I’m installing individual pre-finished hand split cedar roof shakes(not shingles) on the sidewalls of a 100 year old house. What might be the appropriate exposure and waste factor?
The 100 year old house across the street has a 5″ exposure but I’m not sure if that is historically correct. I could save on materials and finishing if a wider exposure was o.k.
I’ve installed shakes and shingle on several different houses but it’s been awhile and my memory ain’t what it used to be.
Dog
If you’re gonna be dumb, you better be tough! — Ancient Southern Proverb
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many different factors to consider and you probably have them in front of you
exposure of present roof material ( maybe a steep pitched roof that had shakes on 10" - 12" exposure but now has comp at whatever it is 4" - 5"? )
multi lite windows at 6" , 8", or 12" on the vertical ( or changed to vinyl )
just to mention first two that come to mind - any pictures available to show you original method?
anyway you're dealing w/ a beautiful product and it should always be applied to highlight its beauty at a minimum 9 or 10" or 12" if it's a 24" shake in #1 condition
the 5" exposure is for shingles but it has been done before w/ shakes
cannot help but think it is a nice house
waste - think high 20% fair or maybe not high enough - corners laced or butted to cornerboards? you will not be working on the ground too much
I'm tearing off vinyl and replacing with the shakes(Thank Heavens!).
My original post says I will be putting these on sidewalls, not the roof. I believe that makes a difference because a roof would have a larger exposure, right?
The outside corners will be woven and there are no inside corners. They are also dormer sidewalls so I will not be spending much time on the ground.
I am installing a couple of new wood windows(Thank God!) in these walls but I don't have them yet and I'm not sure how tall the glass between the grills will be. Is that what you were referring to? Does that make a difference?
I've seen 18" shakes with exposures anywhere from 4-1/2" to 12", maybe a little more.
What style house will you be doing?
Can you check any of the oringinal house ( corner boards, old windows ) to determine what the original exposure was?
It's a 100 year old Craftsman style house. First floor walls are stone. Dormers that I will be siding will have exposed rafter tails after I tear off the vinyl. We will be staining the shakes with a Cabot semi-transparent oil, something dark but natural. I'm finding out the homeowner may want to go with a handsplit shake that is a little less "rough" looking than the ones I was thinking of which were the ones that are not square or rebutted like Hammer mentioned.
you may want to check out how Perfection shingles look. They're somewhere between the squared and rebutted, and the barn shakes you were talking about.
They're a tapered shake, but look a little more rustic because all the sides aren't parallel- they require more fitting, but they look more appropriate on older homes.
Can you recommend a suitable exposure for sidewall applications on an old house? At least a range that I can pick from?
Try not to exceed 10" with a 24" shake.
If they are 18" no more than 7.5"
That'll keep ya in the ball park..the cedar manus have real good info on thier sites. Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
If your hand splits are the same as I'm used to, they are not squared and rebutted, Depending on the look you want,(straight butt line) there can be a lot of labor fitting them. You, generally, want double coverage plus a couple inches, if the shakes are 18", the maximum exposure would be 8". Hand splits are also quite thick, a double layer can be 2" thick in places. This means they will stick out past most ordinary trim or corner boards. The last time I priced them, the hand splits were the most expensive you could get, even more than the R&R boxed primed shakes. You can't get the texture of hand splits any other way and they will last a long time.
Beat it to fit / Paint it to match
I did that but with 35 square worth of the split shakes. I'm digging out the pictures from my hard drive for your review.
It is way more labor intensive than I thought possible. I shortened the project by making a 10 foot jig out of a 1 by 8 and a firing strip nailed to the bottom of the 1x8 Then I added 2 cheap levels that I positioned with screws then glued with polyurethane adhesive. I actually made 2 jig boards. 1 - 10'er and the other 6 foot long for tight areas. The firing strip hooks under the previous row's bottom, then I level it with the levels, then I use a nail on each end of the 1x8 to hold the jig in the leveled position. At this point you set the shakes on top of the pine board and nail each in place after you get a good looking fit of the shakes.
Meshing it with Soffit boards was really time consuming. It took a case of "cedar colored" silicone caulk and backer rope to fill the gaps. Of course the Gable ends were the biggest problem.
Fitting the shakes together requires a utility knife to shave them to fit. Then of course you have the square, right lean and left lean shakes. (you'll know what I mean when you get to fitting them side by side.) It isn't just grab and nail. I borrowed a mailman's shoulder bag to carry the shakes up the ladder and provide me a quiver of shakes from which to select.
Short answer is about 7" exposure. You want 3 layers of cedar on the wall to make sure you have visual coverage of the subsurface paper. Two photo's are attached of me from far away and my son doing wiring up close to the shakes. 10 inches is a lot of cedar to have flapping in the wind and reacting to the wet dry cycle.
