Cedar Shake Siding

The Beauty of Red Cedar Shake Siding

In the taiga or boreal biomes, inhabitants have the luxury of wood, making wood the most available resources. And from this taiga culture came several coveted ideas of home design. One that made so much of an impact was the shake.

Shakes, shingles, both terms are loosely used; oftentimes they mean the same. Shakes are made by splitting log portions into pieces that are usually 3/8" x 3" x 14" in dimension. Accumulating a significant amount of these shingles, it will then be sufficient to cover design a siding or roofing such as the examples seen on the link below.

Shake Roof: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Shakeroof.jpg
Shake Siding: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Wood_shingles.jpg

At a glance, shake designs isn't particularly eye-catching. However, the homey warmth that all shake designs seem to emulate makes it the most picturesque of all designs truly rustic.

Shakes are classically fashioned from red cedar which is quite plentiful even in the past. However, modern shakes have employed other materials as sources for red cedar becomes less sustainable.

The Beauty of Red Cedar Shake Siding

Red cedar, with all its inherent properties, makes the perfect building material and the most coveted one. It has an innate anti-decaying agent. It has a resin typically intended to protect it from invaders like moth that bore holes into its trunks. This natural insect repellant resin, called Thujaplicins, superbly protects it also from fungal invasion and decay. Notably known for its tensile strength, the Red Cedar also is very resistant to warps, cracking, and twisting. In fact, its bark is being used extensively as rope material which supplies fishing lines and twine. Another positive property is its being hygroscopic. That makes red cedar surprisingly insulating, keeping the elements like cold and wet away.

Lastly, Red Cedar is downright gorgeous. With its staining by age, it only gets prettier though steps to preserve the wood's condition should be employed. All in all, these qualities make Red Cedar exemplary as a siding material.

With supplies approaching low, prices for Cedar Shake Siding materials are mounting accordingly. But with renowned online retailer like the Western Red Cedar Lumber Association at www.wrcla.org/index.htm, at least you're getting the value of what your paying for.

Even with its existence for the better part of the millennia, the red cedar shake siding is still the most coveted wood siding design. Choose to do a cedar shake siding, and you'll know the reason why a timeless idea such as this remains classic.