Sawmill slabs as siding

[det28]

Good morning,
I have a small family run sawmill down the road from me that cuts railroad ties. They have stacks of slabs that they eventually just burn to get out of the way.
We are building our own 896 sf home and have gotten to the point of needing siding. We have NO money right now to purchase siding and I was wondering if anyone else on here has adapted slabs as siding and how they did it.
Thank y'all so much for any assistance.

[glenn-k]

That should work fine.  For a no cost option - ie: not having to pay the mill to trim the edges, just get the slabs - lay them flat side up on saw horses.  Take a chalk line and snap a straight line a little in from the edge -where it is thick enough to use.  

Measure over an equal distance at each end -mark it and snap another line.  Cut it with the Skilsaw (circular saw) and you will have a slab with straight edges that can easily be used as siding.  

Note that wet slabs will shrink quite a bit so you would want to put a batten board on the wall first under the gap - an extra slice off the edge could be used - 1/4 or thicker would work to cover the gap under the slabs.  Expect around 5/8 inch per foot of width shrinkage depending on the wood so make the battens at least 1 1/2 " wide centered under the gap.

[det28]

Thank you for your reply. In it you mentioned to trim the edges where they are thick enough to apply. How thick do you think is thick enough?  Sorry for any stupid questions, but this is the first house we've built.
Also, it might help to know what is already there. The walls are 16"oc, covered in OSB sheathing, then housewrap. I didn't know if we would have to use some type of caulk, putty, grout, etc. for the gaps, but you said to fix it like board and batten.
Should I use a draw knife to remove bark?  And do the slabs need to be sprayed with preservative?
Thank you for your help.

[mark_chenail]

I would think you could get a really nice effect with these slabs and Id be curious to see the result.   Id be tempted to use a drawknife to clear the bark off the rough edges and not clean them up to get a more rustic effect.  Sort of like this:


Ive been thinking of doing this on my false chimney stacks to make them look rough and give them some texture in contrast to the flatter T1-11 siding on my place in Missouri.  Stained gray, they would almost look like stone slaps from a distance.

[det28]

That is a really nice picture.  Would it be better to use nails or screws to attach it with since it will be drying some?

[glenn-k]

I would think that about 3/8 min. would be good.  On my door slabs I have a couple small areas that go to 1/4" but most of the rest is thicker.  As long as you get a straight edge to look good is the main thing - the slabs get much thicker immediately so strength is much more than regular house siding would have.

If you put a 3/8 batten behind each board gap, it will give you a rain screen wall - a drainage plane behind each slab helping to prevent water damage if there are any holes in your Tyvek.  Tyvek lets vapor through but not water so if it gets moisture trapped behind it the walls can deteriorate.  I am speaking of the slabs being mounted vertically so water can drain straight to the ground from behind them.  

You could remove the bark -bugs like to hide behind it, but if it is up and dry or drying, the bugs will soon leave or die.  Removing bark is the best preservative for a log, but drying does a pretty good job.  What type of wood do you have?

I usually use logs that are 6 months or so old and the bark comes off pretty easy.  A draw knife works but is hard labor.

Preservative is costly and not really necessary if the slabs can dry between rains -- as long as you are not worried about color change.  UV will darken the wood.  The should last many years if off the ground.  We have pine siding on buildings around here that are over 100 years old when they were built reasonably well.  Treatments only last a few years anyway so for low cost I would leave it as is.  

This would be like reverse board and batten - the small batten on the back behind the gaps spacing the slabs away from the walls.  That should be all that is necessary - a little air flow will assist in drying after rains - you have your Tyvek behind it as a vapor barrier.

[glenn-k]

Screws sometimes snap with the heavy shrinkage.  Galvanized nails will not leave black stains on your wood and have more give.  I use the Senco 10d ring shank air nails, but if hand nailing, then hot dip galvanized would probably do fine - maybe 16d as some may get a bit long on the curve of the slab.  

[det28]

These slabs are mostly hardwood: hickory and oak.

[glenn-k]

Somewhere in the last year or so we saw a small low cost house built entirely out of hardwood.  It looked great.

