Ask three architects to name the best wood for a facade and you will get three defensible answers. The honest response is that each mainstream species wins on a different scorecard: budget, durability, stability or looks. What follows is the comparison developers actually need, based on how the main options behave once they are screwed to a wall.

The three contenders and how they differ

Larch is the dense one. Slow-grown European and Siberian material rates moderately durable on the European EN 350 scale, shrugs off knocks better than most softwoods and can be left uncoated to silver naturally, which makes it the low-maintenance choice for clients who like grey.

Spruce is the economical one. On its own it is only slightly durable outdoors, but behind a modern factory coating it becomes a dependable facade board at the lowest cost per square metre of any real-timber option. Thermowood is the engineered one: softwood baked at around two hundred degrees Celsius until its chemistry changes, gaining durability commonly cited at class two and roughly halving moisture movement, with no chemicals involved.

  • Choose larch when impact resistance and an uncoated, naturally weathering finish matter more than initial price.
  • Choose coated spruce when budget leads the decision and a solid colour is part of the design anyway.
  • Choose thermowood when long runs, dark finishes and minimal movement around joinery justify a premium board.

The scorecards that separate them

On lifespan, thermowood and well-detailed larch both target multi-decade service, while coated spruce depends on its paint system and honest recoating intervals. On stability, thermowood is the clear leader, which is why it is specified for shadow-gap details and long horizontal lines where cupped boards would be obvious. On cost, spruce wins the first invoice and larch usually wins the no-maintenance argument.

Detailing beats species choice more often than buyers expect, and browsing a specialist timber cladding like TimberSol.co.uk, range makes the point quickly: the same larch appears charred, brushed, coated and profiled a dozen ways, each suited to a different exposure and design brief.

What the decision usually comes down to

Charred finishes deserve a mention of their own. The Japanese yakisugi technique, burning the board face to a carbon layer, has moved from craft curiosity to catalogue product, and it pairs naturally with dense species such as larch and Accoya for facades that stay black without paint. Because the char itself is the weathered surface, the maintenance question shifts from repainting to occasional re-oiling, which suits owners who want drama without a decorating schedule.

For most projects the selection resolves into one question: what does the building need to look like in year fifteen, and who will maintain it until then. Owner-occupiers who will repaint on schedule can bank the savings of spruce. Landlords and commercial clients who will not want scaffolding again lean to larch or thermowood, and accept the higher board price as cheap insurance against future access costs.