We have a 1930’s cape with a tudor front porch at the beach. It’s a small house, but we think it has a lot character. Through a series of remodels, it ended up with T-1-11 (plywood) siding, cheap aluminum windows, and poor detailing that caused rot in a number of places. In addition, the gutters and trim were all poorly done.

We’ve been working to bring it back to a more appropriate design, and hopefully a much higher quality of workmanship. Before I started residing, I asked the FHB podcast guys to give their opinion on how they would tackle it. They took the question on the show, and I pretty much took all their advice.

I started by pulling the T-1-11 off to expose a sheathing layer – some original shiplap, some old plywood, and some newer OSB. It first two were fine, but the OSB had a lot of rot. I replaced the rotted sections and reapplied much of the T-1-11, as it was stable and mainly rot free. There was Tyvek under it, which I removed since the WRB was now going to be in front of it.

We taped all the open edges of the plywood, installed new windows, and taped over their flanges to #30 felt. I used a flexible underlayment on all the corners – I think the felt would crack over time at the bends. We applied trim, leaving an air gap behind it. Once all this was in place, we used a mesh rain screen to create a 1/4 gap behind the shingles. It took a little while to get the hang of nailing shingles over the mesh, but eventually, it felt natural. We hand-nailed using 5d stainless ringshanks.

The shingles are 16″ red cedar, with a 5 inch exposure – so we have 3 layers of coverage at any given point. Where the singles met the trim, we caulked where the next one would cover it.

We hope this makes a wall assembly that will last for many years. We get over 100 inches of rain, up to 70 mph winds, and continual salt spray on the house. If water gets past the shingles & trim, it has the rain screen. If it gets past that, it has #30 felt (double on most places) to stop it. If it get’s past the felt, likely at the corners, it has membrane tape to stop it from getting to the edges of the wood.

At this point we have the front done as well as the garage, and we’re planning to get the sides this summer and the back next year.