Bevel Siding Calculator | Boards, Courses, Coverage

For seasoned pros, geometry meets waste. To you, a stack of cedar boards is just a collection of rectangle that are simple. The distinction between “on” budget and “over” budget often comes down to exposure.

What’s that? Exposure refers to how much vertical surface area of each board show when it laps over the board below. Not its entire width. If you have a 6-incher lapped at one-and-a-half inches, then all you’re getting on your wall is four-and-a-half inches. This becomes important because you don’t buy wood volume; you’re purchasing coverage.

How to Calculate Your Siding Materials

After you input the size of your walls and select your exposure, the calculator does all the math for you. The result turn the bare square footage into real world board and course counts. But before you take their word for it blindly, you should of know how to account for waste.

Building requires waste, and that is not a mistake. You’ll cut some boards short at corners. Some will have big knots or warp and get tossed out. Long boards will require joins that create leftover scraps you cannot use anywhere else on the wall. A typical waste factor should be around 10%. It doesn’t sound like much, but one in every ten board ends up as an odd scrap piece or pile of sawdust.

But if your elevation is complex, filled with many windows, doors, and gable returns, that percentage will increase more rapidy. The more openings there are in a given wall, the greater disruption in your course continuity. There will be more cuts. You will have fewer salvageable off-cuts for later walls. This is where the tool gets smart. You can enter how complicated your layout is and it’ll calculate a higher waste percentage accordingly. More complexity mean a larger buffer.

Although often forgotten at first estimate, fasteners can also be quite a big chunk of both materials and labor expense. Use two fasteners per board, driven into studs sixteen inches apart. Depending on the length of your boards and how far apart your studs are, the calculator find the total number of required screws/nails. Too few, and you compromise security; too many, and you risk splitting the wood and limiting its ability to expand and contract naturaly.

Cedar, especially, reacts to humidity changes: it shrinks in summer and expands in winter. Nail it down too tight, and it will either split or check (not good). It needs some room to move, which is why the rules for spacing and fastener type can not be changed. While the numbers are fairly equal, how the materials feel will vary.

For example, traditional houses is made with western red cedar because it’s light and forgiving. Fiber cement, in comparison, is heavy and dense. You’ll have to use sturdier fasteners, cutters, and depending on its difficulty to work with, sometimes a greater labor cost as well. This table (on the page) shows what weights mean. This helps you predict how much you might want to lift those bundles yourself or get some help with installation. And it points out the usual exposure range for each one, so that you know good looks meet good bones.

An error many homeowners make is measuring their total wall surface area, without subtracting anything for windows. Remember to deduct all openings. For instance, if you have a ten-foot by twelve-foot window, you’re saving yourself twelve square feet from your siding needs. If you forget about this deduction, then you order too much material and tie up your money as well as storage space. On the other hand, forgetting the addition will find you on day three without any boards left over for the corners.

The trick is balance: measure carefully, deduct openings correctly, then re-add the waste buffer at the end. It’ll also help you plan out the length of your boards. If there are long runs, boards will have to be spliced. Plan to stagger the joints so you don’t end up with a weak line running vertically through the pattern of the siding. For example, the layout tables offers ways to work with the seams (i.e., starting on an offcut of a previously used wall). That’s a small but important trick that really cuts down on the waste… And makes everything look like a pro did it.

The bottom line: Bevel siding is all about repetition and rhythm. The key is getting the exposure correct so that the lines are consistent throughout the whole house. Your initial order should be based off the estimator’s calculator as a good starting point but be ready to fine tune the estimate to match site conditions. Take proper measurements, account for waste, pick the right material for your area and go at it. What appears to be an effortless siding job was actualy quite calculated.