Our house has batten board redwood siding. For an addition I want to duplicate that look as closely as I can with plywood and bats. I don’t know what grade of plywood to specify, other than it should be rough sawn. I want the plywood to look as close to rough sawn redwood as possible – without footballs and holes.
Our existing siding is finished with an semi-opaque stain. We’d like to stain the plywood also.
Also, if we choose not to use redwood bats to save money, what wood would be a good choice?
thanks,
Scott
Replies
I once saw some sort of exterior OSB (more like microlam in surface appearance) that stained up real nice, but I've only seen it once, and that was about 15 years ago.
Years ago I built several vacation homes which had 5/8" redwood Texture 1-11 (one-eleven) plywood installed as exterior sheathing/siding.
Texture 1-11 is an imitation of reverse board and batten siding, more commonly made from douglas fir, rough sawn with vertical grooves cut at regular intervals.
The redwood version we installed was 4'X8' or 4'X9', five ply, all redwood, with a clear heart ply on the surface. It was pretty nice looking stuff and very easy to apply. Took galvanized siding nails much nicer than the doug fir T-1-11.
For a budget minded project, it's a good choice in my opinion. You can call any full service lumber yard to see if it's still being produced.
I've seen T1-11 installed horizontally and painted/stained with a brick red color. It definitely isn't "real" redwood siding, but it doesn't look all that bad.
I would go with Breckenridge siding, which is a T1-11 type product from Roseburg Forest Products. I don't know if other manufacturers make something similar - Roseburg is just what's available around here.
It has an Okoume face veneer, which stains up pretty nicely. You could go with a grooved panel, or to better replicate your board and batten, use plain-faced ply siding with battens. There's a picture on this link: http://www.lakesidelumber.com/gallery-details25.htm
Is the current siding rough sawn? Is it circular or band sawn? What is the width of the planks? Are the battens rough sawn or smooth?
I would use fibercement planks or panels myself - with cedar bats, (or harditrim if a smooth surface is OK).
Redwood would be impossible to find here, but probably could be special ordered. I don't imagine a plywood redwood would be easy to find either, and I doubt its long term durability.
Just shooting wildly from the hip with my eyes closed.
Mark,Thanks for your response. To answer your questions -We're in Northern California. The siding is old growth redwood, and was put on the house at least 50-70 years ago. Looks like it was band sawed rough, at the mill. We had other boards sawn at the mill for replacement and that's how they were cut and they look identical.The bats are rough sawn redwood. We've also replaced a number of these and they were cut the same way.
I would think that the original style of redwood would be the best match then, if you can afford it. Redwood is rare in Ohio, maybe common where you are, but I understand that redwood plywood is very rare, may not even be made anymore. Perhaps someone has a portable bandsaw mill and can saw up some siding from reclaimed lumber if the lumberyard does not have it.
Edited 10/14/2008 3:20 pm ET by MarkH