[Amanda_931]

Nice picture, Mark.  Where on earth is it?

If you are using "first cuts" instead of the "2nd cuts" in that picture, you're probably best off taking the bark off.  Didn't do that on the treehouse, and there were little holes and piles of sawdust everywhere.  They seem to have gone down to a dull roar by now--three years later.

But that wood was put up within a month or so of cutting and sawing, as far as I could tell.  We hit a sawmill's trash pile.

Taking bark off fresh what we're doing now--mostly hickory and oak, and it is a screaming pain.  Axes, adzes, a kindling froe, a couple of different kinds of drawknives, broke a Pulaski--I didn't think that was possible.  Looks nice when it is done.  

But then so did the slabs where the bark was left on.

[det28]

Thanks, Glenn, for the nail information. We do have a nail gun, which sure speeds things up.

Amanda, did y'all have much problem with warpage by putting up green hardwood? That's what everybody around here seems to keep warning me about.

Thank y'all for your help.

[glenn-k]

I forgot to mention that the Senco 10d ring shanks are 3" long and smooth galvanized.  I hate to always agree with PEG, but they are a superior nail.  They cost a bit more and HD carries them usually.  Holding strength on ring shanks is about 8 to 10 times that of regular smooth nails.  Putting them into oak, when dry, I would guess that you will have to cut them off to get them out.

If you are worried about warpage it may help to make the battens thicker - 3/4" to 1" then securely nail them with the ring shanks top and bottom.  Nail the slabs at the edges to the battens top, bottom and center each side.  The batten will follow the warping of the slab and all will be well.  Also in a rustic situation such as this, things like that don't usually show much unless they fall off the wall. :-/

[Amanda_931]

Very little problem with warping.  But that may have been because we were using first cuts on the treehouse project.

Taking the bark off seems to reduce warping as well.  But the only pieces where it's much of an issue are the very small cross-sections--more bark than wood.  And since this stuff is free, we can just go get something else.

(all we're looking for right here is trim pieces--quarter round would have done, but I want to be rustic.)

[desdawg]

(all we're looking for right here is trim pieces--quarter round would have done, but I want to be rustic.)

Quarter round with the bark still on! Barky round.

[Amanda_931]

Bark on would look better, but I'm tired of zillions of little piles of sawdust.

[det28]

There were a pile of slabs delivered yesterday. Of course they are of all manners of thicknesses. How will this affect things?  Do I need to figure out how to make them the same thickness and how would I do that?

[glenn-k]

I don't think I would worry about it too much.  As long as you get the edges straight they will look good.  If you want you may sort them out and put similar thicknesses on the same area.  Another strategy would be to put a similar mix of sizes all around.

[mark_chenail]

Amanda:

Its a picture from this link    http://www.lammas.org.uk./gallery.htm

which I got on the thread about the self supporting round roof and odd building ideas.   The site says the Pictures are from the Tinkers Bubble low impact community in Somerset. England.    It looks to me as if the wooden part of the house is built  on top of a sort of low stone wall sunk into the ground, like putting a peaked roof over a crawl space.  It's really a neat idea and would certainly be picturesque in a wooded setting.  Ever since I saw the picture, Ive been tinkering with a plan to suit the picture with the addition of a stone fireplace where the two roofs intersect.  Be a great thing to try if you had an old stone foundation on your property.  When I was a kid, we lived in a house that had an old rubble stone barn foundation behind it in the woods that would have been perfect.

Heres a link I found about Tinkers Bubble.  I think the word I would use is Idyllic:   http://www.communitychannel.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=904&Itemid=101&autostart=1&vlogid=26

[Sassy]

Interesting site - beautiful pictures  8-)

[Amanda_931]

Does sound nice.  That one site has pictures from either the same community--or near it--as Tony Wrench.

There's a nearby intentional community, very small.  I'd hate to live there--I think they feel the same about me, although I'm friends with most of them.  And there are occasionally dreadful problems there--that I'm afraid that the people who live there have to ignore.

But they sound soooo nice, when people are talking positively about them.