Felt Paper Under Cedar Siding

I have seen literally hundreds of houses stripped of asbestos siding that had 15 felt under it.

Felt paper under cedar siding. The standard weather barrier used traditionally under wood vinyl and other siding materials is 15 pound felt. On walls it has been eclipsed in new construction by various brands of house wrap a woven or spun bonded plastic. Cedar shakes tend to be on the expensive side compared to asphalt shingles or concrete tile. Cedar shakes a stylish and sophisticated roofing material.

First off let s have a look at the drawbacks of cedar roofing since there are so few. Skip sheathing strapping is not amenable to continuous underlayment. Nowadays low cost 15 felt can weight as little as 8 to 12 pounds per square 100 sq. A continuous felt not plastic wrb is all that s required.

Tar paper also known as building felt is tar impregnated paper. They also require maintenance on a more frequent basis but nothing too drastic. They were built in the 1950s and 60s the felt was in perfect condition. For stucco the standard is two layers of grade d building paper.

I ve opened up houses built less than 5 years previous and the tyvek was shreaded like old newspaper. On a sidewall installation with cedar shingles sawn not split like shakes over solid sheathing interwoven felt is unnecessary as long as joints are offset at least one inch laterally. It is an age old choice as a weather barrier under roofing and siding. Consequently a high quality house wrap like barricade building wrap saves money and time over asphalt felt paper by reducing the need for repairs during the construction process.

Above was my post to demon now there are people here who say you can t use tyvek under cedar because of the tanins in the cedar will eat away at the tyvek. Felt paper also commonly referred to as tar paper is an underlayment material applied to bare walls before siding is installed. In fact many builders disagree on the effectiveness of house wraps altogether and while some builders will only install 15 pound asphalt saturated felt paper underneath exterior siding others swear by plastic fabric house wraps such as typar or tyvek.