Siding opinions

I’m looking for advice and opinions about siding for our house.

Its a ranch style 3 bedroom house in Michigans upper peninsula. Our weather ranges from -30f with snow and wind in winter to 95f with pretty high humidity in summer. We have a large crabapple tree, a large maple and a large spruce on the south and west sides of the house to help shade it from summer sun and winder winds. We’ve got eves and gutters all around.

It currently has aluminum siding that is in good shape overall, but it is the original siding from when the house was built 60 years ago and we have had roof leaks, mold issues, walls to repair and most recently had to cut a hole in the bathroom exterior wall to get a new shower unit in. So, as much as I hate the idea of recycling siding that is overall in good shape, I think letting the house breathe a bit, inspecting the whole thing for unknown issues (mold, rot, carpenter ants) and giving it an update will require new siding. Pulling all that aluminum off, keeping it from denting and bending, keeping it in order and putting it all back up reasonably well is not realistic.

I hate the idea of vinyl and thats a last resort as far as Im concerned. Aluminum is an option but I feel crazy pulling off decent aluminum, recycling and putting up new aluminum. For all that work, why not go a different route? I like wood and wood like products. Ive looked into LP Smart siding and see a lot of sketchy reviews and warranty issues. Im leaning towards either T1-11 or real wood.

I have read great things and horrible things about t1-11. Its easy to install and I think cheaper than many other options. And pretty natural compared to vinyl and aluminum. But like all wood products, it needs to stay dry and either be painted or stained and sealed occasionally or else it will rot, woodpeckers will get into it and carpenter ants can eat it. Ive read people saying they need to paint their t1-11 siding every couple years and I’ve talked to people who haven’t painted theres in 25 years and it looks great, in full sun, with no gutters taking splashes from rain…

The other option Im considering is taking down some of our red (norway) pines and getting them milled into either board and batten siding or live edge lap siding. Something simple that my uncle could do with his portable mill. Honestly, I like that idea best, by far, since using our own trees would be very rewarding and it would be 100% natural aside from whatever paint, stain or sealers we use. The down side is theres the work of turning trees into siding, waiting for the wood to dry (unless I can put it up green), and it comes with the same maintenance and risks as any other wood products. Think this would be our cheapest route by far though since I can drop the trees myself and probably get them milled cheap or free by family members with portable mills.

Do any of you have any insights or advice? I may reach out to some local contractors this winter to see what they experience working on houses in the area. See if they come across a lot of rotten t1-11 and if they know why. Or see if they think red pine would hold up as well if not better. Any advice or opinions are appreciated!

Hey Brody;
I like the board and batten look, it's much better than metal.
I know the costs involved but I suggest looking into cedar.
Bug-resistant, rot-resistant, looks great, but...unless you have your own cedar trees... you might need to mortgage the house to buy it.
Using green wood is problematic, some species do fine as long as they are solidly attached.
Other species will twist, crack, and shrink, and cause all sorts of issues.
I do not know how red pine reacts but I bet you can find out.
Waiting for green wood to dry naturally takes time and proper storage.
Sometimes a sawmill with a dry kiln will dry your load of boards for a fee.

Our house has Hardie Board Siding.  I really like it.

https://www.jameshardie.com/

It could be done in the board and batten style that Thomas mentioned.

It comes in a variety of colors and never needs to be painting.

I used green red oak in northern MN that I had custom cut at a local mill.  I had to be selective as to which board I used as siding, but it worked out well.  Of course, all the boards were eventually put to use on the homestead.

My father planted a couple of large groves of red pine 60-70 years ago (I helped with the last one as a child), but when they got big enough to harvest, he was told by a forester that there was no market for them as they were especially susceptible to beetles and not durable in log cabin construction. I don't know if your trees are the same species, or if your situation has the same issues. Siding might be less of a problem. Treating both sides of each board before installation might help repel insects, and of course good ventilation is important.

One thing I don't care for about red pine is that the branches are very strongly confined to regular intervals, and unless dead branches are pruned as high as possible during growth, there will be a cluster of big knots every two feet or so which weaken the wood and make it less attractive to my eye than the more random white pine knot arrangement.

Hi Brody,
A couple thoughts.

1. You could get your logs cut into boards and trade with someone who has dry boards, but no immediate need for them. You get dry boards, and they still have lumber for later.

