DIYbanter - View Single Post

wrote:
You mean they make vinyl siding that looks different than the (too
narrow) 3 or 4 inch horizontal overlapping boards?

Most siding seems to be a standard 4-5" exposed board height, though the
narrower stuff is available and may well be popular where you live.

I just cant stomach that look. Every (and I mean EVERY) new home
they build today uses that ugly stuff. In my opinion, these new
homes are all BLOATED. They build them way too large, then use that
narrow siding look to make them look even bigger. (BARF)....

Seconded on the McMansion look, and you seem to be groping toward some
sense of proportion, but maybe you could tone the vitriol back a bit.
Most folks just don't know better.

If they made the boards in 8" to 10" "boards", it would at least look
better.

Here's where you lose me. 8-10" is from the era of aluminum siding.
Wooden siding this height would have been quite rare. The 1858 house I'm
sitting in has an exposed original clapboard section on an interior wall
which I just now measured; it's exactly 5" (and a very consistent 5" too).

However, I can just imagine the amount of warpage on that
stuff. I have seen so many of these walls where the siding is all
warped and distorted, loose ends, and just plain BUTT UGLY !!!!

Vinyl siding has different requirements. It grows and shrinks with
temperature, so must be installed with "slack" to accept the expansion.
We have a rental building that came with a not-so-great vinyl install,
and there's obvious problems today at the 8-year mark.

I built a small rural farmhouse. I want it to look like a farmhouse,
not an ugly modern condo. So, the 3 to 4" horiz. boardlook is a
definate NO.

Again, I think you're wrong here. 3-4" would be far more accurate than
8-10" for the 19th century look. But a standard 4-5" would not only be
architecturally accurate, but is widely available.

However, I would consider vinyl if it looks like cedar siding, or has
other looks..... I highly doubt that there is any vinyl that does
not warp, no matter how expensive it is, but at least I would think
it would be less noticable if the siding looked more "rustic" like
cedar, because at least that way there is not such a smooth surface.

There are a variety of vinyl "looks" available. I think the most
important is the lap shape rather than any imitative graining (you can
only see it close up anyway).

I'm not saying vinyl is best here, only that you seem to be using some
strange, perhaps incompletely informed criteria to judge *any* solution.
I do applaud your desire to have an historically accurate look; I love
the disappearing architecture of the rural midwest, and especially hate
it when a lovely Queen Anne (say) is buried beneath ugly mid-20th
century siding such as asphalt.