cladding is fitted horizontally across the upper floor and ground floors and combined with Cotswold stone. Against the stone, the warm brown of the Thermo-Ayous gives the house a clean, contemporary finish.

Modern house exterior with a stone facade, a wooden garage door, a glass entry door, a gravel driveway, and a small garden bed with wall lights.
Stone façade, timber garage door and glazed entrance of a contemporary Cheltenham home

Our team worked with the Marcus Homes designers to develop a bespoke profile, designed to sit alongside our DTC14 and DTC15 vertical shadow gap profiles. It was machined at our mill in Melmerby, North Yorkshire.

Thermo-Ayous is ayous (Triplochiton scleroxylon), a West and Central African hardwood, thermally modified with heat in a controlled atmosphere and no chemicals. It is a clear-grade, virtually knot-free board, and the modification raises it to Durability Class 1 and improves its dimensional stability, which helps a custom profile hold its crisp lines once fitted.

Contemporary two-story home with stone facade, wooden upper siding, and two gabled roofs. Glass doors and warm lights glow over a gravel driveway with lavender.
Horizontal Thermo-Ayous cladding above Cotswold stone at dusk, Cheltenham

The boards were then treated with Burnblock®, a water-based fire retardant that is pressure-impregnated into the timber in a vacuum-pressure tank, and supplied uncoated. When the treated surface is exposed to heat, it chars and releases water, which limits the oxygen reaching the wood and slows the spread of flame. In Great Britain, Burnblock® is applied by WJ FireWright, its exclusive partner.

Left uncoated, the Thermo-Ayous will weather gradually from warm brown towards silver-grey.

Modern two-story wooden house with pitched roofs, expansive glass walls and balcony, warm interior lighting, and a green lawn at dusk.
Contemporary Cheltenham home with fire-retardant Thermo-Ayous cladding and full-height glazing at dusk

For Burnblock® on a public building, see St Mary’s Catholic Academy in Derbyshire. For untreated Thermo-Ayous in a standard shadow gap profile, see Glebe House in Hampshire.

Need fire-retardant cladding or a profile of your own? Explore Burnblock® and our bespoke machining, or get in touch with our team.

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