2. Cedar shingles are pretty common around here. I think they look really nice too. Well... ok, I think they look nice when new and fresh, and I think they look nice once they are completely gray and weathered... not really a fan of the in between.

2A. I just learned that shakes are split and shingles are sawn.

3. Old fashioned clapboard siding. This is what vinyl and aluminum are copying the look of. This option would need some kind of finish, just like your board and batten would.

Did you see the new topic about using Slate?

thomas rubino wrote:Hey Brody;
I like the board and batten look, it's much better than metal.
I know the costs involved but I suggest looking into cedar.
Bug-resistant, rot-resistant, looks great, but...unless you have your own cedar trees... you might need to mortgage the house to buy it.
Using green wood is problematic, some species do fine as long as they are solidly attached.
Other species will twist, crack, and shrink, and cause all sorts of issues.
I do not know how red pine reacts but I bet you can find out.
Waiting for green wood to dry naturally takes time and proper storage.
Sometimes a sawmill with a dry kiln will dry your load of boards for a fee.

We have red pine on site but no cedars. And most of the cedars around here are too small to be good for siding anyway. Plus, Im not looking to get into even more debt, which is one reason the red pines are attractive. Cedar would be ideal though.

Ill look into using red pine as green wood and see how that works. I think there may be a kiln or two around here so I can look into that as well. Thanks!

Anne Miller wrote:Our house has Hardie Board Siding.  I really like it.

https://www.jameshardie.com/

It could be done in the board and batten style that Thomas mentioned.

It comes in a variety of colors and never needs to be painting.

I remember looking into it last year and was turned off by something. I think I read its expensive, heavy and brittle but I dont quite remember. I should look into it again.

John F Dean wrote:I used green red oak in northern MN that I had custom cut at a local mill.  I had to be selective as to which board I used as siding, but it worked out well.  Of course, all the boards were eventually put to use on the homestead.

Very cool! Not much for oak trees around here and none bigger than seedlings on our land though.

Glenn Herbert wrote:My father planted a couple of large groves of red pine 60-70 years ago (I helped with the last one as a child), but when they got big enough to harvest, he was told by a forester that there was no market for them as they were especially susceptible to beetles and not durable in log cabin construction. I don't know if your trees are the same species, or if your situation has the same issues. Siding might be less of a problem. Treating both sides of each board before installation might help repel insects, and of course good ventilation is important.

One thing I don't care for about red pine is that the branches are very strongly confined to regular intervals, and unless dead branches are pruned as high as possible during growth, there will be a cluster of big knots every two feet or so which weaken the wood and make it less attractive to my eye than the more random white pine knot arrangement.

Our double row of red pines were planted 60-70 years ago as well. I looked into selling them to log home builders and was told they dont want them unless they are 15” in diameter 50’ up because anything smaller than that has too much sapwood to be good for cabins. Makes great lumber though!

Im almost certain beetles are only a problem when not dried properly. When we cut 26 of them several years ago, they sat with the bark on for at least 8 months and the beetles (among other creepy crawlies) went to work under the bark. They like that layer between the bark and wood, but will burrow as well. I was told that you need to either cut in winter or if you cut in warm weather, peel the logs so they dry. Bark holds moisture and is an ideal place for fungi and bugs to do their thing. Once its dry though, i think its much less attractive to them. And kiln drying would kill everything in the wood, i think.

I dont mind the knots. They do weaken the wood though. Not sure how important that would be for siding boards though.

Matt McSpadden wrote:Hi Brody,
A couple thoughts.

1. You could get your logs cut into boards and trade with someone who has dry boards, but no immediate need for them. You get dry boards, and they still have lumber for later.

2. Cedar shingles are pretty common around here. I think they look really nice too. Well... ok, I think they look nice when new and fresh, and I think they look nice once they are completely gray and weathered... not really a fan of the in between.

2A. I just learned that shakes are split and shingles are sawn.

3. Old fashioned clapboard siding. This is what vinyl and aluminum are copying the look of. This option would need some kind of finish, just like your board and batten would.

I like the ideas! Cedar would definitely be ideal, for several reasons. But Ive got enough debt as it is. Cedar is expensive. I looked into cedar for our roof years ago because it would be ideal and Im pretty sure it would have been by far the most expensive roofing material. Like more expensive than the highest quality metal roofing that you can find. And we don’t have our own to cut and mill.

