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A little while ago, we published a post here on the blog about when to replace wood siding. It’s true that while wood is a bit more maintenance-intensive as an exterior siding option, its beauty can’t be matched. When you want to take your home’s curb appeal to the next level, natural wood siding is often the clear choice.
Aesthetics aside, there are several other reasons to consider wood siding among all your possible siding material options, including vinyl siding, fiber cement materials, or stone and brick veneers. Today’s blog post highlights the most significant among those reasons.
When Installed Properly, Wood Siding Looks Great for Many Years
While some homeowners may feel confident enough in their DIY home improvement skills to take on a big exterior project like siding installation, this type of job is often best left to professional contractors. With wood siding—perhaps more so than vinyl siding materials—proper installation is key to ensuring the best performance over time.
For instance, while most wood siding comes pre-primed from the factory, the material must be painted within 30 days of installation. And weather conditions must also be considered. If painting is put off, or if severe weather—like high winds or lots of rain—occurs between wood siding’s installation and finish painting, dirt and moisture can cause problems. Paint will not bond properly to damp or dirty wood surfaces, and re-painting of your siding will likely need to occur in just a few years.
With the right installation process, though, your wood siding may be relatively maintenance-free for about 15 years. And most of the wood exterior siding products we sell here at The Moulding Company come with an impressive 30-year manufacturer warranty!
Wood Outperforms Vinyl Siding In Stormy Weather
When storms with higher winds set in, vinyl siding is susceptible to cracks and breaks from windblown debris. Wood siding is a much more durable option by comparison since the material itself is less brittle.
While fiber cement material and brick or stone veneer may offer even greater durability than wood, these exterior cladding options often aren’t meant to cover an entire exterior. This is partly because their insulation value (R-value) is not as high, which means energy efficiency is not optimized.
More on mixing and matching materials in a moment, but suffice it to say that wood siding combined with these others is often an affordable, high-strength choice against the worst weather conditions.
Wood Siding May Be Easier to Repair
If your wood siding does become damaged due to severe weather, the good news is that it may be easy to fix—especially compared to competing cladding materials.
Handy homeowners can often patch and repair individual wood siding boards themselves, painting to match the surrounding boards. Damaged vinyl siding, on the other hand, must typically be entirely replaced on the surface of your house where the damage occurred to ensure that materials match.
Wood Siding “Plays Well With Others”
As mentioned above, home exteriors often feature more than one type of cladding. For example, you may have a brick ranch-style home with sided eaves and wood or vinyl window shutters. The photo at the top of our post here today shows a more contemporary home with wood and another material siding installed next to each other for visual interest.
No matter what your exterior aesthetic preferences, wood siding is an excellent accent material option for those homes with a variety of materials on their facades. It looks gorgeous next to other natural building materials like stone, for instance.
Last but not least, wood siding material is also a renewable resource. When wood is harvested for siding production, new timber is planted in its place and allowed to grow for several years. This is much more eco-friendly than comparable vinyl siding materials, which are created using a chemical process.
Ready to Upgrade Your California Home’s Exterior Siding?
The Moulding Company offers a variety of wood exterior siding options from Kelleher that are California fire-rated and guaranteed to be insect and rot-resistant. We also offer a complete line of exterior mouldings to enhance your home’s curb appeal and overall look, no matter what siding material you have today.
Download our complete product catalog to explore your exterior siding options, or shop our exterior materials online now.
Need more information or want to talk to a moulding and building materials expert? Call any of our California showrooms near you! (Note: in spring 2020, our showrooms are currently closed for in-store shopping due to the COVID-19 situation. Please call ahead or check our website for updates.)
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