Cedar Shingling Ideas

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It seems these days plastic houses are all the rage, but I got to say, in doing some checking, it seems the cheapest siding has got to be cedar shingles. I wonder if their low price is being pushed becasue of the labor costs to put them on, or just because they are a wood product that eventually must be replaced and maintained? Either way I found that I can purchase B clear shingles resawn and rebutted for 57 dollars a square. We have a shingle mill ourselves but for that price I would rather purchase them then go out and saw down cedar trees, block them up, saw them into shingles, then sort and stack them.

Now my question is, does anyone know of some artistic ways you can shingle a house? I have got about 28 square to put on and I was thinking about breaking up the long expanses of shingles by doing something creative. My initial thoughts were to do something around the 12 windows and two doors. I really don't want to have to cut EVERY shingle I put up artistically , but maybe some strategic areas would be worth targeting.

In any case I appreciate any and all ideas.
 
Check with your insurance agent before doing anything. There may be a big penalty for using them because of fire hazard. They will last many years, I have no idea why the cost is coming down, maybe because of low demand. Many years ago I worked as an interpreter at an 1800's restored village and demonstrated splitting shingles with a froe. We explained that splitting made a better shingle because the split was along the walls of the cells. Cutting opens the cells and exposes them to weathering. That is a fact, split shingles will last almost indefinitely.
 
I know here in Canada plastic was all the rage for years but cedar shingles has gained popularity again and a lot of new homes here are being shingled. As far as cost the plastic is a little more expensive but if you figure in the labor cost , I think you will find cedar shinbles to be more expensive , especially if you figure in the upkeep and finishing unless you live in a fishing village as I do. Most people here let them weather to silver. The older guys used to build their sheds out of them and then soak them down in old oil from the boats, they lasted forever but not a great idea for this day and age. lol
You cant beat the sight of a shingled house unless you are looking at a log home imho.
Darren
 
Cedar shingles are fire waiting to happen. I would never cover a house either roof or siding with cedar.

Cedar roofing was popular in North Texas for years, but if you ever get it on fire from any source, electrical, lightning, or carelessness, the cedar will feed the fire like crazy, regardless of whether the shingles are said to be fireproofed. The local Dallas TV has shown videos of cedar roofed home fires from a few 100K up to multi-millions and they all look the same, a pile of rubble. Some of the new big dollar developments have restricted new homes to no cedar roofs.

For the safety of your family and home, keep the cedar in the tree, and not around your home.
 
I disagree Ken. Perhaps in a warm southern state like Texas, but here in Maine cedar shingles have been around for literally hundreds of years (though in the early days they were actually shakes). Back in the day they used cedar shingles for roofs, but around here you just can't. Its far to wet and cold, and the winds coming off the water would rip them apart in short order. So confining this discussion to walls only, the fire danger can be no worse than tossing plastic on the side of your house. That stuffs burns as well, and can easily melt from heat transferred by radiant heat of a fire. The same can be said for asphalt shingles roofs. I have no adjacent homes so I don't have to worry about fire radiating onto my house and catching it on fire, but with 5000 acres of forest behind my house, forest fires are always a concern. I would be more concerned with embers landing on that big tar pit up there than I would be about the shingles on my walls igniting.

Overall I will defend cedar shingles to the end of time. In fact I think they get a bum rap. About the only thing bad I can say about them is that they are labor intensive to install. Cedar shingles also give you a better R-factor in your walls, and while not as good as say log siding, it does help when the temp dips down to 30-40 below. They are also easy to fit around windows, doors and other protrusions and really can be artistic. Add to that the lowest cost of ANY siding (here in Maine anyway) and its pretty easy to figure out why I am putting them on my house.

Interestingly enough we have our own shingle mill, but I just don't have the time to cut down the trees, saw them into blocks, saw the shingles,rebutt and resaw them, then place 25 square up on the house. At 57 dollars a square its much easier to buy them.

If I was to saw my own, I would only make the bottom few feet of siding out of cedar, and make the upper layers out of White Pine. Cedar shingles last quite awhile and would do better close to the moist ground, but where the wind constantly dries them out, White Pine shingles will last forever.
 
Travis, I can't argue with your experience. I had cedar shingles on my home in Plano. They were a source of continuing maintenance. It seemed that every spring it was an exercise in having shingles replaced. Finally, we had the entire roof removed. It was replaced with plywood sheathing and asphalt shingles.

BTW, a majority of the cedar shingle fires down here are due to electric problems with some fireplaces thrown in. And yes, the shingles do get dry, dry, dry. From my perspective, I would never again have cedar as part of my building, but that is me.;)

Foot note. When we built back in 2001, I used the very best shingles I could find. They are made in Oregon, and are rated for 50 years, highest fire rating, and 110 Mph wind. Now, you can't get performance like that out of cedar shingles.

You know what your want, so go do it. I hope you will post some pictures of the project.

Peace.:wave:
 
Hey Ken, I think my post came across sounding far more forceful then it was really meant to. I have been online for many years and its a shame really the written word can have tones that it was not meant to. Anyway no need for the word peace in your post, there was never any hard feelings on my end.

I do like shingles and always have and have shingled more than my share of homes. Working in a shingle mill is a different story. Its a VERY dangerous job. Most good shingle mill operators have 9 fingers...that is because they learned the hard way. The bad shingle mill operators have to get assistance to pick their nose. It may be interesting to note, that the danger does not come from the making of the shingle itself, but in making the shingle square, or what is known as "rebutting" a shingle. Its a cross between an old swing saw and a table saw. More like one of those cordwood saws that people used to use (and still use) to saw four foot wood into stove length wood. You put the shingle on a table, and then push the table saw down into the spinning saw blade. Its an optical illusion. To the eye the blade is coming up at you, but its really dropping. Either way, when you see the blade, the shingle is cut and so is your finger. The trick is to keep it out of the way before you drop the table, but its easier said then done. The table drops very easily...the slightest downward pressure exposes the saw blade.

