Wood siding re-use options?

[davidfite1978]

I have a (roughly) 30x40 shop that has 30+ year old wood siding on it. It used to be white. Now it's a little black/moldy in a few places, but mostly just getting old and coming apart.

My plan is to put new siding up and a new roof this year. I'm trying to cut down on my waste so I don't have so many trips to the dump. My thought is to remove the siding, cut and dispose all the bad pieces, and then pressure wash it. I was thinking about using it to make a ceiling in the shop, or to use for inside "paneling" after I get insulation in the walls.

Any thoughts?

 

[ratdoggy]

Can you just flip it so the good side is out? I redid my deck and a lot of the pieces were nice on the other side and the nail holes lined right up

 

[davidfite1978]

The wood is rounded on the outside and flat on the backside, so I don't think there's any way to do it easily. The plywood on the gable area is in terrible shape, and there's nothing under the siding, so I think the best thing for the long-term stability of the shop is to remove it all completely and put something back up correctly and "new". It really needs a completely facelift unfortunately. Contractor told me 5000 for roof and 7500 for vinyl siding. I'm going to do it all myself (new roof and smartside 4x8 paneling) for 5000 or less I think.

 

[G McKay]

You can do a little at a time and it won't take such a large chunk of money all at once. I wouldn't use plywood for the outside, though. It doesn't hold up too well in the weather. I would go more with solid pine siding instead of plywood. It will last a lot longer.

 

[bareass172]

If you don't have enough to do paneling on the entire wall inside you could always just do a bead board look, just the bottom 3 feet or so with a molding on top. This might also make it so you could cut 3 foot "good" sections while trashing any bad spots that might be in between. Just a thought!

As for the outside, I'm not a contractor anymore but my buddy replaced his siding with a concrete product. You still have the same maintenance of paint and such, but the concrete won't deteriorate over time like wood and need replacing. My folks actually just had their cedar shakes replaced with the same type of product.

 

[davidfite1978]

If you don't have enough to do paneling on the entire wall inside you could always just do a bead board look, just the bottom 3 feet or so with a molding on top. This might also make it so you could cut 3 foot "good" sections while trashing any bad spots that might be in between. Just a thought!

-Good idea!

Thanks for all the thoughts and ideas. Just to clarify (not sure I explained exactly what I was going to do correctly...) The outside has siding on the walls, and plain old plywood for the gables (assuming I'm using the right word there... the triangular section where the roof is at an angle). I'm going to rip all of that off, put OSB/housewrap/smartside 4x8 paneling up on the outside everywhere from top to bottom.

I used that smartside 4x8 paneling at my last residence on a 14x20 shop I built and it worked pretty well. Plus Lowe's gives it a 50year warranty, so I figure with regular maintenance it'll do what I need it to.

 

[roscoe2000]

I think siding the re-used for inside paneling or ceiling with it patena would add a rustic character to interior. Ideally the walls would work best than the ceiling. For the ceiling a light color would help with light reflection.

You could use section or pieces of flat black painted ply wood to back up with small to medium gaps, rot, knot hole and ect, could be.

Just my 2 cents

 

[davidfite1978]

Just to close out this thread, I didn't re-use the siding. Once I started tearing it off, I realized just how bad of shape it was in. Lots of water damage, some mold, and splitting. Would've been entirely too much work for very little gain.

 

[upndown]

David, thanks for closing out your thread! Too often guys just abandon a thread and we never hear the final outcome.