Best Wood Siding for Rain Screen Systems

Written by Chris Nolan on Thu, Nov 1, 2012 @ 09:11 AM

We are often asked what the best wood siding species are to use in a wood rainscreen system. The answer depends on what your design and construction goals are. You are free climate-shield-rainscreen-siding-system-on-commercial-building-1 to design and build with the siding material of your choice. When selecting your siding material, however, there are several factors you may want to consider carefully: the stability of the wood siding species and the durability of the siding (how long it will last outdoors) are the two most critical factors. After that, you can choose siding to meet your tastes, color scheme and project budget.

Stability of the Wood Siding Species

In an open joint hidden fastener rainscreen application such as the Climate-Shield Rainscreen system, the stability of the wood siding species is the single most important criteria. All wood species are naturally hygroscopic (water absorbing) and will exhibit a certain amount of tangential (widthwise) expansion and contraction with fluctuations in moisture content. Some species exhibit more movement with changes in moisture content than others.

Stability of wood siding is particularly important in coastal applications and temperate climates such as the Northeast and Pacific Northwest. The size of the siding boards plays an important role, too. At some width, all wood species may exhibit enough movement for hidden fasteners to become visible between courses of siding. The stability of the wood species is the limiting factor to determine the maximum appropriate width of the siding material. To work effectively in the Climate-Shield rain screen system, it is imperative that the wood species selected is stable enough to exhibit less than 1/8” expansion or contraction. Higher density hardwood siding species such as Ipe, Machiche, Santa Maria and Garapa exhibit remarkable stability and work particularly well in rainscreen systems.

Durability of the Wood Siding Material

The marine grade aluminum clips of the Climate-Shield Rain Screen system are manufactured to last indefinitely in a properly designed and constructed rainscreen system, so why not use a siding material that will last as long as the rest of the system? While a wood rainscreen system will extend the lifetime of the siding, the more durable the siding species, the longer the life expectancy of the siding material. The longer a siding system lasts lowers the overall life cycle cost of the system. There are a wide range of very good wood siding options for a rain screen application.

Highly Stable and Durable Wood Siding Species

We have selected the following species due to our long experience with their beauty, stability and durability: Ipe, Cumaru, Garapa, FSC Machiche and FSC Santa Maria. We are confident of the performance of these siding materials when properly milled. We can provide any of these wood siding materials, with no reservations whatsoever, up to 6” nominal width (4-7/8” coverage).

Ipe hardwood siding, with its darker brown range of colors and exotic graining makes a stunning rainscreen wood siding material. Ipe is highly stable and highly durable and is an excellent choice as a wood siding species. Ipe is also rated as a Class A fire resistant siding material.

Garapa hardwood siding is a honey blonde to light amber colored high density hardwood species. Garapa is durable and highly stable, making garapa wood siding an outstanding choice for a rainscreen cladding material where a lighter color is desired.

Machiche hardwood siding and its chocolate brown coloring is another terrific rainscreen wood siding species. Machiche siding is strong, handsome and very durable. With its high stability, FSC Certified Machiche siding is often selected for rainscreen systems.

FSC Santa Maria hardwood siding is an architect’s dream species for rainscreen systems. Santa Maria looks almost identical to genuine mahogany except for its lighter tan coloration. Not a problem - Santa Maria is a medium-high density siding and takes a stain extremely well. Santa Maria siding can be stained many colors to match or complement exterior color schemes. Santa Maria is quarter sawn and kiln dried for remarkable stability.