Barn Siding

Mike Tayse Is Siding His Barn

I should have taken more pictures.  The barn/carriage house was built 100 years ago and is a post and beam construction with exterior siding nailed to the posts and beams.  After 100 years the exterior siding was still in reasonable condition, but I want it to last a lot longer and I did not want to to continue painting it.  I chose to use steel siding for cost, ease of installation and maintenance.  Before I screwed the metal siding to the barn I screwed/secured the siding a bit more to the structure and sprayed the bottom edge with automotive undercoating, then I attached the bottom drip edge to the barn.

I did the barn in two rows of the steel siding.  Above you can see the first row screwed down and myself installing the j channel, where the piece on top slips up into.  If I was going to do it again, I'd install the bottom drip edge exactly parallel to the j channel, that way I could order up one long continuous piece of metal siding.  This was the first time I'd ever tried my hand at using steel roofing/siding.  I liked it, learned a lot, and I'm going to use it again.  Len Krashoc worked the job also, and it shortened a job that would have taken me a week+ to about 2 days.

Just a shot of myself standing on the lift I rented from Vandalia Rental.  It was the first time I had ever rented such a thing and it was 'kinda pricey.  $500.00+ for a weeks' rental plus drop off and pickup.  But it really enabled the job to get done better and quicker, I would/will do it again to finish the job next year.  You could raise it to 20 feet, although it gets pretty wiggly, and when lowered, you could drive it around to position it for siding installation. 

Hard to make out here, it's in the back alley, but Caleb stopped over after work and took it up and down, drove it around, etc., it's a fun tool. 

Here's a shot of the South side of the barn with the new siding all installed. If you look at the above pics, you can see I also removed a vent and an old window, at the top of the gable, and put in a new window.  The end wall looks good and 100% better than it did a week ago.  It's just a barn, but it looks real nice to me now, and it should be considerably less drafty this coming winter!

This is a shot of Len up to the roof edge, about 16 feet.  It gets wiggly up there, 20 feet is the max, I think.

You can see how the lift makes it easy to hang the siding, you just position the siding with a couple of screws, then run the lift up and down to do the rest of the screws.  Len ran the the screws in straighter rows than me. 

I was handing the sheets up until Len got the idea of placing the sheets on the rail of the lift, then raise the lift to get the sheets in place.  Still not easy, because you have to tuck the sheets into the j-channel, but easier.