Clapboard would be fine too, we still just need the wood. I just figured since we already have that horizontal look, doing board and batten would completely change the look. Like going to wood from aluminum wouldn’t already be enough change!

John C Daley wrote:Did you see the new topic about using Slate?

No, wheres that? That sounds super heavy and I wonder how it would do with hot summer sun and subzero winters. Like if it would crack from expansion.

Traditional methods of mounting slate shingles account for movement without stressing the stone. It would be important to detail the installation to avoid slates sitting in water in freezing conditions... of course you don't want any water sitting on your house anyway

Do you have any sawmills nearby?

Where i am, you can buy several types and species of wood siding for considerably less than a hardware store, directly from the mill.

If you do use your own trees, i think board and batten was originally intended for green lumber.  There is a gorgeous board and batten house i drive by. They've used board and batten for the lower bit, and shakes under the eaves, then painted it with a semi transparent blue grey stain. Stunning.

Before you choose, think about the worst case scenario in your locality. Disasters, wildfires, etc.

I'm on a property where everything is cedar-sided. House, garage, and etc. (Don't ask me how I got talked into buying this place; it's complicated.)

Cedar siding may have been a good idea in 1975. Now it's a significant problem. The environment is drier and the gaps in the boards are wider. These structures are impossible to save in a wildfire. Build for the future, which may not be friendly. My 2c.

What ever siding you choose suggest study perfect wall style construction.  Rain screen, air gap to breath and dry, insulation, air barrier, wall with insulation.

Since you have some wood and an uncle with a sawmill, I would go with Red Pine clapboard siding. It is super easy to make on a portable sawmill and one log goes a very long ways and why they devised clapboards in the first place. You also need no special tools to make it. As for Pine, IN THE GROUND it rots really fast, but used as siding where it is constantly wetted and dried, it is said to last longer than cedar. You might get some concerns on your north wall where it may stay wet longer, but pine has been used as siding for centuries for a reason. It lasts and lasts...

With the red pine logs, you want to cut them into cants. Most likely 6 inches wide, and as high as you can make the cant based on your log diameter. Say 12 inches high and 6 inches wide. Then to make your first clapboard, shove two cedar shingles under the cant to angle it just out of level to the blade. Then make a cut 3/8 thick. When you are done you have clapboard 5 inches wide, cut on a bevel, and as long as your log is, 8', 10, 12' etc. To make your next cut, you pull out your cedar wedges and make a level cut. Now you have (2) clapboards. By alternating back and forth with level, and beveled cuts every other time, you end up with A LOT of clapboards out of one log.

How much?

Lets say you have a cant of Red Pine that is 6 inches wide, 12 inches thick, and 10 feet long. Out of that (1) log, you can get 24 clapboards 3/8 thick, 6 inches wide and 10 feet long. Since you have to have an overlap of 1 inch, you will get 5" of siding "to the weather" as it is called. That is about 2 square of siding just from that ONE LOG! Since a square of siding is 10 x 10 feet, you can cover a whopping a 10 foot high wall, 20 feet long with just ONE LOG!

This is not something I have heard or read about. I have had sawmills my entire life and have made a lot of clapboard siding on a bandsaw portable sawmill firsthand, myself. Clapboards by their very nature was designed to get a lot of siding out of very little wood. It is not too good to be true. It does however require painting it, and the better logs you get, the better siding you also get.

My siding on this house is okay for now, but if I replace it, it will be with clapboard siding. I can buy the sawmill from Amazon for $2200, and buy the logs, which will be White Pine in my case, and still be WAYYYYYYYYY ahead of what any other siding for this large Victorian home would ever be with anything else. The downside is that it will require painting every 8-10 years and take a weekend to make all the clapboards I will need.

Catie George wrote:Do you have any sawmills nearby?

Where i am, you can buy several types and species of wood siding for considerably less than a hardware store, directly from the mill.

If you do use your own trees, i think board and batten was originally intended for green lumber.  There is a gorgeous board and batten house i drive by. They've used board and batten for the lower bit, and shakes under the eaves, then painted it with a semi transparent blue grey stain. Stunning.

Theres at least 3 commercial lumber mills around town here, i have a friend with a portable sawmill and 2 uncles with portable sawmills. So i definitely have options! You may be correct about board and batten originally being for green lumber. Makes sense because as the boards shrink you wouldn’t see the gaps covered by the battens.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:Before you choose, think about the worst case scenario in your locality. Disasters, wildfires, etc.

