Benefits of Cedar Siding
Red cedar siding makes for a handsome house, but are there other benefits to using the material?
Yup.
You might not think of wood as an eco-friendly choice (cutting down trees is evil, isn’t it?), but according to Greening Your Home, “few materials go from raw natural resources to finished products with fewer steps than cedar.”
The book goes on to point out that “production of wood products takes up roughly four percent of the energy used in making building materials.” And of course trees can be–and are being–replanted and grown again.
Other benefits of red cedar siding are that the material is “dimensionally stable,” meaning it rarely shrinks, swells, or warps, making it popular even in damp climates such as the Pacific Northwest (a cedar sided house blends nicely with all our evergreens).
The downside to cedar is that it’s more expensive than treated lumber and many other siding materials. Also, you need to apply a surface finish unless you want your siding to age to its natural silver gray color.











