Mobile Wood Siding

Engineered Wood Siding

Engineered wood is what I hang on most houses down here when somebody wants the warmth of wood siding without babysitting it every spring. It's wood strands pressed with resin and treated with zinc borate, so Formosan termites and a July afternoon at ninety percent humidity don't get the easy meal they get off raw cedar siding. It comes primed, in lap boards and shake siding panels.

The install is where it lives or dies. Every cut end gets sealed, boards stay six inches off grade and an inch clear of the roof, and nails go snug rather than driven through the face. Skip that and you'll see swollen bottom edges inside two seasons. That sealing step is the one I check twice on any Mobile Siding Installation we run, because nobody can see it once the trim goes on.

Lp Smart Siding

LP Smart Siding shows up on more Midtown and Spring Hill jobs than anything else we hang, and the reason is our summers. It is engineered wood siding treated all the way through with zinc borate, so termites and rot have a much harder time than they do with plain pine.

Here is the part crews skip. The factory seal stops where the saw starts. Every cut end gets primed before it goes on the wall, or water wicks into that raw grain and the board swells like a bad shrimp boil.

We keep boards six inches off grade, an inch above roof shingles, and blind-nail into studs so the laps stay flat. On a typical cottage, LP SmartSide takes about four to seven working days once tear-off is done, longer if the sheathing underneath is soft.

Lp Smartside

LP SmartSide lap boards come off the truck at sixteen feet, so on a long wall you get fewer butt joints, and fewer joints means fewer places for Mobile humidity to work its way in behind the wall. The strands are treated with zinc borate right through the board, which is why Formosan termites don't treat it like the free buffet they make of untreated wood siding.

Installed properly it wants a 3/8 inch gap at each butt joint with flashing behind it, six inches of clearance above grade, and nails set flush instead of buried. Overdriven nails are the most common failure I find on engineered wood siding: the head crushes the fiber, water wicks into the cut, and the board swells like a biscuit by year three. Our Mobile Siding Installation crews gauge the nail gun on every wall for exactly that reason.

Cedar Shake Siding

Shakes are where a house stops looking built and starts looking made. Most of the cedar shake siding I hang in Mobile goes on gable ends, dormers and porch aprons, on the Oakleigh and Old Dauphin Way houses where a full wall of it would be too much of a good thing.

The details matter more here than they would in a dry climate. Taper-sawn western red cedar, stainless ring-shank nails because plain galvanized bleeds rust streaks down a wall by the second summer, two nails per shake, and a quarter inch between them so they can swell in August without splitting each other apart. Every face gets sealed before it goes up.

A gable or two is a day. Book the crew for Mobile Siding Installation on a whole story of shake and you're looking at most of a week.

Cedar Siding

Cedar is the real thing, and in a place this humid it only stays the real thing if it's installed like it can breathe. Western red cedar goes up over furring strips on most of our jobs, a rain screen about three eighths of an inch deep, so the wall behind it dries after every August downpour instead of stewing. Every board gets back-primed on all six sides before it touches the house, stainless ring-shank nails only, because galvanized will bleed rust streaks down a light stain by year two.

Skip the back-priming and cedar cups and splits from the back where you can't see it coming.

Plan on refinishing the sun-facing walls every four to six years. Cedar siding installation in the Oakleigh Garden District and Spring Hill is a big part of what Mobile Siding Installation means around here.

Cedar Lap Siding

Half the calls that come in for Mobile Siding Installation end up as cedar lap, and I get why. It's the profile everybody pictures when they picture wood siding for a house: beveled boards, thick edge down, each one lapping the one under it by an inch or so. Western red cedar handles our humidity better than most species, but only if it's primed on all six sides before it touches the wall. Skip the back and the board drinks moisture off the sheathing, then cups like a record left on the dashboard in July.

We hand-nail with stainless ring shanks, one per stud, set just above the lap so the board can still move. Two nails through both courses locks it down and the cedar splits by the second summer. Figure about a week of cedar siding installation on an average house.

Clapboard

Clapboard is the old-school profile: beveled boards, thin edge up, each course lapping the one below by an inch or so. Simple to look at, unforgiving to hang. Let the exposure drift a quarter inch at the bottom and by the time you reach the soffit those courses are running downhill, and anybody walking past on Dauphin Street can see it. So we snap lines, work off a story pole, and set one nail per stud just above the lap so each board can move when the humidity does what it does here in August.

The step crews skip is back-priming. Bare wood pulling moisture from behind will cup, split and spit nails inside a couple of seasons. Every stick of clapboard siding in a Mobile Siding Installation we run gets sealed on all six sides first.

Louisiana Pacific Smartside Siding

Louisiana Pacific SmartSide starts life as wood strands pressed with resin, wax and zinc borate, which is why Gulf Coast termites tend to go bother the neighbors instead. You can get it in lap, panel, trim and shake profiles, so a house can wear a clapboard body with shaker gables and still be one product top to bottom.