I'm on a property where everything is cedar-sided. House, garage, and etc. (Don't ask me how I got talked into buying this place; it's complicated.)

Cedar siding may have been a good idea in 1975. Now it's a significant problem. The environment is drier and the gaps in the boards are wider. These structures are impossible to save in a wildfire. Build for the future, which may not be friendly. My 2c.

I see what you’re saying. I mean, wrapping your home in kindling would probably be the best way to ensure you lose your house in a wildfire. We dont get many wildfires around here and most are out at campgrounds or rarely used camps in the woods. We have neighbors and live in a highway so hopefully the fire department would get there quick. Especially since they’re only a couple miles away.

Everything has a down side though. Vinyl is plastic and, worse than straight up burning, it would melt and smolder into black toxic fumes. Any wood type products would burn. Aluminum would be safe but then I’m tearing off aluminum to put up aluminum and would feel like i wasted a good opportunity to really change up the look of our property. Slate seems unreasonable. I can look into hardy board again to see if thats more fire resistant. I’m definitely still leaning towards pure wood though, for multiple reasons.

C. Letellier wrote:What ever siding you choose suggest study perfect wall style construction.  Rain screen, air gap to breath and dry, insulation, air barrier, wall with insulation.

Good idea. Walls are 2x4 studs and are insulated already. Tar paper on the outside and then aluminum siding. Im tearing off the tar paper either way to inspect the entire envelope of the house and then putting up a new house wrap regardless of what siding we choose.

My dad added foam sheets of insulation when he resided his house and is trying to convince me to do the same. I dont want to though. Our little wood stove and boiler system heat the house fine as is, we have new windows, i hate the idea of spending thousands on styrofoam and creating unimaginable amounts of plastic dust cutting all of it to size.

Steve Zoma wrote:Since you have some wood and an uncle with a sawmill, I would go with Red Pine clapboard siding. It is super easy to make on a portable sawmill and one log goes a very long ways and why they devised clapboards in the first place. You also need no special tools to make it. As for Pine, IN THE GROUND it rots really fast, but used as siding where it is constantly wetted and dried, it is said to last longer than cedar. You might get some concerns on your north wall where it may stay wet longer, but pine has been used as siding for centuries for a reason. It lasts and lasts...

With the red pine logs, you want to cut them into cants. Most likely 6 inches wide, and as high as you can make the cant based on your log diameter. Say 12 inches high and 6 inches wide. Then to make your first clapboard, shove two cedar shingles under the cant to angle it just out of level to the blade. Then make a cut 3/8 thick. When you are done you have clapboard 5 inches wide, cut on a bevel, and as long as your log is, 8', 10, 12' etc. To make your next cut, you pull out your cedar wedges and make a level cut. Now you have (2) clapboards. By alternating back and forth with level, and beveled cuts every other time, you end up with A LOT of clapboards out of one log.

How much?

Lets say you have a cant of Red Pine that is 6 inches wide, 12 inches thick, and 10 feet long. Out of that (1) log, you can get 24 clapboards 3/8 thick, 6 inches wide and 10 feet long. Since you have to have an overlap of 1 inch, you will get 5" of siding "to the weather" as it is called. That is about 2 square of siding just from that ONE LOG! Since a square of siding is 10 x 10 feet, you can cover a whopping a 10 foot high wall, 20 feet long with just ONE LOG!

This is not something I have heard or read about. I have had sawmills my entire life and have made a lot of clapboard siding on a bandsaw portable sawmill firsthand, myself. Clapboards by their very nature was designed to get a lot of siding out of very little wood. It is not too good to be true. It does however require painting it, and the better logs you get, the better siding you also get.

My siding on this house is okay for now, but if I replace it, it will be with clapboard siding. I can buy the sawmill from Amazon for $2200, and buy the logs, which will be White Pine in my case, and still be WAYYYYYYYYY ahead of what any other siding for this large Victorian home would ever be with anything else. The downside is that it will require painting every 8-10 years and take a weekend to make all the clapboards I will need.

This is so helpful you may have just sold me on it!

Painting every 8-10 years is no big deal and an opportunity to change up the color of a house which would probably always be appreciated by my wife. She likes color changes. And it could be stained instead of painted right?

