What is cedar siding? It is a siding most commonly made from Western Red Cedar cut. Homeowners, who chose cedar siding, also choose durability, long-lasting shape, and manageable installment and upkeep, simply nailing and staining. This siding will keep you warm during the winter and keep the inside of your house cool at any time during summer.
Western Red Cedar
One of the most popular cedar siding because of its appearance: fine, straight grain, excellent durability, and low weight makes it a widely used material. It is also perfectly withstanding weather conditions because these species of cedar have a low rate of expansion and contractions. Easy to work with, light and paint-friendly material can be finished using various styles, including different types of stains, polish, and shades.
Interesting facts about cedar siding
- They contain natural oils, making them resistant to moisture.
- Properly produced and installed, they are highly resistant to cracking or warping.
- Made environmentally friendly, they are not threatened to extinct nowadays.
- Although cedar siding is simply nice cut wood, it doesn’t attract insects or ants.
- It can be installed by yourself, but we strongly recommend transfer this work to professionals.
Durability
Cedar siding is known for its durability; it is undoubtedly more durable than any other wood, such as pine or oak wood. Perfectly installed by Toloka Corporation and adequately maintained during its lifetime, it can last for many decades. Most of the homeowners concerned with the appearance of their cedar wood siding provide re-painting and re-polish works every 3-5 years, depending on the area they are living in. Although, as an experienced General Contractor, we should warn you about some issues that our clients can come across:
- Don’t install this siding too close to the soil. It is important to remember because such placement can absorb water and moisture from the ground to rot.
- All areas near windows and doors should be properly coated with paint and stained because they are highly susceptible to rot because of the moisture gathering.
- To prevent cedar siding paint from chipping or even peeling off, after exposure to UV rays, homeowners should adequately stain it every couple of years, deciding on its appearance.
- Prevent your siding from paint discoloration and disappearance, so the wood under the coating won’t be exposed.
Maitenance of cedar wood siding
The durability of the siding relies on its proper maintenance, not only to help your home maintain its nice exterior appearance but also to prevent any moisture issues. As we mentioned earlier, good maintenance works should be done every 3-5 years. It is essential to upkeep your siding appearance, not only for your house to look great but also for keeping its resale value. Here are some tips that will help you to maintain a great look of cedar siding:
- Prevent any moisture issues to prevent coating cracking or warping.
- Make sure that all of the panels are primed adequately before painting
- When repainting, ensure that all areas that need to be primed are primed before any further coating is applied.
- Use professional grand covering, and don’t hesitate to request experienced workers.
Impact on environment
If you consider making your house a green building, exterior and interior siding materials are one of the most important. Cedar siding is a natural material that doesn’t require particular disposal; moreover, this siding is made of Western Red cedar, which is not under extinction threat. These trees are responsibly harvested, ensuring that forests aren’t depleted. Most of the Northern American wood-producing companies follow environmentally friendly practices. But, we strongly recommend you check the source, where the wood comes from, or trust Toloka Corporation to make sure that your cedar siding is eco-friendly.
To keep your house “green”, stick to the earlier mentioned maintenance tips, so you won’t need to worry about replacing rotted sections of sidings. Such a small thing as keeping up your house siding has a significant impact on the environment, meaning fewer trees will be harvested.
A generation long lifetime
When it comes to installing a new siding, every homeowner wants it to be as long as it can be. The cedar siding must be properly maintained after 15 years of use to reach its maximum lifespan, including some planks replacement. Consider that a good half of cedarwood siding manufacturers also apply a 20-25 year warranty for their products. We encourage you to think about a purchase of this siding very thoroughly because upkeep on it can be quite expensive. Proper maintenance of the siding every 3-5 years will ensure that your youngest kids will admire its unique look in the future.
Beatuful and natural material
Wood laps and cedar shingles are the two most frequent choices among homeowners, making their houses aesthetically pleasing. Since these styles are quite common, there is a wide range of styles that can be applied. Not so often, choices are batten and board styles, which makes them not typical to see. One of the main benefits of installing cedar siding is the naturally beautiful appearance. It is good to create a custom facade, mixing and matching different styles and colors, making a wonderful exterior accent.
Budget for cedar siding
When it comes to choosing a new siding, one of the main questions is its cost. Cedar siding is considered to be a mid to high-range priced material, comparing to other exterior coverings. We should also mention that our clients must also consider and mix and match cedar maintenance costs to estimate entire expenses on cedar siding.
Features of the cedar siding
To sum up, everything we mentioned earlier, we made a special list of features that come with cedar siding:
- It is withstanding any weather conditions.
- Variety of styles, patterns, and finishes.
- Light and easy for installation.
- Resistant to warping and checking.
- Requires maintenance every 3-5 years.
- Great looking material.
- Environmentally friendly.
Cedar siding styles
With various profile options, cedar’s appeal is enhanced, so we made a list of all styles available for vertical, horizontal cedar sidings, cedar, and others. Of course, you make mix and match first hand to shakes shingles.
