Mitered corners with cedar siding

[Dick Seibert]

Re: Mitered corners with cedar siding

Joe:

That's unfair, you get away with R-11 walls in cold miserable New Jersey, while here in nice, calm, moderate California we have a minimum R-19.

[Joe Carola]

Re: Mitered corners with cedar siding

Joe:

That's unfair, you get away with R-11 walls in cold miserable New Jersey, while here in nice, calm, moderate California we have a minimum R-19.

They use R-13. Are you not allowed to frame with 2x4 exterior walls also?

[Lavrans]

Re: Mitered corners with cedar siding

Yes, 2x4 walls over living space when framing additions and houses. No code issue at all.

Bottom line is that 2x4 walls are used for exterior walls over living space in certain places where there is no insulation code issue.

Well, that would be why I mentioned code.

But, no, we're not allowed to use 2x4 even for additions- all new walls have to be a minimum of R-19, and any walls that get opened have to be insulated to R-13, but if the percentage of the house getting worked on is over a certain percentage, the entire house has to be brought up to R-19.

[Lavrans]

Re: Mitered corners with cedar siding

some say priming the whole back may not be a good idea,maybe better off just priming the lower third of the backside ,give the siding a little ''breathability''

i dont think its a good idea to nail into the end grain

Every primer I can think of is permeable. It'll breath. Painting both sides would be questionable, I suppose, especially if painting with an oil paint.

[Lavrans]

Re: Mitered corners with cedar siding

I agree, but because of the complexity of flashing rain screens everything around the fenestrations should be opened up and flashed like recessed windows

I agree- but that's also part of siding. I don't find the flashing any more difficult than when installing straight to sheathing. The sizes are just different.

I also remember them digging the white lead from the bottoms of their paint cans, putting it in tiny paint cans and giving it to us to put the white lead in our miters (we carved out the back of the miters with our linoleum knives). When working on these old mansions are you finding trim not back primed, yet finding white lead in the miters only?

I do find white lead in some of them. This house didn't- beautifully mitered siding, still tight, but no white lead. They did tack the bottom corners together. This house is basically built with a rainscreen- it's 1x6 CVG fir T&G sheathing, Cabott house quilt, furring strips, siding. Indoor plumbing is original, with the waste stacks directed to exterior columns (to keep the noise from being heard inside, I imagine). It was also built with a private bathroom and walk-in closet for the master bedroom, with shop-built custom clear aromatic Cedar cabinets throughout. Unfortunately, we took all those cabinets out, along with the bathroom that was still the original, mud-set tile wainscot, tub surround and separate shower, and private WC.

BTW- all the floors are built like the exterior walls- joist, shiplap, Cabott house quilt, furring strips, then flooring. It's very quiet in there.

BTW, by the time I was contracting I tried not to have the painters anywhere near the carpenters, I hate painting and all those smelly chemicals, I once asked a painting foreman why all painters were drunks, he said ti was because of smelling the fumes all day. .

That and how can you not want to be drunk when facing an endless series of days of filling nail holes, sanding and painting?

[Joe Carola]

Re: Mitered corners with cedar siding

Well, that would be why I mentioned code.

Yes, insulation code in your second post. I had no idea what code you were talking about when I first posted to you. I would have never thought that you would be talking about not be able to frame 2x4 walls because of an insulation code. This is a new one for me.

[Lavrans]

Re: Mitered corners with cedar siding

Yes, insulation code in your second post. I had no idea what code you were talking about when I first posted to you. I would have never thought that you would be talking about not be able to frame 2x4 walls because of an insulation code. This is a new one for me.

Well- I suppose it would be possible to get away with a 2x4 wall if using a spray-foam insulation that reaches the required value, but that would require an energy audit and wouldn't be all that straight-forward. Fairly annoying because I really don't think that this area needs to be insulated all that well, especially compared to NJ, for example.

[David Meiland]

Re: Mitered corners with cedar siding

it would be possible to get away with a 2x4 wall if using a spray-foam insulation that reaches the required value, but that would require an energy audit

You can frame with 2x4 and insulate with Corbond or another CCSPF product and get an R21 wall. You could also do it with 3" foil polyiso. Why would an energy audit be needed?

[Lavrans]

Re: Mitered corners with cedar siding

You can frame with 2x4 and insulate with Corbond or another CCSPF product and get an R21 wall. You could also do it with 3" foil polyiso. Why would an energy audit be needed?

Maybe it's different now, but that's what they asked for a few years ago. They didn't want to issue a permit for new living space framed with anything less than 2x6, even if using spray foam. Contended that spray foam couldn't achieve required value in a 2x4 wall. Might be different, perhaps I just got an irate official wielding what little power he had to maximum effect on that day.

I don't assume bureaucrats change much...

[David Meiland]

Re: Mitered corners with cedar siding

Hmmmm... whatever energy code is in effect at the time/place should dictate the presumed R-value of any particular assembly. The code official should open his book and read you the answer.

[Joe Carola]

Re: Mitered corners with cedar siding

Maybe it's different now, but that's what they asked for a few years ago. They didn't want to issue a permit for new living space framed with anything less than 2x6, even if using spray foam. Contended that spray foam couldn't achieve required value in a 2x4 wall. Might be different, perhaps I just got an irate official wielding what little power he had to maximum effect on that day.

I don't assume bureaucrats change much...

They are making up their own rules because depending on what structural code your following you can frame with 2x4 walls.Are you IRC? Are architects just not drawing them with 2x4 walls because they know the town you work in doesn't want them for insulation reasons?

[Lavrans]

Re: Mitered corners with cedar siding

Getting a little too far afield from mitered corners.

Yes, we're under IRC.
Yes, the architects just draw them as 2x6 walls.
Am I going to spend the time arguing with the code officials over that? When the cost of using 2x6 is less than the time it would take to argue the point? No.

Oh, and the increase in cost of bumping to 2x6 is less than the increase in cost of using spray foam. I only have a couple clients who're willing and able to spend the extra.

Last point- I'd much rather use the money putting the insulation on the outside of the house than filling up stud bays with spray foam and making it a nightmare to wire, plumb, etc.

So, I am probably wrong on this point, basing my assumption on a single past experience.

[Joe Carola]

Re: Mitered corners with cedar siding

Getting a little too far afield from mitered corners.

When you make a post saying that you don't think there's anywhere (where codes are in effect) where you can build a 2x4 exterior wall anymore without saying why until the next post do to insulation reasons, that will change the direction of the thread.

[Lavrans]

Re: Mitered corners with cedar siding

Sure will- thank you for setting ms straight on 2x4 construction under current code. Just something I'd allowed to become a rule w/o reference.

Still, no answer yet on whether it's an existing building or new.

So we can't know if Dicks suggestion to omit sheathing is plausible. I sure wouldn't spray foam directly onto the back side of siding- the idea of spraying it onto WRB directly behind siding also feels wrong as my knee-jerk reaction.

[tom struble]

Re: Mitered corners with cedar siding

ive only done 2 mitered corner cedar jobs,i used pl on the miteres,wiping off the excess with a rag dampened with the oil based cabots stain i was using,

any excess was easily pulled or trimmed off with a knife after it set up,

i used no fasteners in the joint,nailing the siding into the corner studs gave all the clamping pressure needed
i only have pics of this one,it was done 5years ago i was back there recently to close in the front porch and all the corners are still tight