Slab siding

How big is your home? Why don't you get the guy to give you some siding in exchange for some labor and be done with it?

I no you said money was tight. But you might want to ask them if they sell cull lumber. Used to could buy a hole pack for around $65 bucks at the saw mill i worked for years ago. It is usually varying thicknesses mixed with some semi rotten. By semi rotten i mean it isn't hard enough for them sell for grade.
But most of it will last years on the side of a house.
Some times they have busted packs and/or just to much of it to get rid and will let it go for little to nothing.

My mom used cull lumber on her barn she built over 10 years ago. Still looks new.

Tyvek is fine if run horizontally, pulled tight, and lapped. I've got my house wrapped in it, followed by foam-board and vinyl siding.

To be perfectly honest, vinyl siding is CHEAP. Our house is about 2400 square feet, and the vinyl and trim came to a grand total of about $5200.00

__________________
"The most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being." - Sir Isaac Newton
(A REAL scientist)

When I lived in California I stayed at this camp which had straw bale "cabins". The front side of the cabins used siding with the bark on it. I've posted a link to their website. Most of their cabins are about five years old. I believe they used pine since that's what grew on the property.

http://www.campoceanpines.org/about/...view?b_start=3

Beavers Bend State Park north of Broken Bow, Ok has 30 + cabins with slab siding. They were built in 1937 by CCC crews from materials in the park. These cabins have stone about 1/3 way up and then the siding. It is very attractive and apparently very durable. There is also a huge lodge built at the same time in this style.

I searched for pictures but found none that actually showed any detail. The siding looks just like that in the pictures in Linda H's post, but painted a very dark brown as long as I can remember.

Halo

__________________
formerly known as HaloHead
****************************************

"... And what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" Micah 6:8

Uh....mtman, I suspect any house siding applied to a boat would cause a sunken boat since none of them are that watertight. They ALL depend on gravity for water to run off of the siding. Your analogy is nonsense.

The general opinion on Tyvek seems to be "it's fine BECAUSE I used it"...or "I haven't seen any problems in the two years it was exposed on my house".

Wonderful.

And I'm related how it performed on my house over a 20 year period.

When ya'll's has been on 20 years, report back on the condition of it.

thats right water runs down and when yopu have vertical seems more apt to leak and i have been in the building trade more then 40 years and thats what i base it on

__________________
Don't complain, just do it

I only have 38 years myself.

How much 20 year old Tyvek have you examined ?

Tyvek Housewrap problems"
Posted by Michael Cade on 00:11:40 11/01/102
Include Original
Message on Reply
Approximately 12 years ago my wife and I built our home in the East Texas Piney Woods. The house was built with wood framing construction, sheathing, Tyvek house wrap and covered with Vinyl Siding. Recently we began a remodeling phase to nearly double the size of this two story home. When I began to remove some of the vinyl siding for the addition I found the Tyvek was completely decomposed. It had split, cracked tore and now after 12 years has the consistency of newspaper or less.

Yep.....exactly what I found too.

http://www.countryplans.com/cgi-bin/...num=1140662724


You are seeing Tyvek badly degraded in time in Iowa as I have in California. Builders stopped using it here because of the problems, it is degraded by cedar, redwood (tannins), cement (both fibercement and stucco), and I thought the rosins in OSB.

From the Journal of Light Construction forum

jlc forum

I could keep going, but it's getting late....and honestly.....I don't care what ya'll wrap around your house.

how cost effective would it be to use t-111?

__________________
this message has probably been edited to correct typos, spelling errors and to improve grammar...

"All that is gold does not glitter..."

Avoid the slabs. If you really want to do sweat equity, split out your own shakes or shingles out of short lengths of log with a froe. Otherwise look for odd lots of fiberglass roof shingles. Might use bit of roof cement to help glue them since applying on vertical. that built in sealing strip can be rather marginal. I mention this as they used to sell this weird asphault rolled roofing like stuff to be used as siding. Had a brick pattern so wasnt just rolled roofing. Anyway I've seen it on old shacks and outbuilding still functioning for decades. Thus my suggestion of odd lot of roofing shingles. They sell cheap at salvage places since they are odd lot and usually not enough of one color to do normal roof and sometimes they will be some stuck tight to one another or other damage so you want them super cheap to make up for that. Also places that manufacture corrogated steel buildings offen have "seconds" and odd lengths that they sell cheap.

__________________
"What would you do with a brain if you had one?" -Dorothy

"Well, then ignore what I have to say and go with what works for you." -Eliot Coleman