Fixing replacement exterior pine cladding

Hello.

The extension on my mother's house has "shiplap" cladding on three sides between the roof and window frame.

Two faces of cladding were in fine condition and I just rubbed down, undercoated and repainted this.

The 3rd face of cladding was "crumbling" in places and had a fair amount of filler.

I have bought and prepared (prime/ucoat/topcoat) pre-cut lengths of pine T&G cladding (not an exact match to the shiplap, but all that I could find).

The cladding is ready to go up on a dry day.

My question is how to fix the cladding. Will I need galvanised nails or brass screws or something similarly special? Or will standard nails work fine? Should I predrill holes through the cladding to reduce the risk of it splitting when I nail it? I'm intending to wack frame sealant at the ends of the boards as they meet the vertical corner "pieces" of 1 x 1 timber. Water tightness will take priority over looks.

I'm hoping to pull the old cladding down and fix the new in about 4 hours.

Once it's all in place I'll give it one final top coat.

Anything else I should consider when doing this job?

Thanks

Clive

I assume that you have inspected the sub frame that the cladding will fix to and found it to be sound.

Personally I would drill and screw with say 11/2 inch No 8 screws at the ends of the cladding (I use screwfix quicksilver for most outdoor use rather than specifically outdoor screws) and nail with 40mm galvanised nails away from the ends. Both fixings will outlast the timber (I have had longer timber life with microporous paints in this application than traditional paints)

One of the problems in doing the painting beforehand is that you will damage the painted surface when you fit the boards. Drilling and screwing throughout will minimise the damage and you could fill over the screws with sealant

Tony