Engineered Wood Siding in Portland and Southern Maine

Wood, rebuilt

Engineered wood is not solid lumber. Strands of wood are coated with resins and treatments, pressed into a dense board and topped with a resin-saturated overlay that resists water and holds paint. The result is straighter and more uniform than sawn boards, without knots that bleed through paint.

It is still wood. A strand board that soaks up water at an unsealed edge swells, and swelling at the bottom of a plank is the failure inspectors see when the installation rules were ignored. The makers' instructions are long because each line in them protects an edge.

For a homeowner the useful comparison is simple: it paints and looks like wood, it weighs less than fiber cement, and it forgives less than vinyl when water is trapped behind it.

The gaps that keep it dry

The installation instructions from the best-known maker are specific, and they map directly onto Maine weather:

• A 3/16-inch gap where siding meets trim, window casings or another plank at a butt joint, and that gap is sealed.
• At least 6 inches between the siding and finished grade, the line snow banks against every winter.
• Clearance where trim meets a roof line, and no siding or trim run down into a kickout flashing or a gutter.
• Every exposed cut on siding and trim sealed, by brush or roller rather than a spray coating.

When we look at a failing engineered wood wall, the swelling is nearly always at one of those four places. Getting them right at installation costs little; fixing them later means replacing planks.

Engineered wood or cedar

White cedar shingles and clapboards are the traditional Maine cladding, and on a coastal or historic house they remain the first choice for many owners. Cedar weathers to gray left natural, resists decay on its own and can be repaired one shingle at a time.

Engineered wood gives a painted-clapboard or shake look with longer pieces, factory priming and less movement than sawn cedar. It does not weather naturally and must stay painted. In a design review district, cedar is the material boards are most comfortable with; Freeport's rules, for one, treat engineered wood like wood and fiber cement when the style and exposure match the original.

The choice usually comes down to the look you want, the review standard where you live and how much periodic maintenance you are willing to plan for. The siding guide compares all of them.

Engineered wood or fiber cement

These two are often quoted side by side. The differences that matter here:

Both need dry edges, both need paint eventually, and both are let down by the same installation shortcuts. On a house near trees, a woodstove chimney or a neighbor's wall a few feet away, the fire rating can tip the choice. The fiber cement page covers that material in detail.

Details that matter on a Maine house

A few spots on houses here deserve extra attention with engineered wood:

• Bottom courses above decks, porches and walks, where snow and meltwater sit for weeks.
• Walls below roof valleys and dormers, which take the heaviest ice-dam runoff.
• The windward walls facing open water, where nor'easters drive rain into every joint for hours.
• Garage walls where snowmelt off vehicles splashes the lower siding.

At each one, a little more clearance and a drip edge or flashing above the trim do more than any coating. On a house with an ice-dam history, the sheathing at the top of the wall gets checked before new siding goes on.

Primed, prefinished and painting

Engineered wood comes primed for painting on site or prefinished from the factory. Primed siding needs its topcoat on a schedule the maker sets, and the cut edges sealed as the job goes, not at the end. Prefinished siding saves a painting crew and usually carries a finish warranty from the maker, but every field cut still needs sealing.

Paint is the maintenance. A dry wall holds paint for years; a wall that stays wet at its edges peels there first. When repainting, the same rule applies as with any wood: wash, let it dry, spot-prime bare areas and use the coating the maker recommends.

What decides the price

We do not quote engineered wood by a flat rate per square foot, because on an older Maine house the wall underneath sets more of the cost than the planks do. The things that move the number:

• The tear-off: one layer of vinyl comes off fast; painted clapboards on a pre-1978 house come off under lead-safe containment, and a second layer hiding the first doubles the work.
• Sheathing: board sheathing on an old house often needs patching and sometimes a layer of plywood or a rain-screen strip to give the new siding a flat base.
• Trim package: new corner boards, window casings and frieze in matching engineered wood, or wrapping what is there.
• Primed or prefinished: primed is cheaper to buy and adds a painting step; prefinished costs more up front.
• Staging: tall gables, steep lots and tight city lots take more setup time.

Your written estimate lists each one, and Maine's contract law keeps the deposit to a third of the price on any job over $3,000.

Permits and districts

The siding material rarely changes a town's permit answer. The permit question turns on the town, and its rule ranges from none in Raymond, where the town's building code page lists residing among work that needs no permit, to a required permit for any alteration in Scarborough and Falmouth.

Inside a local historic district the material is the question. Freeport treats engineered wood like wood and fiber cement when the style and exposure match; Saco and York aim their restrictions at vinyl and aluminum; Bath asks for the original material or a close substitute. The permit guide and the historic districts guide list each town's answer.

Common questions about engineered wood siding in Portland

Where we work

Engineered wood siding across greater Portland and southern Maine: Cumberland, York and Sagadahoc counties, from the islands of Casco Bay to the Sebago Lake towns and the New Hampshire line. Each city has its own page with the permit rule and code edition that apply there: