OK. So I bought our first house late last year, ranch home, well-built, 12 years old…and it has cedar siding. I don’t mind the look of it, and it’s much stronger than vinyl (as evidenced by our recent spate of 70+mph winds that were ripping my neighbor’s vinyl siding and roof shingles off), but what’s the best way to care for it?
I know I can google some of this stuff but I’d like to hear what any of you with experience with this have to say. Also, woodpeckers are occaisonally an issue as well. Any advice and tips on the care of cedar siding would be appreciated.
Edit: I also (without creating another thread) wanted to to get a reccomendation on what to do about that black mold that gets onto roofing shingles. I suppose the amount of trees I have in my neighborhood contribute to this mold, as it seems everyone has it. I know there’s products out there to treat it, but would appreciate personal experiences on how to do it.
A guy at Home Depot I mentioned this to told me to pressure wash it off my roof.
Pressure washing roof shingles…right off the roof…yeah, OK buddy:rolleyes:
Along the lines of the OP, I have a cedar-sided house that is being devastated by woodpeckers and flickers. Cute though they are, I’d love to find a way to make them leave it be. I’ve tried the flashy foil/streamer trick, and that doesn’t work.
My cedar siding is painted rather than stained (old house), so I can’t speak from personal experience. However, I know that stained cedar needs to be restained every few years. This is a much simpler project than painting, since you don’t have to (and shouldn’t) scrape - the usual procedure is to power wash first (low setting). Cedar is rot-resistant but not especially hard so don’t use a wire brush or other tool that may mar it. Since you have a ranch house and won’t have to worry about falling off ladders my guess is this is something you could do yourself. However, I defer to those who have actually tried it.
I should clarify…my house is classified for property tax purposes as a ranch, but it sits on a steep hill and the basement is almost completely finished (except for a bunkerlike storage room with concrete ceiling and foundation walls surrounding it…living in the Midwest, it’s our “tornado room”) with 2 BR in the basement. So, the wife and I have our bedroom on the main floor, and the kids share the 2 bedrooms in the basement, which has a walkout onto the lower level of the deck.
So we are dinged by taxes as an 1200sq foot home, when the livable space is actually more like 2300 sq feet. Not a big home at all, but bigger than it appears from the outside, mostly thanks to the hill it sits on.
Back to the cedar…the previous owner said that he treated the siding once every three years, and had treated it two years ago, which means I need to do it this coming Spring. Unfortunately, due to the grade of the hill, I will be up on ladders along the sides of the house, as well as needing to put a ladder on the deck to reach the south-facing back of the house as well. The upper portion of my deck is at least 20’ above the backyard hill, and being on a ladder even higher makes me…uncomfortable. But I suppose if the old guy that had the house built for himself (owned a construction company, everything is oversized and overinsulated) can do it, so can I. I hate heights, though.
I have cedar siding that gets attacked by woodpeckers every year. I also do the running and yelling thing while swinging a broom at them, but that mainly burns off my frustration rather than discouraging them. Since my house is painted, a builder I hired for a project this year used some kind of bondo to fill the holes and then painted them. He left me the rest of the can and the tube of stuff you mix with it so I can do my own.
I’ve had some luck with scaring the woodpeckers off using strips of newspaper taped either to the siding or to the soffits (I also have a rambler, only with no hill issues, so it’s easy for me to reach). I just keep the newspaper folded in half and rip down a strip about two inches wide. I take two or three of these strips and keep them folded. I put the folded edges together at an angle so the strips taper out toward the bottom and tape them. Then I tape the whole thing up close to where the woodpecker has been drilling. The paper kind of flutters, and the whole thing is big enough that I think it scares them.
I have no idea why newspaper works if folks find that shiny streamers don’t. I haven’t tried anything shiny, since I was looking for a solution close at hand and newspaper fit the bill. I’ve read that hanging cds from the soffits works, but have never tried it.
Mostly, though, I’m looking forward to the day I re-side the house. Although I like the cedar for its looks and there is some nostalgia in keeping it (it’s the original siding from 1958), I’m tired of woodpeckers. I’ll probably go to cement fiberboard for its durability, although I haven’t researched it yet to make a final decision. It’s years before I can afford to do it.
Just to clarify my post for those who might not know–here in Minnesota, what folks in Indiana call a ranch, we call a rambler. I know this because I grew up in Ohio where they are also called ranches and was confused when my real estate agent here told me we were going to look at a rambler and we drove up to a ranch.
Thanks, Lavender. I wonder if I can apply the stain to the siding with some kind of a power sprayer rather than brushing/rolling it on. It will take forever to do it the old fashioned way.
Haven’t tried spray-painting stain. Having done some regular old spray painting, though, I can tell you it’s easy to make a real mess if you haven’t done this before.
