From Bob Formisano,
Your Guide to Home Repair.
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Wood Plank and Beveled Wood Siding
Wood clapboard siding is among the oldest types of home siding. You can see its beauty on older and historic homes. Its disadvantage is that it is not low maintenance, requiring painting and caulking and is often replaced with aluminum or vinyl siding. Frequently when that happens, a lot of the charm and detail of the wood home is lost.

So if you own a wood clapboard home you probably own a beautiful home, and as you know keeping it looking good requires taking care of paint problems and regular exterior paint maintenance. And there are often special considerations for painting historic homes.

Aesthetics

• Wide variety of styles, textures and finishes.
• Wood clapboard or beveled siding is horizontal and has overlapping joints.
• Wood plank or board siding is vertical and comes in board and batten, board on board or channel-groove or tongue and groove styles.
• Board siding also comes in a plywood version often called T-111® which is just exterior plywood with different face treatments and groove patterns to emulate a traditional board and batten design.

Characteristics

• Fairly easy to repair but difficult to install over existing siding.
• Requires an exterior finish such as paint or stain.
• Can be damaged by rot, insects, warping or splitting.

Cost

• Cost varies widely by type of wood species and style of siding and exterior finish.
• T-111 is least expensive.
• Generally moderate in price.

Maintenance

• Painted finishes tend to require higher maintenance and require good exterior house painting preparation.
• Wood siding is prone to paint problems if the home is not properly ventilated.
• Stained finishes usually require lower maintenance.