Brody Ekberg

Marvin Weber wrote:
I am working on a "landrace" of hardy, mite-and-disease-resistant chickens on our farm.

There is a wide variation in genetic strength. I don't keep the non-thriving hens for breeding. I sort out the best layers and the healthiest hens in late winter for hatching our new generation. I also look for the older ones that have resisted disease for several years in a row, and are still laying. After doing this for about 4 years now, we don't have much trouble with mites or diseases anymore.

However, we aren't yet where we would like to be at for egg production over winter. We do depend on them making a profit, so we will continue to work on selecting for good winter laying.

This seems like a good idea! I butchered the hen and rooster that were worst infested with mites. Not because of their genetics but just because they were old and we had too many birds anyway. But now that you mention it, keeping them alive, fighting their mites and letting them breed probably wouldn’t have been wise.

Im working on an Orpington/Swedish Flower mix that I want to breed to select for winter hardiness, egg laying, broodiness and mite resistance. I also think we may have Avian Leukosis in the flock so selecting for resistance to that will also probably be wise.

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?

I think dishwashers are a terrible idea, at least for a single family home. Its one of the craziest things i put up with in my opinion. Reasons:

1. You have to buy it
2. You have to install it
3. You have to maintain it
4. You have to buy a special kind of soap at minimum, and some people buy a rinse aid so their “clean” dishes come out with a layer of gut destroying poison on them.
5. You have to hand wash half the dishes before putting them in it anyway!
6. It takes up valuable space
7. It used electricity
8. You have to bend over to put things into it and bend over again to unload things from it, unless you somehow have space on your counter top for it.
9. Your dishes will never dry inside a dishwasher, just sit in a warm humid environment. You can get around that by using the dry function and then use more electricity to do something that God would have done for you for free by leaving the dishes on your dish rack after washing by hand.
10. I almost never find a load of dishes that is 100% clean coming out of that thing. When washed by hand, almost every load of dishes is 100% clean.

The only time I use it is when we are overwhelmed with dishes and even then I still hate the damn thing. My wife used it all the time but I almost always just hand wash.

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 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

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.

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?

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?

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.

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.