New England siding species option???

shinnlinger · June 29, 2009, 10:13:02 AM

Hi,

I am building a house as we speak and have yet to decide my siding option. I can see vertical strapping on the sheathing for ventilation and running siding as a thread up in the milling section suggests. My question is what would be a good New England species to use? I have mostly white pine around here and have pretty good overhang on my house (it was going to be a strawbale).

Would I be an idiot to hang white pine right off the mill and paint it next summer when it dries out? Wife is a fan of live edge, but I don't know about using sapwood on my house.

Thanks.

Dodgy Loner · June 29, 2009, 01:10:50 PM

White pine is a good (and traditional) choice for house siding. The paint will go a long way to protect it and help it to last much longer. Paint will block the UV light does a lot of damage to unfinished wood, and also forms a barrier against the moisture which promotes decay. I don't think sapwood is much of an issue, but I don't know if painted, live-edge siding would jive. Protecting the siding from sunlight and moisture (especially moisture) will go a lot farther towards ensuring its longevity than using all heartwood. Take pictures

jimparamedic · June 29, 2009, 08:04:14 PM

Well for my 2 cents down here in SE Ohio I have made 6" and 8" poplar and pine with good luck. I have a pump house covered with white pine 6" lap that has gone 10 yrs with no paint or treatment of any kind. I did not use live edge but I slab lite so there is alot of sap wood all the wood is in good shape the sap wood did not turn as yellow as the rest did. The only problem that I had was on a dog house that my son built and painted the knots bleed through. I was told that to stop this the wood needed heated to set the sap.

Rooster · June 30, 2009, 12:18:09 AM

Hey there,

I agree that using pine would be a good choice. Do you have access to a wood kiln? Or build a solar one to dry down your siding?
I normally use commercially available pine siding which is kiln dried. I also live in the northern part of the country, and I am an advocate for painting pine siding. Even if the siding doesn't start to rot within the first 10 years, it can still be damaged by frost and icing. The outer layers of the wood will soak up moisture (rain, snow, etc.),and then when the temperature drops, and the water crystalizes, it expands, which then damages the wood cells, which then opens up the surface to more moisture, and so on and so on.....the final result is a "fuzzy" affect to the wood surface.

When I do paint, I use Sherwin Williams products. I start by priming with an alklyd oil-based stain that I have tinted to the same color of the finish coat. This way, if the paint fails in the distant future, the wood underneath is already primed the same color. The finish coat is a acrylic latex paint.

The issue of pine knots bleeding sap is very common. It is often the result of the pine exposed to direct sunlight which causes the the sap to warm up, expand, and ooze. Pine siding found on the North side of a building has less of an "ooze" problem. I have pulled 125 yr old pine beams out of a barn (shaded from the sun for just as long), and set them outside in a pile, and within 2 hours the sap started to flow for the first time in 125 yrs.

Rooster

woodmills1 · June 30, 2009, 02:27:30 AM

use oil based Kilz primer on the knots, as many coats as you can. I agree tthat sherwin wiliams is great paint

moonhill · June 30, 2009, 07:30:21 AM

No sap wood and no paint. If you are making your own siding you can replace it as well in 40 or 150, on the north side 300 years and you didn't have to lift a paint brush or scraper once. Paint the trim for the refined look. Paint will tidy things up but it is the first application and its cost that gets me. What does it cost to paint the whole house, time, materials, tools, cost to the environment (did I say that)(have you looked at what is coming with regards to lead paint and handling of such hazardous material)( what is in the new paints that they will find hazardous in 20 years.). Even painted white pine sap wood will go bad in 10 to 15 years, avoid it like the plague.

Tim

ljmathias · July 01, 2009, 06:53:59 AM

Interesting and very useful thread for me as I'm in the process of doing the same thing except in the Deep South. Here, SYP is what is readily available and it seems to me that all we have is sapwood- waiting 200 years for a big tree to turn to heartwood just isn't happening (at least in my lifetime) so we're kinda stuck with what we have. Having said that, the SYP sapwood seems to hold up pretty good on outside applications. Anyone else speak to this- use of SYP as siding with and without paint and/or stain? thanks.

Lj

thecfarm · July 01, 2009, 07:54:39 AM

You ask what good NE species to use. Do you have hemlock? I would use this instead IF you have it to cut. But with a good overhang, that helps out a lot. Good luck with your house building.

routestep · July 01, 2009, 08:28:58 AM

I used six and eight inch hemlock boards that I shiplapped. They were green (sat for about six months) and dried in place on the frame. I put linseed oil on them once they were up.

shinnlinger · July 01, 2009, 10:08:20 AM

WHile I don't have much Hemlock on my property, it is very common around here. What that means is I will probably look into buying the already milled product vs having a bunch of logs dropped off, but it is a good option.

moonhill · July 01, 2009, 01:02:05 PM

Hemlock, in my area, comes apart at the seams, this would make undesirable siding.

Tim

Raphael · July 05, 2009, 10:03:35 AM

I'm using sticker stained air dried pine clapboards saturated (by immersion) with oil based stain.
If you're going to paint I think you'll need to heat fix the sap in a kiln to keep if from bleeding through...
But the kilz might work. ???

shad · July 13, 2009, 10:06:12 AM

will bleach eventually degrade the wood? We live in a timber framed barn with vertical batten board siding. We had the Sherman Williams man come out to reccomend a paint for the barn. He said to use deluted bleach to clean the wood then use thier Duralast paint. We sprayed it with the bleach and it turned the SYP wood a nice near white color. We decided for now just to clean it with bleach every six months. I added up the cost of using the Duralast paint (2 coats on rough sawed siding that really soaks it up) and it will cost nearly as much as using metal siding that costs around 50 cents a square foot.

shinnlinger · July 14, 2009, 06:49:53 PM

Ok folks I am in trouble.

Wife wants raw live edge white pine. What am I to do?

moonhill · July 14, 2009, 09:35:02 PM

uh,oh

LeeB · July 14, 2009, 09:52:30 PM

Plan on replacing it before you really want to and say "yes dear" with a smile. :D

shinnlinger · July 15, 2009, 07:12:32 PM

OK,

Wife will go for random edge shingles. Jason Weir has some but not enough and I need them soon. Any one know where I can get some? White Pine is OK.

Thanks.

Dave Shepard · July 15, 2009, 07:27:45 PM

We've used a product called B-I-N, it seals in the pine knots. This was for an indoor application, but I believe it also works outside. You can then paint over the knots without them bleeding through. Don't use sapwood, it won't last at all. I've seen vertical pine siding on 200 year old barns that had never been painted, that I could see anyway, that was in great shape. Pine is actually rather durable if it can dry out.