Man-made building materials are steadily stealing the market away from natural products. Wood now has to compete with fiber cement, composites, vinyl, PVC, and fiberglass. The boon of these manufactured products is typically their superior performance and life span, not their “it looks sort of realistic” aesthetics. NuCedar Mills’ shingles are an exception.

NuCedar’s classic R&R (resquared and rebutted) PVC shakes and shingles boast the added bonus of a lifetime warranty that their ceramic-based, solar-reflective painted surface—
courtesy of Sherwin-Williams’ Polane—will never chip, peel, fade, or crack. But what really sets these man-made shingles apart from the rest of the factoryproduced market is that they look so convincing that even Mother Nature might do a double take.

This look is convincing partly because shingles are cut from a large sheet of PVC, not extruded through a die. This method achieves crisp, clean lines on each piece that look like the grooves and markings on a real cedar shingle. This process also ensures that no two shingles are alike.

NuCedar claims that the shingles can be handled and shaved just like the real thing. The only major differences are that cold-weather installations require more careful handling, that cuts will need to be touched up with NuCedar’s paint dauber, and that the company doesn’t recommend the use of staples.

At $550 to $600 per square, these shingles are slightly more expensive than the $530 persquare quote I received for factory-painted red-cedar shingles from my local yard.