Slab siding

[mamabear]

We are to the point of needing siding for our home in order to have it dried in. We are also to the point of having no funds left for the siding, since we are having to pay while we go.
However, a small family-owned sawmill just down the road has offered to give us bark slabs that they just burn up to get out of the way. If a draw knife was used to remove the bark, could the slabs be used for siding? If so, what would be used to fill the gaps between the slabs, and would you spray or paint the finished product with sealant?
Any siding that we put on will be going on over OSB sheathing and housewrap.
Thank you bunches,
mamabear

[deaconjim]

I would try lapping the slabs. If you have a way of ripping the sides you might be able to butt them tight enough, but shrinkage would be a problem. Do you have any way of cutting joints? A lap joint might be a possibility.

[KMA1]

Depends on what the material is. Some species of wood would work better than others. But I would put a large lap on the slabs. Problem with slabs with the bark on is that they will tend to attract a lot of moisture and also bugs. If you can get eastern cedar, that would be my choice.

[big rockpile]

I have considerd it.But think about it.Most Slab Wood has alot of Sap Wood in it.In other words it will warp and rot faster.Plus you need to strip the bark off.

You would be better of buying 1X's and putting up Board and Batten,but I feel it cost just about as much to put 29ga. Painted Metal up.

big rockpile

[mamabear]

The wood is mostly hardwood, oak mostly. It is fresh sawn, so it has not been dried.
mamabear

[mtman]

i wouldnt use it what do you have on the outside now

[agmantoo]

Sorry, double post

[agmantoo]

I would cover the exterior with tar paper or roll roofing until I was able to add a final siding. Both are fast and cheap

[Ramblin Wreck]

I've seen it done mamabear, but only when the slabs were cut specifically for siding, a special effect kind of thing. If you have any timber on your place (cedar would be great and pine/poplar would be good), I'd recommend cutting it, hauling it to your local mill, sawing it into siding, letting it dry for a few months, and then installing it. In our area, there are several guys who have the portable mills that can come to you if you can't haul the logs. This is what I did on my house and garage, and it worked fine. The house siding was planed, but the garage was only dried for a few months and put up just like it came off the band saw mill. The rough siding actually takes stain much better than the more finished product.

Good luck.

[TnAndy]

With a skilsaw and a router, you could make a 'decent' siding if 'making do' is the key here.

On a pair of sawhorses, nail a couple of scrap blocks of 2x4 so the slab can be positioned sawn side up without rocking from side to side on the horses. Chaulk a couple of line about 6" -8" or so apart IF that will fit on most of the slabs...look at your slabs ( or pick the size if they let you go thru the pile ) so whatever width you chose will make use of them the most. I would NOT go too wide, as shrinkage will be more of a problem the wider you go.

Use the skilsaw to rip along the chaulk lines. Now you have a "3 edged" slab. Strip bark at this point with a draw knife ( you can make a decent draw knife with a pc of car leaf spring sharpened on one edge for about 8" in the center....duct tape the ends for a 'handle' ). You 'could' nail this up.....but it WILL shrink, and leave a gap of 1/2" to an 1" or more down the road as they dry.

To handle that, take a router ( a GOOD 3hp Porter Cable or similar would be best ) and a 3/4" carbide straight bit. Build a jig out of lumber that the slab will sit in on your sawhorses sawn face down. The jig is to be made to allow you to run the router quickly down each side of the slab so you cut a 3/4" wide ( back INTO the slab ) by 1/2" high, measured from the sawn face on one side. One the other side, same deal, except you come from the slab face downwards removing all material BUT the last 1/2". ( Yes...a picture at this point would be worth a lot ! )......when done you have a "ship lap" slab.

I assume for sake of ease, you would want to install these horizontally.....install that last cut ( the one you took off the slab side ) UPWARDS, and cover that with the next course of siding which laps OVER that exposed cut to form a fairly weather tight joint that water will not enter. When done, this will 'look' like a log cabin sort of.....this IS in fact how "log cabin siding" is made ( only on a lot bigger machine )

Trying to 'lap' them over in any way without doing this is going to result in a siding with a LOT of air gaps up under it as you are not going to be able to get it down tight due to all the variations in the wood.

