When it comes to natural building materials, the most obvious and common example is wood.

Being a truly amazing and versatile resource able to replicate itself through photosynthesis and boasting an amazing diversity of uses, it's no wonder we've relied so heavily upon wooden construction techniques throughout history. Historically, large timbers were used as the vertical posts and others for framing members. Many buildings in Europe and North America highlight huge timbers that don't have modern counterpart; we've cut all the primary growth down.

With the modern invention of saw mills, fossil fuels and an influx of cheap unskilled labor in the work forces, we've veered away from custom homes where highly skilled housewrights would fell trees for specific framing members and knew how to work word. We've replaced this with mechanized and standardized practices like stick framing (think 2x4 studs under drywall) which relies very heavily on manufactured materials. Let's not even get into the ubiquitous vinyl siding that plagues North America...

Siding a building with live edge lumber is a sound and elegant solution to expensive and polluting products.

The siding (aka cladding) of a building is like a skin, its main function is to shed water and prevent the frame from racking or shifting out of plum (unless otherwise braced). There are many ways to do this, but few conventional options are ecologically sound. Live or waney edge lumber is created by cutting a log without squaring it on both sides. This creates an even board and uses the timber very efficiently.

It also makes for really sexy looking siding.

The boards are cut at 1/2 - 3/4" thickness and are laid horizontally, over lapping the previous courses. The boards can be as wide as the timber they wee cut from. Techniques and material differ, but somewhere around 2" of overlap.

Place based building

When we set about to build or solar shed, we decided to side it with cedar from our land. Truly a local resource. Some large cedars were growing in the clearing that we are transitioning to gardens, so we decided to fell and harvest them. We honor and respect the life of these great trees so we made sure to offer proper prayers and thanksgiving before dropping these gorgeous trees.

Once they were down and limbed we tried out milling with a chainsaw mill attachment.

This is a guiding bar that bolts onto the bar of a chainsaw, turning it into a mini mill of sorts. It is a very low-cost way to mill lumber on site, but it takes a lot of time! We began by creating a square top cut using a ladder as a straight edge, then following that guide with future cuts. Using a less aggressive ripping chain sharpened at 15 degrees we set to work cutting boards. It was amazing to see a log turned into siding, but it was a slow, messy and exhaust-filled job that got old fast.

Luckily there was a mill onsite during the filming of Discovery Channel's Homestead Rescue that visited and aided our place in May 2017, and we turned several logs into lumbers in short order. He squared one edge and sawed the logs like butter. Seeing the sawyer at work really deepened my appreciation for efficient machinery and folks who know how to use it!

He was kicking out logs like hot cakes.

Once the siding was milled the building was sided in no time. We made it by the skin of our teeth, every last scrap was used with nothing to spare. We simply screwed the flat edge of board to the stud 1/2 from the top. We weren't concerned about level as the boards varied substantially in width, and we wanted even overlapping more than level. We'd eyeball roughly 2" of overlap and screw it in, continuing all the way up. Corners were covered by 2 board screwed together to created an L.

It was so satisfying to see trees that grew 20' and 50' from the building find a new home as live edge siding.

The lumber miles on this siding were zero and the overall cost was almost nothing (the cost of running the chainsaw and mill, maybe 2 gallons).

Of course we still had to buy screws.

The siding gives the square building a decidedly wavy organic feel, which suits our style more than rigid lines. We couldn't be happier with how it turned out. We most likely will use this technique again.

This post is from a member of the #ecotrain ... Check out the #ecotrain tag daily for some high flying eco friendly amusement and intelligentsia!