Interestingly enough, our shinglemill is at least a hundred years old, but you can buy new shingle mills today that are identical to it. You can also set up the headrig so that it cuts thing lumber for packing crates and pallets.
 
What's the difference between 'shingle' and 'shake'?

A shingle is a SAWN board. It is tapered by means of a machine that makes a straight cut. The 16 inch block of wood is clamped into the headrig standing straight up and all cuts are made vertically and basically ripping through the block of wood. On the forward stroke, the headrig is straight, but then a set of cams and levers tilts the block a few degrees for the next cut. After that, the wedge shaped piece of wood falls onto a table and you have a shingle. By the time that happens, the headrig is stranding straight up again and ready to make the next shingle. All this happens very fast.

After gathering up the shingles, you put them on a saw rig that is 90 degrees to the first saw and you trim the ends of the shingles square. Rather than push the shingles through the sawblade, you push them up next to a fence, then push downward on the table and saw the ends of the shingles square.

A shake on the other hand is a typically hand-made with a Froe. It SPLITS the wood into thin pieces and typically makes a taper because of the taper in the block of wood. As a rule, a shingle is 3/8 of an inch thick at the thick end, then tapers to nothing. It is also about 16 inches long. A shake on the other hand varies wildly because of how the shake splits according to how the tree was made. The biggest difference is that while a shingle is UNIFORM in size, the sawblade cuts through the wood fibers. As we all know, cut wood fibers (end grain) allows wood to soak up much more water or finish. With siding that is not good, A Shake will not soak up nearly as much water because it is split down the long fibers. Since there is no end grain, the shake lasts much, much longer.

Probably WAY more than you ever wanted to know about shingles and shakes. If I had a camera I would take some pictures for you, but my camera got dropped and I cannot figure out how to download still shots off my video cam corder yet.
 
Hi Travis. No offense taken. I wanted to make sure we didn't accidentally get into a P'n contest.;)

It sounds like shingle work is not something I would care to try. I thought a simple table saw was dangerous enough.:eek:

Good luck with your project, and do keep us up to date on its progress.
 
Travis, thanks for the definitions. I used to demonstrate making 'shingles' with a froe at a restored 1800s village. Oh, well. I told lotsa folks wrong then. I was really making shakes. We did use the terms interchangeably though. The houses had 'shake' shingle roofs. A small example of how history can get distorted.
 
We typically use the term interchangeably around here too. I am pretty sure though that my definitions are correct. Now I may be wrong, but that was what I was told many years ago and to me the two different terms makes sense.

I remember seeing Froe's around Frank years ago. They were everywhere in people's barns, but the thing about antiques is, you never really think of them as antiques because they were so plentiful then. Now as I get older, I look at all those things that we take for granted and see people are getting big bucks for these "antiques."

One antique I saw the other day was a butter churn. When we were kids my Grandfather would skim the milk everytime he milked, and then on Saturdays we would sit around and watch cartoons and churn the butter. It was not much fun, but man when that butter changed, it changed QUICK! Anyway I doubt few people today would even realize that you can get butter (real butter) from cows.

As for the P-ning contest Ken, no worries there my friend. Once you have been divorced, had you parents house burn down, and had your sister killed in a car accident, you quickly learn that getting upset about some stupid siding choice is just downright crazy. Sometimes it take stuff like that to keep your priorities straight.
 
I know you said you didn't want to cut a lot of individual shingles, so I'm guessing something like this would be out of the question...

Here's the house:

Hobbit-House-TC-LR.jpg

And the garage:

Hobbit Garage T LR.jpg

And close-ups of the house and garage roofs, respectively:

Hobbit-House-Roof-Detail-LR.jpg Hobbit Garage Shingle Detail.jpg

This house is about a mile away from mine. The story I got was that it was built by a Disney designer. It sold a few years ago, and I don't envy the new owners when this roof needs replacing. The locals call it The Hobbit House, or The Gnome Home. I'd love to see the interior.

Sorry for the poor pics...they were snapshots from inside my car.
 
Travis,

What about weaving in a design or two? I've read an article in Fine Homebuilding that incorporated a flying geese design into the sidewalls. They used a combination of red and white cedar shingles to do this. If I ever had the opportunity to do something like this it looks like fun.

You can access this article but would need to be an online member to do so. I'll post a link below to the article. (In the rules it appears that posting links like this is OK. If I have misinterpreted them someone let me know.)

http://www.taunton.com/finehomebuil...ewall-shingles.aspx?langtype=1033&ac=ts&ra=fp
 
Travis,

What about weaving in a design or two? I've read an article in Fine Homebuilding that incorporated a flying geese design into the sidewalls. They used a combination of red and white cedar shingles to do this. If I ever had the opportunity to do something like this it looks like fun.

You can access this article but would need to be an online member to do so. I'll post a link below to the article. (In the rules it appears that posting links like this is OK. If I have misinterpreted them someone let me know.)

http://www.taunton.com/finehomebuil...ewall-shingles.aspx?langtype=1033&ac=ts&ra=fp
Darrin, just so you and others know, you're fine on the rules. Links to outside sites are allowed (although if we find inappropriate ones we'll nuke 'em). Like you said, this one is visible only to subscribers, but it could still help someone out.
 
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