Michael Nickolas wrote:

Choreboy wrote:

Perhaps it damages cedar more.

Yeah, they really want the wood to be able to dry out. I'm replacing
some old plastic siding someone put on my house's Mansard roof before
we bought it. Using cedar shakes. It's slow going, just the two of us,
but we're getting there. Here is a pic:

http://home.comcast.net/~newspost/P1010011.JPG

A mansard roof looks like a hassle for construction and maintenance. I
read up on it. Mansard lived in the 16th Century, but the style is
older. It became popular in the 19th Century. Houses and other
buildings were getting taller, but tall walls were esthetically
unappealing. Nowadays a fake mansard is used to hide machinery on a
flat roof.