Edited to say: Unless there is some overwhelming reason to do this, like you can't get a permit to move in or a loan requirement that included siding, I wouldn't spend the time to do this either......but I also wouldn't use "house wrap"....I assume you mean like Tyvek....stuff won't hold up. Wrap the house in 30lb felt and you're good for several years. Take the time you would have spent making the siding above, earn money, buy or have sawn a decent siding. If you can find somebody with a portable band mill, they can make a GREAT looking tapered wood siding quite easily. Use white pine, stain it and you can't tell it from high priced western cedar.

[mtman]

Originally Posted by agmantoo

I would cover the exterior with tar paper or roll roofing until I was able to add a final siding. Both are fast and cheap

i would use tyvek pulled real tight that would stay untill sided

[Jolly]

It's simply too much sugar for a dime.

Slabs, by their very nature, are highly irregular, and pure sapwood.

I'd talk to the sawmill guys down the road, and see if you could trade labor for lumber, and go the board-n-batten route. If not, wrap it in tarpaper until you can buy the boards.

The advantage of B&B is that you can actually nail the things up green, if you absolutely have to, and come back and re-do your battens as necessary.

[mamabear]

Well, guys, this was the information I was looking for. Not the information I was wanting, mind you, but what I was needing.
We do have Tyvek up right now over the sheathing, but of course we have to keep adding more and more nails due to the wind. I was just hoping there was a reasonable way to use those slabs to be able to make do until we could afford "real" siding in a couple of years.
Thanks to each of you for your input. You always keep me on track.
hugs,
mamabear

[TnAndy]

Originally Posted by mtman

i would use tyvek pulled real tight that would stay untill sided

Tell ya something about Tyvek....the stuff turns to trash after about 20 years ( maybe less ). I put it on my house in 1985, followed right behind with white pine board and batten siding on about 1/2 the house ( brick on the rest ). The Tyvek was NOT exposed more than a few weeks tops.

Last year, I decided I was going to vinyl the areas that had wood siding and didn't want the vinyl way out past the windows, so I took the wood off.

The Tyvek ( and I mean Tyvek Brand....not a generic ) was ALL TO PIECES in behind the siding !! What you could not possibly tear bare handed when it was installed ( it's tough stuff new ) was now the consistancy of tissue paper....what wasn't ALREADY shredded you could tear easily with your hands......and MOST of it was already shredded. So much for an "air infiltration barrier", which is what the stuff is supposed to be.

So I went back with 30lb felt.....just like the old timers used ( I've taken siding off 50 years old houses and the felt was like new underneath ) and will never use any of these high priced 'wonder' building papers again.

SO my advice remains, use tarpaper under your siding folks.

Do a search for Tyvek Problems, and you'll find this is NOT an isolated incident.

[mamabear]

Thank you TNAndy for your input. I know my dad always used tarpaper on all the homes he built. When we got around to that stage with ours, my DH wanted to use Tyvek because that is what all the contractors are using.
I don't that "newer" creations are always the best. I believe that I would have rather used tarpaper too.
mamabear

[Ramblin Wreck]

Originally Posted by mamabear

I was just hoping there was a reasonable way to use those slabs

They make great stove/firewood mamabear! A goodly portion of my firewood comes from my brother's sawmill. For the woodstove in the house, I only use hardwood slabs, but if you have a wood cookstove, the pine slabs make a great, quick starting, hot fire.

I've done what Jolly wrote about in terms of nailing up green boards and then coming back later with battens. It works effectively and gives you more immediate coverage for most of the house. I prefer to let everything dry for a while, even just a few weeks for one inch thick stuff. It's amazing how much lighter and stable the wood is after just a short drying period.

Again, good luck, but I think all the advice above about being patient and getting a more suitbable material will make you and your family happier in the long term.

