I traveled down to my son Shawn's place near Story City to help him install some "Hardy Board" siding. [Hardie board is a siding made of fiber cement. Cement is combined with sand, water and cellulose wood fibers to make a solid building material well suited for protecting the exterior of a building.] I had helped install this kind of siding on his house before, but on this particular area we were going to install what is called shingle siding. Previously we had worked with Hardy board that looked like horizontal boards where this siding would look like vertical wood shingles when done. It can be purchased primed, but in this case it was not. The first thing we had to do was to give each sheet a coat of paint. (Just in case you were wondering how I feel about painting, painting for me is in the same category as sanding, sweeping floors, and digging post holes.) Each of these sheets are 4 foot long. There are a total of 3 different patterns to use and the plan is to not use the same patterned shingle consecutively. The result will be that you will end up with the tabs having a random pattern. (It's kind of confusing - thus that is why I get stuck on the paint brush side of things.)
This is the wall that we intended to cover over the next two days. The Tyvek is on, the trim boards are in place, and the weather was just a little on the cool side with a rain cloud hanging in the western sky. We started by putting on a starter strip first and then we went with our first row of shingles. Naturally, the wall was a little short of being 16 feet wide. It would take four 4 foot sheets - a total of 16 feet to make a row across with the last sheet being trimmed back a little. Each sheet was identified as to what pattern that sheet was. We started out using pattern # 1 for our first sheet, pattern # 2 for our second, and pattern # 3 for the third, and then repeated the process going back to pattern # 1 all the way across. The next row you would start out with patten # 3, pattern # 1 and so on. The object was to make sure that the slots would appear random and not be one on top of the other.
Somehow I find myself on the skill saw when ever I help out the kids. (I always wonder who is in charge when that happens. They holler out measurements, which pattern sheet to use, and I never get to holler about anything - Hmmm.) You can tell that the process is very dusty when cutting fiber cement board with a skill saw. We use what is called a diamond cutting blade. It sounds expensive, but it's not. (Might get the wife one for our next anniversary present.) It seems to cut this stuff very well but you do want to wear a good dust mask as it is not good stuff for your lungs. They do make a shears that cuts fiber cement siding, but this is what we have on hand so this is what we use.
The first day, we did end up getting rained out. We put up about six rows of siding as you can see to the left. This was as far as we made it before the rain came. We did not realize that we had the easy part done. Following the pattern plan was going well. The tabs of the shingles were suppose to look random in their positioning and it seemed like it did. The shingles were supposed to be equal in height on both sides and they were. Because of the rain, we had to stop for the evening, have a little beverage, dinner, and a movie. (I kind of love a rain now and then.)
Little did we realize that first day, but at the time when the rain came what we had done so far was the easy part. The next morning we continued to move upward, but as we went around the windows it became more difficult to keep our slots from being one on top of another. The temperature became a little warmer. (Wearing that big old dusk mask, bifocals that continued to cloud up, sweating, and then sawing a few bad cuts, I noticed that the skill saw guy - me - was starting to get a little crabby.) Then, as soon as we were above the window, we ran into the angles of the roof. Each piece had to be measured, patterned out, and cut just right. I was hoping to get the peak done before I had to leave, but Shawn was glad that we had accomplished as much as we had. Actually, it did look nice and was a nice accent to their house. It was time for me to pack up tools, my paint brush, (my crabby attitude) and head back home. I had peak out myself for this trip.
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