Rain-screen Walls

[Daddymem]

I ran across this article whilst researching what kind of siding we will do when we get around to building. (yeah it is that nasty outside still, nothing to do but plod around on the internet).
http://www.taunton.com/finehomebuilding/pages/h00150.asp  
Is this overkill?  
Would this help with longevity if the siding were to be stained and not painted as this house was?  
Is that a good argument for tar paper versus Tyvek type materials?  
Pardon my ignorance but everything I have heard is that if you have money go shingle or clapboard, else go vinyl and I really want to make the right choice on our house since it will probably be the last house I build (unless I am fotunate enough to build my own countrplan.com house to retire in).

[glenn kangiser]

Raining and overcast here too, Daddymem.  I went to the Indian Pow-Wow today then came back to check in.

I have studied a bit of this and have a little experience to offer.  Cedar or redwood don't like paint anyway.  A product that can breath such as Defy will do a better job keeping out over 95% of the moisture and providing UV protection. Defy uses special resins that don't support fungi or mold.  My place in the valley was nice clear 1952 redwood under paint.  West side - primer or not did not want to hold paint.  Pine on an addition south and west would hold it great.  I have heard of  problems with vinyl in places -maybe an installer problem - of course you know I'm not into the plastic look unless its on the wife.

The screen wall is the best idea I have seen lately spacing the siding out so the moisture will drain.  I had a clear plastic vapor barrier around my tool room this year with the back open under clapboard siding.  Moisture collected at the tops of the boards where they contacted the vapor barrier.  The screen wall would eliminate that allowing moisture to drain. The Tyvek type wraps aren't all they have cracked up to be.  Dirt carried into them under the siding or a surfactant such as soap from washing the walls can destroy their chemical coating making them useless - how about installing a damp rag under your siding  

I read that the way tar paper protects is to wrinkle up a little under the siding allowing drainage.  The report I read said 30 lb was better than 15 lb tar paper.  Both were better than defiled Tyvek - (ooooh- I feel so soiled).  :-/

[Amanda_931]

Overkill is allowing that to happen?  trying to be too careful, put too much high-tech and insulation into the walls?

You have a point, stained siding might be a bit more breatheable than painted.  Somehow I wouldn't count on it.

I've put little (1" circles) louver jobbies on an old house with clapboard siding on which the paint was peeling--don't know if they helped.  I've no idea if the house (ca. 1870 Nashville) had any insulation in the walls.  If it did, then some kind of rain-screen as well as ventilation sounds like a good idea.

I like the idea of a light clay, breatheable wall with a earthen plaster with or without limewash (whitewash)  It probably takes more maintenance than painting clapboards, though.  And if you make them too compacted or too thick, there have apparently been some problems with mold and mildew and never drying.  I don't think there's a problem with 4-7 inches.

http://www.foxmaple.com/proclay.html

IMHO Vinyl is ugly beyond belief.  

(I did once live in a house that had some sort of weird textured sand paint on top of the--wood, I assume--clapboards.  That one really may have had the ugliest walls ever.  At least the vinyl siding people who stopped by in droves told me so.  I was really just as glad I was renting.)

[Daddymem]

I have heard of  problems with vinyl in places -maybe an installer problem - of course you know I'm not into the plastic look unless its on the wife.

ROFLMAO now that I'm wiping milk off my monitor

The winds have finally subsided, just in time for the shroud of night to fall.....The mess is pretty bad, my bridal's veil has lost all the blossoms that just bloomed thursday-friday.  There are the tips of the oak trees all over the yard.  On top of the winter moths and the tent caterpillars, I don't know how they will make it this year.  The good news is that my rhubarb has loved all this rain and has shot up crazy.

I do hope we can afford the cedar clapboards, and I  think a natural coating would be best, paint just doesn't hold up against the salty air.

[glenn kangiser]

I forgot to mention that Defy can also be used on damp wood still allowing it to dry since it can breathe per their info.  This was recommended by the log home store.

http://aloghomestore.com/finish.shtml

[glenn kangiser]

Sorry about the monitor, Daddymem.  I hope the problem was with milk you were drinking, otherwise I'd suggest a checkup.  That just doesn't sound normal!  Possibly wrapping the monitor in saran wrap would help if you are going to continue to have these outbursts -.

Kids nowadays!!!  That said, I wish I had rhubarb- I love it - all I seem to do is rot the plants I get.  I don't think they like it here.

[Daddymem]

I'll have to look into Defy.  Maybe staining both sides would be a good idea?  I wonder what all those extra components bring the cost up to?  The ice and water shield and the cor-a-vent can't be free .

Personally, I couldn't live in a house that had any resemblance to stucco.  I don't like the look and it may work in different locations but it just doesn't do it for me in the northeast; stained clapboard, painted or stained shingle/shake, or brick are it.  And the difference in appearance between painted wood clapboards and vinyl to me is miniscule at best; both look like fake wood.  Latex is plasticy after all and oil paints won't hold up long enough around here.  Don't get me wrong, a nicely stained or natural cedar clapboard siding is very pleasing to look at, but once it has paint on it and all that grain is full-up with paint, it looks like vinyl since it already has a machined look to it (too uniform).  Painted shingles on the other hand are ok since they have an irregular pattern.  What I don't like about vinyl is the durability....if your kid hits a ball against it you better pray it doesn't crack.

[glenn kangiser]

Both sides would keep it near totally dry.  I bought 5 gallons of a near clear lightly pigmented`.  Only used it on a table though.

Currently I don't have a lot of exposed wood that I am worried about.  The older totally clear  Defy wasn't UV resistant but looks like the new is with lower time between recoat than pigmented.  The light pigmented looked almost natural anyway slightly turning the wood a bit of a golden yellow on pine.

[glenn kangiser]

I think I'd eliminate some of the exotic stuff- go for 30 lb felt, spacers and siding.  Much of the fancy stuff creates other problems.

Bituthene applied improperly can trap moisture into wood making a worse problem than without it.  We had decks swelled 1/4 inch under Bituthene after rain- couldn't get the steel on around it.  All I'm saying is that sometimes the old proven materials are better than the new exotic ones.

Just my personal opinion - no brains behind it. :-/

Example - windowscreen to stop bugs at bottom catches dust, moisture, moss or mold spores, right time of year stuff grows plugs rest of screen -moisture backs up.  Maybe I'm exaggerating.

[Daddymem]

Thanks Glenn, I'll try that tonight in my house building dream    I'm wondering if a pine clapboard with this system and a quality product like Defy sounds like could offset the extras as suggested in the article.

Hey, brains ain't worth a lick compared to experience, and from what I can tell, neither of those trains passed you by.

Engineer:  a person who uses scientific knowledge to solve practical problems  

All you guys here who have built your own homes are as much engineers as I am in my book.  A couple of good reads for you all:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0312141041/002-1728984-9748827?v=glance
 and
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0679734163/ref=pd_sim_b_2/002-1728984-9748827?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance

As I always tell the new engineers coming in, "it is not what you know, it is knowing what you don't know and admiting it to yourself and accepting that you are okay with that because you will strive to understand it."

[Amanda_931]

Petroski's always fun.

Here's one of my favorites, an introduction to structural engineering for children. (although I think it's occasionally used as a college level textbook)

The Art of Construction: Projects and Principles for Beginning Engineers and Architects
by Mario Salvadori, Saralinda Hooker, Christopher Ragus

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1556520808/ref=pd_sim_b_2/104-3912253-9893536?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance

[glenn kangiser]

Cruising around the local area here, I see many old buildings, barns etc. probably near 100 years old still standing with no protective coating.  Many just plain pine board and batten or boards and no battens.  The best ones usually have a rock or rubble foundation.  Boards near the ground tend to get eaten up a few inches.  Key seems to be allowing them to dry after the rain.  Most have a nice old brownish black to gray and gold weathered look.  It is common for people around here to tear down the ones that were not as well framed and sell the wood at a fairly high price so it can go back to work on some other project.

I didn't go to college because it was my opinion that I could learn all I wanted without the crap I didn't want by reading books.  My motto was "Nobody needs to beat me over the head with a book to make me read it."  Now with the net, it's that much easier to learn about anything.  I would have liked to be an engineer but get bored too easily to stay in college that long, so I guess you could say my credentials are all aftermarket  I do have a pretty good grasp of many of the concepts though.  

Contractors license- well drilling license - pilots license- welding certs. Don't mean much, mean I passed at least once, but need them to do business in the world of big brother.  I'm so ornery I can't work for anyone but myself.

[Shelley]

This gets discussed all the time at the Breaktime forum.  I stay out of it since the rainfall here is < 7 ".

House Wrap is a wind barrier.  Dupont makes another product called "stucco wrap"  which has channels built into it for drainage.  No one seems to use it, even here, in the land of stucco.

CW in the NE seems to be this.  Tear into a house with tarpaper/felt whateveryoucallit.  100 yrs old.
All other things taken care of, no problem.  Tear into Tyvek, 5 yrs old.  Scary.  Rot, mildew.

Whatever siding you choose, needs to breath.  Tyvek, since it's a wind barrier, doesn't seem to allow that.

[glenn kangiser]

I ordered the books, Daddymem- used ones were less than the shipping.  They sounded interesting.  My cousin is a civil engineer in Washington.

When it comes down to it, us experimenters will call you number crunchers to make sure  we don't hurt ourselves if we know what's good for us.  I try not to do everything by trial and error.  I design by rule of thumb a lot and even calc out some of my steel, welds, wood  etc. to be sure I am reasonably safe in field situations.  Nothing like you guys do but a working knowledge helps.  

Once a very good engineer tried to cover for not knowing what he was talking about in the hydraulics field by BS'ing me.  I was 300 miles away working on a hydraulic slopeboard and his answers didn't add up.  I needed to know so I went to the hydraulics store- bought a 3 part course and did a quick study. The next time he smarted off to me  I started cussing to the salesman, the owners son and son-in-law, - re-read my info then jumped in the middle of him and explained it to him.  He was about 1/3 owner also.  He goes, "Now GD'it.  I can't think with you yelling at me.  I have to figure this out for myself."  He studied up- learned it and after that asked my opinion rather than wising off, and the rest of the bosses after they quit laughing told me if I wanted to change anything in design their engineering staff would take care of it.  We got along great after that.  I made changes that took the installation time from 22 1/2 hours to 6 1/2 hours on a D6.  I was flat rate and had just upped the price to about $1200.00 ea.  The shorter install time allowed me to do about 200 of them all over CA the last year I worked there.  I finally quit because I and my helpers were burned out.

I always feel that we get farther if we work together.  Rodney King said it best.  "Can't we all just get along?"    Thanks for all your help, Daddymem.

[Daddymem]

Now if I could bribe a bunch of you guys to come up here....we could build my house instead of me hiring contractors

Ug...looks like the line is long into work today. :-/

[glenn kangiser]

It would be great if I wasn't on the other side of the world.  I'd be there with bells on.

One other problem.  Yesterday when I went into the Pow-Wow -- fee at the gate was $3.00 Adults, $1.00 for Seniors and Disabled.  I got my $3.00 out and handed it to the sweet young thing at the door-- she took a look at me and said "$1.00 will work."  I said, "Oh, is it that bad?"  She said, "Yes."

I guess there is still some hope-- I didn't ask if I looked senior or disabled.

[Daddymem]

Good thing she didn't charge ya $0.50