[Fire-Man]

Originally Posted by mamabear

Well, guys, this was the information I was looking for. Not the information I was wanting, mind you, but what I was needing.
We do have Tyvek up right now over the sheathing, but of course we have to keep adding more and more nails due to the wind. I was just hoping there was a reasonable way to use those slabs to be able to make do until we could afford "real" siding in a couple of years.
Thanks to each of you for your input. You always keep me on track.
hugs,
mamabear

Mamabear, Just get you a few loads of slabs, cut them to length---Run then up and down--vertical, nail up one then try to find a slab that will fit as close to the one that you already nailed up to keep the slabs as straight up as possible--even if you have to take a ax/hatchett and trim a little, nail them just enough to hold them in place. If it has a gap between two slabs---you can use the smaller/thinner slabs over the joint/gap. It will not take long to do this, its free. and it will help protect your walls. As money comes in---you can pull slabs off the wall and put up your permanent siding. Wish I was close by to help. Good Luck!! Randy

Ps --As the bark loosens take a hoe/rake and pull it off and burn it.

[mtman]

Originally Posted by TnAndy

Tell ya something about Tyvek....the stuff turns to trash after about 20 years ( maybe less ). I put it on my house in 1985, followed right behind with white pine board and batten siding on about 1/2 the house ( brick on the rest ). The Tyvek was NOT exposed more than a few weeks tops.

Last year, I decided I was going to vinyl the areas that had wood siding and didn't want the vinyl way out past the windows, so I took the wood off.

The Tyvek ( and I mean Tyvek Brand....not a generic ) was ALL TO PIECES in behind the siding !! What you could not possibly tear bare handed when it was installed ( it's tough stuff new ) was now the consistancy of tissue paper....what wasn't ALREADY shredded you could tear easily with your hands......and MOST of it was already shredded. So much for an "air infiltration barrier", which is what the stuff is supposed to be.

So I went back with 30lb felt.....just like the old timers used ( I've taken siding off 50 years old houses and the felt was like new underneath ) and will never use any of these high priced 'wonder' building papers again.

SO my advice remains, use tarpaper under your siding folks.

Do a search for Tyvek Problems, and you'll find this is NOT an isolated incident.

well i like tyvek and i dont think board and batten is very weather proof siding might have had a lot to do with it

[TnAndy]

The siding was as 'tight' as about any OTHER siding you would have put up....the lumber was dry, the boards were 10" wide ( the side lumber off 2x10's we sawed for our floor joists ), there is a 2' overhang on the roof that protected the siding quite well, it was well up off the ground ( 9' in many places with a brick/block foundation below ), none of the Tyvek was exposed, the sidiing was stained before we installed it, and was stained in place twice over the 20 year period with the same stain, Sherwin Williams oil based wood preservative stain.......in short, the siding was in excellent condition, we simply didn't want to stain it again, were changing roof color with a new roof ( original was 21 years old ) and decided we want a 'new' look to the house, and installed a top grade of vinyl siding.

I, too, thought Tyvek was the way to go.....bought it hook, line and sinker.....air infiltration barrier that was moisture permeable ( let moisture pass on thru rather than trap it ).....sounds like great stuff ! And I had to actually order mine when I bought it because the local buidling supply places didn't even stock it at the time, that's how little it was being used !

My point is, IT DID NOT MEET THE TEST OF TIME.....and why would you "like" a product that seems to fall apart over time, defeating the very purpose for which it was intended ??

Have you actually LOOKED at any that was installed 10-15-20 years ago ?

I have noticed the house seems MUCH more air tight when a cold wind blows now than it did with the Tyvek in place. ( and vinyl siding sure isn't all that tight either )

"Perhaps" we got a bad batch ( though I think NOT based on comments I've read around the internet)...."perhaps" they have improved it base on early experience.

And "perhaps" not.....perhaps the life of the stuff is 5-10-15 years and Dupont really doesn't give a hoot about long term......after all, very little of it is ever going to actually see the light of day again down the road, right ?

I am merely pointing out my experience with it and recommend against it's use.

Ya'll are free, of course, to make your own mistakes

[mtman]

seems running up and down is not as tight as running side to side next time you see a boat and the boards are running vertical let me know

ive allso had it on uncoverd for 2 years was like brand new