Siding for a Maine house, and the wall behind it
The material is what you see. What decides whether the wall survives a nor'easter and an ice-dam spring is the barrier and flashing behind it.
Most of the old housing here was sided in what grew nearby: painted pine clapboards on the street side and white cedar shingles on the ells, the barns and every surface of the coastal summer houses. Later houses brought vinyl, and lately fiber cement and engineered wood. Each behaves differently in this climate.
The materials, the Maine way
- Cedar shingles: the traditional coastal wall. Left natural they weather gray; they need a vented or drainable backing to dry, and they are the material historic review boards here are most comfortable with.
- Wood clapboards: the village-house standard. Paint is the maintenance; peeling paint is usually moisture from inside the wall or from the roof edge, not bad paint.
- Vinyl and insulated vinyl: no painting, and a forgiving cladding for drainage; it has to hang loose enough to move through the swing from a January night to an August afternoon. Several historic districts here limit it.
- Fiber cement: stable, non-combustible, takes paint well; heavy, and every cut edge must be sealed.
- Engineered wood: lighter and easier to work than fiber cement; it needs its clearances and sealed cuts to stay dry.
The wall, layer by layer
- Replacement window — sized to the opening, with the U-factor your city actually requires.
- Siding — lap profile, with trim around every opening.
- House wrap and flashing tape — the water-resistive barrier, replaced not reused, lapped in the right order and taped around every opening.
- Sheathing — opened and inspected; soft areas priced against what is actually found.
- Framing — king and jack studs, header and sill around the window opening.
The kickout
Where a sloped roof edge ends against a sidewall, the residential code's flashing section (R903.2.1) calls for a diverter that throws the water clear of the wall. Without that kickout, the last few feet of roof water run down behind the siding, and in a Maine winter the same corner also takes the meltwater an ice dam backs up.
Ice dams and the wall
Efficiency Maine: ice dams can form when warm air from inside a home leaks into the attic and melts snow on the roof; if enough water refreezes at the cold edge, an ice dam forms. Efficiency Maine: water trapped behind the ice dam backs up under the shingles and runs down into walls and ceilings. When the siding comes off a house with a history of ice dams, the sheathing under the eaves and at the top of the walls is the first place to look. The fix for the dam is air sealing and attic insulation; the fix for the wall is a barrier lapped so water that gets in finds its way out.
Rules that reach the material
A building permit rarely cares which siding you pick. A historic district can: Saco prohibits vinyl on buildings in its districts that are not already vinyl, York's zoning bars vinyl and aluminum siding in the York Village Center zones, and Freeport lets wood, fiber cement or engineered wood of the same profile skip design review while other materials go to its board. The town-by-town rules.
Where this comes into the work
Sources: basc.pnnl.gov · efficiencymaine.com · codes.iccsafe.org · efficiencymaine.com · ecode360.com · yorkmaine.org · freeportmaine.com
Common questions
Is cedar shingle siding worth it on a Maine house?
Can new siding go over the old clapboards?
Why is the paint peeling on only one side of my house?
Thinking about re-siding?
We look at the roof edges and the old flashing before we talk about colors.
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