In the ProTradeCraft LIVE Construction Demonstration Zone, we installed vertical and horizontal siding by Everlast.
Remodeler Michael Anschel and Daniel Franklin of Everlast go through the "what" and the "why," while carpenters Swede Carlander and Nick Balkcum show the "how" part of the equation.
TRANSCRIPT:
All right, well, let's get some siding up on the wall—what do you say?
Yes, sir. We're going to start with lap siding. We've got some stuff already prepped on the wall. Help us understand what we've got going on here.
So, first thing—you want to put up all your trim. If you're using two-piece trim, like in your soffits or like we did here for this transition, you want your starter, then your receivers, and all your trim up first.
Well, speaking of fastening—since they're going to be fastening this—is there a specific fastening pattern or a location for the fasteners?
So, we give you a pretty large gap—or, I should say, nail slot. It's a little over two inches. It's not because it moves like that, okay? That’s for air and framing that maybe isn't exactly 16 inches on center. If you want to hit a stud—great. If you're going into a subwall with 7/16" OSB or plywood, you don't have to hit a stud.
So, we've got space as it expands and contracts, for it to slide back and forth. And this corner has got a pretty nice pocket in it. By the way, I absolutely love your corners. The outside corner seems straightforward—it’s big, it’s beautiful—we fasten it, and it looks gorgeous.
So what happens now—say I've got a nice long run, a 30-foot wall. My siding doesn't come in 30-foot lengths, and I’ve got to marry two pieces together.
You can see here they're coming up to where they're doing a butt joint. So it is a butt joint—there is a joint there—but what we've done is come up with a bracket system. And it's very easy. The bracket—do we have one on hand?
We're going to borrow Nick's bracket.
So, this is what we call our seam bracket. A few years ago, you’d have loose screws in a box with a stainless steel bracket. These are corrosion-free screws and brackets. But now, we've taken and incorporated pre-loaded screws, and that bracket’s going to hold that seam tight. Now, it all becomes one course—everything moves as one, so you're not playing around with gaps.
So this is pretty slick—how it makes it into one piece—and the movement is identical across the system. We're not worried about that potentially opening up, correct?
Correct. With the Easy Stack technology—the way that stacks on—yep, you just get it on there, set it down, take your hands off, and fasten.
The lap siding goes horizontal, right? So, board and batten are vertical applications. Our horizontal panel—our lap siding—is around a quarter inch thick. The board and batten are a little thicker than that. It also has an integral batten, so you don’t have to attach a batten to a wooden panel. It’s all coming as one—it’s got a nice little interlock.
You're going to handle all of your expansion and contraction as you go up. You want that nice sightline at the bottom, so you’ll find out where you want your sightline if you want a balanced wall—awesome.
Now, this particular house—we’ve got a client who wanted two different colors: the first floor and the second floor. And with board and batten—unlike the lap siding—we’re not going to take a metal connection and extend that. You can’t stack these two directly on top of each other because of water management. You want to make sure everything’s sealed.
So what we do is recommend some kind of transition. You can use a J-pocket trim, you can use the perimeter trim, or we have what we call our T-molding, which is basically designed for doing an expansion joint.
Okay, so expansion joints are typically what you're doing when you have an extremely long wall system?
So if you’re over 60 feet in length, you’re going to want to control that expansion and contraction somehow. Expansion joints are one way to do it
What’s nice is the T-molding comes in all 15 colors, and it snaps in last. So, what you're going to do is control your siding by splitting the wall up in half. Let’s say it’s a 70-foot wall—somewhere around 35 feet, you’d put an expansion joint there for the transition. That gives you a cleaner look for a transition or a break in the wall.