Bevel cedar siding
One of the most popular of all is the Bevel cedar siding, which is made by cutting a single board in two, diagonally, which results in two planks. Each of the planks has one of the edges thicker than the other, and co-installed, they make a unique design. To make its surface more textured, it can be saw-textured, as well as it can be made more smooth. There are also rabbeted bevel and wavy edge bevel options available from the manufacturer. These boards commonly cut to various lengths from 8’ to 14’, depending on the project of your house.
Clapboard cedar siding
Its constant thickness can recognize this type of cedar siding to leave no gaps when installed overlapped. Although designed to be used horizontally, they still use vertically and even diagonally for some special siding projects. You may have seen one of the designs that reproduce the ‘sunburst’ pattern on the exterior walls. Saw-textured surface choices include smooth or textured, allowing you to achieve any type of design for your house.
Tongue cedar siding
The tongue cedar siding is often installed horizontally, with a possibility of the vertical installment to give you more design options. Smooth and rough patterns are also available. Installation of this type of cedar makes your siding have distinctive shadowing between the panels, adding unique character to your house. This feature is achievable because of particular v-shaped, flush, or cut-radius joints.
Lap cedar siding
This type of siding planks creates a similar look to the Tongue siding, but the difference the shadow between the laps. In a Lap siding, the partial overlap of each board leaves a broader gap or channel that creates deeper shadow lines. As well, it can be installed vertically and horizontally.
Board and batten cedar siding
Only vertically installed siding products with textured and smooth patterns can be applied to both board face and edge. Typically, combined with 10” wide boards installed side by side and 3” battens covering the joints. However, we encourage you to meld them as you want.
Cedar trim boards
They are specially designed to be installed around windows, doors, and garage doors. Also widely used for сovering soffits and fascia, so your house has a finished exterior look. Available in textured and smooth patterns to match with the rest of your home, or make a contract.
Cedar Shakes and Shingles
Many toToloka Corporation customers choose cedar shake and cedar shingle sidings to have a natural-looking wood exterior. These materials are commonly used to cover the entire house or decorate some small areas, to create a modern look.
Cedar shingles siding
These siding products are traditionally made by cutting a block of wood. Such technique even sometimes used nowadays, but most cedar shingles are machine-cut, which makes its sawn edges and face have a finished appearance. Our professionals can install this siding so that the butt ends of all shingles are in a row, making a straight, even look. They can also be installed in a staggered way to make your house look more distinguished and unique by adding dimensional interest. Moreover, corners of cedar shingles can be made in various designs.
Cedar shakes siding
These siding products are traditionally made by splitting a woodblock by hand, using a mallet and a froe blade. Nowadays, most of the shakes are machine-cut, adding texture or smooth patterns to them.
How to paint your cedar siding
To extend the longevity of your cedar siding, you should properly keep its maintenance. Using our experience, Toloka Corporation made a special list of tips on how to prime painted your wooden exterior siding properly:
Properly prime the cedar before painting works
It is strongly suggested that you use a two-coat system to protect your siding. Our experience shows that a top layer of paint, a layer on primed wood, will serve you much longer than a one-layer coating. Make sure that you paint only primed cedar siding so that it will be adhesive and waterproof.
Use only brush while painting
We strongly recommend hand-brushing for finishing works, and especially for re-painting works. Because wood is a highly porous material, it essential to apply a vast quantity of coating to it, and brushing it is the best way to do it. If you choose to paint your cedar siding with spray, make sure to hand-brush the finish while applying.
Time window for painting cedar siding
Toloka Corporation suggests that wood coating should be applied in the first couple of weeks after its installation. However, this process can wait for 12 weeks; it is recommended to paint it right after installation. This is because fresh siding exposed to weather loses its ability to let the dye make it much less durable in the future. Special tests at experimental facilities show that two-layer coated piece of red cedar siding doesn’t degrade or lose its appearance even through the 25-year interval.
Re-painting old cedar siding
All re-painting works should be thoroughly prepared: siding must be free from mildew and mildew, and all the damaged laps should be replaced with new ones. It is important to sand smooth siding laps to keep their appearance. For all types of siding to remove all photodegraded surface fibers and the remaining old coating.
Prefer two-coat system to self-priming dye
We advise you to use checked primed and painted systems for your cedar siding because self-priming paint is a new product on the market, and we don’t have any test data on them. Moreover, all warranties provided by primer and paint manufacturers apply only if cedar has one layer of a primer and at least one layer of paint. If possible, tolerate only a two-coat system over self-priming paints.
Choose the best quality cedar siding
Red cedar siding is considered the best quality product to make a perfect wood appearance of your siding. It can be a slight design feature or a whole house exterior, and it is still provided with the highest performance and low maintenance in the future. We, in Toloka Corporation, can assure you that this is one of the best materials for you to choose from the whole country, among other wood siding products.
We would love to help you with your project and offer you the best product first hand, so you can see how the Longboard products can give your building the character and beauty that you are looking for. Please, contact Toloka Corporation to see all the options for yourself.