If i cut the logs and mill them right away, they really shouldn’t have any bug, beetle or carpenter ant issues right? I think that all general comes when they sit with the bark on for a period of time but I dont think anything prefers to burrow through hard, dry wood.

Do you have any experience with board and batten? Just wondering if theres much of a difference between what you get from a log cutting planks for board and batten vs clapboard.

Also, any idea if clapboard can be put up green or should it be totally dry first?

Brody,
Our siding is board and batten yellow pine cut by our son with a band saw mill.  
Not green, maybe stickered and stacked no more than a year?
We love it.
I splurged on a tung oil mix after we sprayed with borax.
Now we plan to do another coat of something after it has finished graying. this photo is soon after it was put up on the right.  The graying part on the left had been up 2 yrs. and now most of the walls have grayed.
https://permies.com/t/149767/ideas-toxic-finishes-pine-board

You might consider Magnesium Oxide board panels (MagOx). They can be used as exterior siding and also have interior applications, such as drywall and subflooring.

Magnesium Oxide boards are fire resistant, moisture/mold resistant, non-toxic, and do not contain fly ash or formaldehyde.

I learned about this product from a Building Biologist while researching green materials for a future build. I toured a home that was built with MagOx panels and was impressed by the quality in person.

For more info: https://www.magpanelmgo.com/magnesium-oxide-board-applications

Brody Ekberg wrote:

C. Letellier wrote:What ever siding you choose suggest study perfect wall style construction.  Rain screen, air gap to breath and dry, insulation, air barrier, wall with insulation.

Good idea. Walls are 2x4 studs and are insulated already. Tar paper on the outside and then aluminum siding. Im tearing off the tar paper either way to inspect the entire envelope of the house and then putting up a new house wrap regardless of what siding we choose.

My dad added foam sheets of insulation when he resided his house and is trying to convince me to do the same. I dont want to though. Our little wood stove and boiler system heat the house fine as is, we have new windows, i hate the idea of spending thousands on styrofoam and creating unimaginable amounts of plastic dust cutting all of it to size.

2 comments here.

1.  Why huge amounts of dust cutting to size??  I built a hot wire foam cutter that makes no dust and for longer cuts is just as fast.  It is 3 8 ft long 1"x2" furring strips(used 4 getting around knots), about 10 feet of baling wire, about 15 feet of light rope, (2) 1/4" bolts long enough to go thru 3 layers of furring strip and put a nut on and 2 wood screws.  And it is driven by the big battery charger.  No great expense, fairly fast, clean to operate and withing the skills set of anyone who will likely be working on a home to build.  Bit slow to warm up for first cut.  The wire draws 50 to 60 amps from the charger so big charger needed is the only real down side.  But no fancy nichrome wire.  Simple baling wire is working for me.  Looks like a giant bow saw.  Add some guide blocks(built out of scrap lumber at either end for the wire to track down.  Super straight clean cuts are possible.  Redesign the blocks and even compound miters are easy.

2.  How about changing the insulation?  What about rock wool instead of foam between the wall and the siding?  That is the answer many of the Canadian builders are doing following perfect wall design.  Very fire resistant, easily drying, doesn't support mold grow and a host of other advantage.  And by making it thick enough they are even eliminating vapor barriers in the wall by moving the dew point out into the rock wool so if any condensation forms it is out where it will not hurt anything meaning the walls dry better.  So if your siding is fire resistant and behind that you have the air gap and a very fire resistant insulation the wall should be very durable that way.  Now the one thing that concerns me there is the batten boards that hold the exterior insulation on the building and provide the air gap out to the siding, acting to mount the siding, as rain screen.  But what if they were made out of black locust.(one of the most fire and rot resistant woods grown in north America)  Borate treat it to provide added fire protection and termite protection.  Would that be enough?  If not, what about painting those boards with an intumescent paint?  This is one I am still researching trying to understand.

Brody Ekberg wrote:I remember looking into it last year and was turned off by something. I think I read its expensive, heavy and brittle but I dont quite remember. I should look into it again.

It might be expensive though how expensive compared to vinyl siding?

It is not really heavy because it is thin. Which might make it brittle if not handled correctly.  

We removed the garage door and framed and sided with the left over hardie board without any problems.

Cedar roofing shingles might make a nice looking siding.