My substrate is Tyvek over 3/4 inch Foam board over nominal 1/2 inch osb on the 2x6 studwall. It holds (has for the last 3 years with frequent 50 MPH winds and subzero temps in the winter next to lake Michigan.
Also, and this will cause a firestorm of debate, use a power nailer with galvanized RS nails. You really do not want to set these nail heads in the shake or else you make kindling in a big way. Hand nailing may work but I could control the Paslode far better than the occasional mis-whack with a hammer. It takes some skill but you hold the Paslode or power nailer at an angle so the head is consistently in but not countersunk.
I'll dig for a better photo of the jig. The photo of me is too far away for the picture to be visable on these photo's.
How many square do you need to hang?
Edited 7/22/2005 4:14 pm ET by Booch
I believe the picture you posted is just what my homeowner wants. The butts look relatively straight and the joints are relatively tight. Did you cut them to fit this way or were they pretty close to that when you got them? Who was your supplier or what was the brand name/manufacturer? Are they red or white cedar? I've put them up like that before too except the homeowner(actually my boss at the time) wanted them put up just like they came out of the bundle. Ends were mostly not square and edge joints were all over the place. We put up a string at the butts and just kind of eyeballed them, most of the butts weren't square, but oh well! The only place we cut them is where we wove the corners and where they hit the soffitt and gable ends. It was an Arts & Crafts style remodel and it looked pretty good.
We put Cedar Breather behind them and stapled them with galvanized crown staples near the top of the previous course so every course was double nailed. I don't know about your method but when a mistake was made it was very difficult to tear off a shingle that had already been stapled.
The whole reason I started this thread was because even though I've put up 100 or so squares of them, it's been a long time and my memory ... What was I saying again?
7" sounds like what I vaguely remember. I'll start with that unless the homeowner wants to go tighter.
Thank you.
No ... few are cut "straight".
That was my right lean, left lean and straight or square cut comment.
As I understand it they are rough cut as logs to give that bottom edge... However it is done there isn't a square edge to line em up so they get the right or left lean treatment. by some quirk of fate they occasionally 2 in 10 come out square.
I suppose getting square cuts out of a tapered cone (log) is hard to do. So this is how I deal with it.
Get a newspaper boy's shoulder bag (or a shoulder slung mail sack) and carry up 1/2 a bundle at a time. I have an assistant sort (on the ground) them into square, right, & Left leaning. After he sorts I pack up the mail bag and fill my jig picking whatever fits tight side by side.. The Jig lets you review it before you nail em.
Occasionally depth of the shake or the fact I don't want to go down the ladder to get the right one makes me "Trim it to fit". Trimming doesn't recut the bottom. Instead I use a utility knife. and carve/split the shake from the bottom twords the tip. A sharp blade and a rugged knife help. (PS cut away from you..duhhh).
As for Brands. I started out with I think 24"ers that were western cedar. I had about 24 square bought at first. Then I figured out I'd be a bit short. Then I bought them in small quantities that I brought up with me. (This is a weekend family project) I bought them from Menards a local big box store but those were 18 inches. They might have been a redder color but it is indistinguishable now. I put another 15 square up with the 18"ers
Cedar Shake ratings are like the Heavyweight boxing titles. Many Many judging categories. All pure bull durham. The 18"ers were better rated per the 3x3 paper rating tag than the western 24" ones were. In fact I think the 18"ers were western as well per their tag. The Menards versions were narrower (50% on average) and the split knot content was not as well inspected.
The strangest feature was the UL fire rating tag. Who we fooling here? This stuff is a match stick without the phosphorous. To this day I use the trimmed shards as fire starter.
Ok, enough of the rant. The risk is worth the beauty. I put no treatment on this stuff and it is getting the silver coat with the rusty red streaks (not metal rust but tannins in the wood bleeding out) When I drive up to it I still awe at the beauty of the wood in decay ( probably will for the next 50 years.) beats the snot out of seeing the vinyl siding chalk up.
Under windows is a problem as the outdoor finishing nails on the top layer tend to let the shakes kite on a windy day. Not enough holding power for 50 to 60 MPH winds. I actually put a fat bead of Silicone cedar caulk down and seat the trimmed shake on the previous layer then finish nail it in place. If the previous layers are guttered properly (ie layered so that the rain water has an exit)then this last stickum layer of caulk causes no damming of the water.
Man ... tighter than 7 inch would be good for a lighthouse. Just remember to put at least a double course at the bottom. Authentic shake houses tend to have a 2-3" reveal after the first double layer on the bottom. Then it steps up to the 7". It was traditionally thicker with Cedar at the bottom because the rain hits the ground and tends to rot the wood faster. More thickness more life.
I can't find a digital picture of the jig. I have a regular photograph but I'll have to scan it. Expect another message.Jack of all trades and master of none - you got a problem with that?