Hello all, I’ve begun the insul-brick off our 1922 bungalow with the intent of restoring and then repainting the original clapboard underneath.
The clapboard is 6″ wide by 1/2″ thick on the butt edge, with a 4 to 4.5″ reveal. It looks pretty much free of knots, fairly tight-grained, and it gives off a distinctly hamster-cagey smell when cut, so I’m assuming it’s cedar.
There’s plenty of damaged siding that needs to be replaced, though, so I’ve been tightening my belt and anticipating a major drain on the cash reserves to buy good quality Western Red Cedar siding. However, when I asked about it at the local lumber yard (a place I normally turn to for many of my other “historic” house lumber needs and trust pretty implicitly) I was pointed to a pile of yellow poplar lap siding and told that it was just as good as WRC. In fact, I was assured that it was a myth that cedar stands up to the elements any better than poplar. “Just make sure you back-prime it,” they advised. “You’ll be fine.”
OK, the cheapskate in me was willing to listen because the 6″ yellow poplar stuff is $.72 bf and another lumberyard I found that does stock WRC wants $2.20 bf for it. But I could hear also hear another voice in my head saying, “you get what you pay for.”
Is the lumberyard right? Is poplar really an acceptable substitute for cedar siding? If so, are there any special considerations? Would a non-wood alternative such as cement-fiber siding look OK patched in alongside the cedar, once it was primed & painted?
Your thoughts and comments appreciated.
Replies
You asked for thoughts, so you get my opinions which I hope have thoughts behind them. Fibercement siding is superior to any other lap siding, but it would stick out like a sore thumb inter-mixed with cedar. Redwood, Cedar, and Cypress if you can find it are all good sidings, if they are the good grades. You were right about one thing, you get what you pay for. As far as acceptable goes, it depends who is doing the accepting, some people buy vinyl siding and even pressboard cabinets. If the idea is to restore a nice house to better than new condition you better decide that corner cutting is not part of the program. Take a sample of the existing siding to a Good Lumberyard and have it matched or go elsewhere.
Dan Remember to have fun, no matter what.
My last price for WRC, clear vertical was about $1.00/ft and anybody who would sell poplar (can't believe they even make poplar siding) and claim it is just as good as cedar for siding is an idiot or a liar if not both and they will not weather or hold paint the same way if mixed on same wall for repair. If you did it it would make you almost as cheap as the bag lady who wears two different sneakers, the best of each that she found in a dumpster.
No personal insult intended - just for illustration.
I am running into the same issue...only I need 6" exposure 3/4 x 10 clapboards, at $5 a lineal for CVG cedar. Not only is it expensive, my customer and I do not want to cut down old growth cedar and ship it to Wisconsin. Many old houses here were sided with white pine, not backprimed, and it has held up just fine when properly cared for. I would of course back prime now. I am looking for alternatives to cedar...anybody have experience with SYP, black locust or other clapboard material? I too use fiber cement when possible, but need to match here. I sided my new shop with 1x8 board and batten green white oak, #3, untreated, and expect it to stay its beautiful silver gray for many many decades. Acorn
Everyman mistakes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world. Schopenhaer
The old houses sided with pine you speak of (there's a lot of 100+ year old poplar in my area) were sided with old growth material. The new stuff is wider grained and doesn't resist rot very well back primed or not. I have replaced a lot of ten year old poplar siding that was back primed and properly painted. The old poplar it was patched into is still keepable.
gl
My powers can only be used for good.
imho, poplar can't hold a candle to wrc in terms of rot resistance. I would stay away from it for exterior applications. It's great for interior trim ........ works easily and takes paint well.
pardon my ignorance, but is yellow poplar Populus Nigra, better known in the west as black cottonwood? Or is yellow poplar Liriodendron Tulipifera....the amazingly beautiful boat and cabinet wood?
I was wondering the same exact thing. Here in Georgia poplar is Liriodendron Tulipifera, and it's a wonderful shade tree. I have a boat made of it. But my uncle that made the boat doesn't tell people his boats are made of poplar because it does have negative connotations in other parts of the country. My boat is made of 1/8" planks and it's wrapped in fiberglass and completely sealed in epoxy. It's not like the wood is supposed to hold up when wet like old heart pine did. The whole 12' boat weighs less than 25 pounds, though.
I know of stories of poplar stumps holding up horse troughs for centuries, but again I think it's the same thing as the pine siding. That was old growth stuff. I've never heard of siding made of poplar. Could be what's under that white paint on all those ante-bellum mansions, I just never realized it. I'll have to ask.
My aunt did just reside her house in longleaf pine, but it was cut from trees on her land with a portable sawmill so she knew it was the real thing. "SYP" on store bought wood doesn't mean anything. It's probably some infant loblolly tree that's got has less pitch in it than my 6 year old niece uses on her t-ball bat. I wouldn't count on anything lasting these days except Hardiplank.
However, if you are trying to restore something, it doesn't make sense to me to not use the same material. You gonna darn your black socks with red thread?
Maybe steeltoe could take all the siding off the back of the house or some inconspicuous side, recycle the good pieces to patch the rest, then just use Hardiplank on the bare section. Or use the shingleside stuff so it doesn't look like you're trying to pass it off as the same thing.
B
http://forestry.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www2.fpl.fs.fed.us/TechSheets/HardwoodNA/htmlDocs/liriodend.html
this may help
Thanks to everyone for your advice. Overwhelmingly in favor of CVG western red cedar, and it sounds like I'm not the only one a bit suspicious of poplar for exterior use...now if I can just find cedar at something closer to $1.00 bf I'll be all set...
Around my neck of the woods,wrc prices are extremely volatile ........some yards will only guarantee a price for a few days. The lumber tariff war ...from what I've heard is the cause. Hope you make out ok.