Judith Browning wrote:
Brody,
Our siding is board and batten yellow pine cut by our son with a band saw mill.  
Not green, maybe stickered and stacked no more than a year?
We love it.
I splurged on a tung oil mix after we sprayed with borax.
Now we plan to do another coat of something after it has finished graying. this photo is soon after it was put up on the right.  The graying part on the left had been up 2 yrs. and now most of the walls have grayed.

Looks great! What is the purpose of spraying with borax?

Anne Miller wrote:

Brody Ekberg wrote:I remember looking into it last year and was turned off by something. I think I read its expensive, heavy and brittle but I dont quite remember. I should look into it again.

It might be expensive though how expensive compared to vinyl siding?

It is not really heavy because it is thin. Which might make it brittle if not handled correctly.  

We removed the garage door and framed and sided with the left over hardie board without any problems.

Cedar roofing shingles might make a nice looking siding.

Cedar would be ideal as far as Im concerned. Sure, it seems risky to wrap your house in kindling, but everything has a downside. But I looked into redoing our roof with cedar shingles and was amazed at the cost. And I have no way to make them myself so cedar is out of the question. Ill look into the hardie board again but am definitely leaning towards wood so far.

Brody Ekberg wrote:

Judith Browning wrote:
Brody,
Our siding is board and batten yellow pine cut by our son with a band saw mill.  
Not green, maybe stickered and stacked no more than a year?
We love it.
I splurged on a tung oil mix after we sprayed with borax.
Now we plan to do another coat of something after it has finished graying. this photo is soon after it was put up on the right.  The graying part on the left had been up 2 yrs. and now most of the walls have grayed.

Looks great! What is the purpose of spraying with borax?

Borax is supposedto deter insects and molds/ fungi ànd is a bit of a fire retardant...there's quite a lot of information about it online.

We intended to do 2-3 rounds of borax spray but only did one before the tung oil.

The boards are nailed rather than screwed as a cost cutting measure.

Just so everyone knows, you can buy or build a cheap jig that allows you to cut cedar shingles on a portable sawmill

It’s not as fast as cutting clapboards but it’s still can be done. It just takes more time.

Decent portable mills can be bought on Amazon for $2200 now and delivered to your home for free. They have really come down in cost the last few years.

just a thought..

here in cape breton (fishing coastal communities) there are many many 100+ year old homes which, 100 years ago, were all cladded in wood, wood shingles etc. they required maintenance, repainting, staining etc.

i would say 90% are now vinyl siding... new builds included... i have neighbors whose shingled, painted old home had a full rotten wall that needed replacing..

you might indeed want to avoid plastics, but with a wood building you will be dipping into toxins on some sort over time.. smelting aluminum is a terrible process, cutting wood takes gas... you will not escape polluting

on that note - good quality vinyl now is 30-35 years install and forget - you can even paint it.. properly installed it provides a bullet proof barrier.. def go steel roof if you can

there are sawmills everywhere here.. many many many rough hewn sheds, outbuildings, coops etc...

all the homes are vinyl sided

hope this doesn't offend - cheers!

Steve Zoma wrote:Just so everyone knows, you can buy or build a cheap jig that allows you to cut cedar shingles on a portable sawmill

It’s not as fast as cutting clapboards but it’s still can be done. It just takes more time.

Decent portable mills can be bought on Amazon for $2200 now and delivered to your home for free. They have really come down in cost the last few years.

That is good to know! I still would need to buy cedar though. And it would be a way slower process compared to board and batten or shiplap

You can make shingles out of Red Pine or any type of wood. just because something is traditional does not mean it cannot be substituted.

It’s prudent to look at the attributes of a wood type but we already discussed how the old duffers claimed pine outlasted cedar.

I have built many buildings out of board and batten but I would never side a house with it. That is just me though. Too many places for water to infiltrate.

James MacKenzie wrote:just a thought..

here in cape breton (fishing coastal communities) there are many many 100+ year old homes which, 100 years ago, were all cladded in wood, wood shingles etc. they required maintenance, repainting, staining etc.

i would say 90% are now vinyl siding... new builds included... i have neighbors whose shingled, painted old home had a full rotten wall that needed replacing..

you might indeed want to avoid plastics, but with a wood building you will be dipping into toxins on some sort over time.. smelting aluminum is a terrible process, cutting wood takes gas... you will not escape polluting

on that note - good quality vinyl now is 30-35 years install and forget - you can even paint it.. properly installed it provides a bullet proof barrier.. def go steel roof if you can

there are sawmills everywhere here.. many many many rough hewn sheds, outbuildings, coops etc...

all the homes are vinyl sided

hope this doesn't offend - cheers!