The install is where it lives or dies. Boards stay six inches off the dirt and an inch off any roof slope, joints get flashed, and nails go into framing hand tight, not driven through the face. Overdriven nails crush the substrate and let water sit in the dimple.

A good bit of the Mobile Siding Installation work we take on is lp smartside, and a straightforward single story usually runs four to six days.

Lp Smartside Siding

Here's where LP SmartSide earns its keep on the Gulf Coast. The wax and zinc borate are already worked into the board at the mill, so the humidity that parks on us from May through September has less to chew on than it would with plain lumber.

The install is where it's won or lost. We hold the bottom course about six inches off grade and clear of any flashing, hit framing on 16-inch centers, and drive the nails flush rather than burying the heads in the face of the board. A dimpled nail head is a little cup holding water, and it shows up two summers later as a soft patch under the paint.

Most of our Mobile Siding Installation work in Midtown and West Mobile goes up as lap, with shake siding panels breaking up the gables.

Clapboard Siding

Clapboard is the profile you see on half the bungalows in Oakleigh and Midtown: beveled boards, thin edge up, each one lapping the one below by an inch or so. Looks simple. Easy to botch.

Two things kill clapboard siding down here, nailing and priming. One nail per stud, driven through the thick part just above the lap, never through both boards at once. Pin two boards together and the first humid stretch in August splits them along the grain. And each board gets primed on all six sides, ends included, or the end grain drinks water like sweet tea and your paint job is gone in a season or two.

Butt joints land on studs, staggered, with flashing behind them. Most of our Mobile Siding Installation work in wood siding runs five to eight days on a typical house, weather permitting.

Shaker Siding

Shaker siding is the square butt cousin of a hand split shake: uniform width, a straight bottom line, texture without the noise. Most of the Mobile Siding Installation work we do in shaker lands on gable ends, dormer faces and porch aprons around Oakleigh and Spring Hill, where the body of the house is clapboard and the peak wants something with a little more shadow in it.

You can have it two ways. Individual cedar shakes laid by hand, or panelized engineered wood siding that comes pre primed in courses and goes up faster with the exposure held dead even.

What ruins it: keyways stacked one above the other, course lines that wander, nails shot high out of the nail zone so the panel oil cans by August, and cut edges left unprimed. Our humidity finds every bare edge.

Shake Siding

Shake siding is what people want on a gable, a dormer, or the front porch bump-out, and half the Midtown bungalows I look at have it up top with clapboard below. Most of our Mobile Siding Installation work with shakes is exactly that: a feature wall, not the whole house.

The detail that gets skipped is the keyway. Individual shakes need a gap between them, roughly a quarter inch, so they can swell in August without buckling like a bad hand of cards. Nail too low and you pin the course beneath it, and the wall splits by the second summer. Salt air off the bay eats cheap fasteners, so we use hot dipped galvanized or stainless.

A gable end runs a day. Hand-laid shaker siding across a full elevation, with corners and window cuts, runs considerably longer than panels.

What the job involves

A wood siding installation down here isn't the same animal it is in Denver, and every Mobile Siding Installation we take on starts with the tear-off, right down to the sheathing, so we can see what the Gulf has been doing behind your old walls. Soft plywood, rusted fasteners, the occasional wasp condo. That gets repaired first, then weather-resistant barrier, flashing at every window head, and furring strips so the wall can dry out after an August afternoon storm.

Then boards go on. Cedar shake siding, clapboard, or engineered wood siding, each piece gets primed on the face, the back, both edges and every cut end, and hung with hot dipped galvanized or stainless ring shank nails, because bay salt air chews up the cheap ones.

Figure one to two weeks on an average house, longer if paint has to cure between rains.

What it costs

Straight talk: wood costs more than vinyl, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling you something else. Vinyl around here lands near $3 to $4 a square foot installed. Siding as a whole averages closer to $10 once you're into real material, and that's roughly where engineered wood siding sits. Cedar shake runs higher, because coursing shakes by hand around windows eats days that lap siding never asks for.

What moves your number is corners, gables, and what we find when the old boards come off. Soft sheathing behind a south wall is common here after a few Gulf seasons, and it gets replaced, not covered.

Our Mobile Siding Installation numbers come off a tape measure, so ring us at (251) 551-3653 for yours.

Priced off a phone guess, that rot stays hidden and rots on.

Why choose us for this

You've got a wall of tired boards on the shady side of the house, the paint is giving up, and you'd like to deal with it once and then quit thinking about it.

Here's what I don't do.

No growing invoice: The figure I write down is the figure you pay, and if we pull a board and find rot, you see it before I cover it.

No half-finished house: We don't wander off to another wood siding job across town and leave your walls in housewrap through a week of Gulf rain.

No signing today: My estimate doesn't expire Friday at five.

Cheap I am not, and that's on purpose. Cedar siding installation means back-priming all six sides of every board, which eats a day nobody sees.

Over 9 years of Mobile Siding Installation taught me that day is the one that matters. The walk-around and the written estimate cost you nothing and tie you to nothing.

Frequently asked questions