I get it. Like my dad says “vinyl is final”. But that also means damn near forever, not just for the life of the house. That plastic really does last forever in the environment.

I think overall, people have gotten quite lazy and would rather spend their summer days watching tiktoks than painting their siding, or maintaining anything at all for that matter. I am not one of those people. The way I see it is, everything in life requires maintenance. Everything. Plastic is about the only exception I can think of, and it comes at a huge cost. People need maintenance, animals need maintenance, plants need maintenance, machines need maintenance, relationships need maintenance and I dont see what’s wrong with the siding needing maintenance as well. I mean, the rest of the house does too.

I think if I sided the house in plastic, i would regret it and feel like I took the “normal” easy way out which is not at all my style. It seems so dead and meaningless to me. Actually worse than that, it’s actually a problem. I think cutting our own trees, milling them and siding our house with them would be very fulfilling and I would (hopefully) be proud every time I look at it. It could also be a cool experience. Plus, I like woodworking.

As for rot, i think managing water is key here. You need a good roof, big enough eves and gutters to keep water from being an issue.

I have no illusions of avoiding pollution. The only way to ALMOST do that is probably hand split cedar or hewn cedar logs, which is not realistic for us. Short of that, sure there will be some. Or just use bare pine and when it gets bad, replace it. But I can cut a ridiculous amount of wood with a tiny amount of gas and oil. Its really minimal. It actually amazes me when people who heat with wood talk about the expense of gas and oil… a gallon of gas gets me a lot of wood cut.

Steve, you've convinced me to try my hand at making clapboard for the first time, to side a cabin-office that I'm building.  Thank you very much for your good detail, and thank you Brody for starting this thread.  I have my first pine log down.

Steve, you mentioned 3/8th inch thickness, and getting about 24 clapboards off a 6 x 12 inch cant. I'm thinking I can maybe get a 6x8 cant on this first log section.

Wood would I be correct in saying the small edges of the clapboards are each 3/8ths thick, and the other edges are roughly double that?

Do you have a recommendation on nails vs screws and what type or size?

Is the orientation I drew on my log below ideal, or what would you recommend?  

Lastly, what kind of drying time would you recommend at minimum (absent a kiln)?

Thanks for lending your experience to us!

Steve Zoma wrote:You can make shingles out of Red Pine or any type of wood. just because something is traditional does not mean it cannot be substituted.

It’s prudent to look at the attributes of a wood type but we already discussed how the old duffers claimed pine outlasted cedar.

I have built many buildings out of board and batten but I would never side a house with it. That is just me though. Too many places for water to infiltrate.

Even if water got through the seams on board and batten isn’t that what the house wrap is for?

New thought: what if I girdle the trees this winter before sap starts to flow in spring and then cut and mill them in the spring? Im thinking of how to avoid warping and cupping while the boards dry and it seems to me that girdling the trees while dormant would prevent them from sucking up loads of water in the spring and that would mean less warping and cupping after they are milled. I dont know if it works that way but it seems logical to me.

I just had to replace vinyl siding after a neighbouring fire melted our siding.
I wanted to use vertical steel, with a board & batten look, but feasibility pushed us to vertical vinyl, which again looks like board & batten.
I despise the stuff, but it is what we could get.
More importantly, we put an extra layer of sheet insulation and took the opportunity to seal many air gaps.  It made a noticeable difference house comfort.

Brady, if you do decide to mill your pines for lumber, have you considered charring them (shou sugi ban) instead of painting which would make them both water resistant and fire retardant?

Megan Palmer wrote:Brady, if you do decide to mill your pines for lumber, have you considered charring them (shou sugi ban) instead of painting which would make them both water resistant and fire retardant?

No I have not. I did look into that a few years ago when I used rough cut pine to build a chicken coop. I know traditionally it is done on cedar but Im sure the benefits work with pine too. I think it would be a lot of work and mess though for a house worth of siding boards. Dont you need to do a deep char and then scrape off most of the loose stuff afterwards?

I really dont like the idea of painting. I would be more inclined to use an oil based stain that way if at some point in the future we want change we could still paint it. If we paint first then staining probably isnt really an option in the future.