Birch Bay Siding Cedar Siding: A Fair Look at an Old Favorite
Cedar has been used on Pacific Northwest homes for generations, and it's easy to see why. Western red cedar is naturally resistant to decay compared to other softwoods, it takes stain beautifully, it has real insulating value, and there's nothing quite like the look of natural wood grain on a home. If a customer asks us about cedar, we're not going to pretend it's a bad material. It isn't. But we don't install it, and we think homeowners in Birch Bay deserve an honest explanation of why.
What Cedar Gets Right
- Appearance: Real wood grain and color variation that manufactured products can only imitate.
- Natural rot resistance: Cedar's natural oils give it better decay resistance than pine, fir, or spruce.
- Workability: It's light, easy to cut and fit, and forgiving for custom trim details.
- Renewable material: Properly harvested cedar is a renewable resource.
Those are real advantages, and they're the reason cedar still has a following. The problem isn't what cedar is on the day it's installed — it's what happens to it over the following fifteen or twenty years on a home that sits a few blocks from Semiahmoo Bay or the Strait of Georgia.
Why Birch Bay's Climate Is Hard on Wood Siding
Whatcom County's marine climate is exactly the kind of environment that wears wood siding down faster than a spec sheet suggests. A few specific factors matter here:
Salt Air
Homes close to Birch Bay's shoreline are exposed to salt-laden air moving in off the water. Salt is hygroscopic — it pulls moisture out of the air and holds it against surfaces. On wood siding, that means the wood stays damp longer after every fog, rain, or overnight dew, which is exactly the condition that promotes decay, cupping, and finish breakdown. It also corrodes fasteners and hardware faster than in a dry inland climate.
Driving Rain
Storms coming off the Pacific don't just fall straight down here — wind-driven rain gets pushed sideways into siding, working its way behind laps, into end-grain cuts, and around fasteners. Cedar's natural oils protect the face of the board reasonably well, but end grain and cut edges are far more absorbent, and those are exactly the spots that take the brunt of driving rain on a lap-sided wall.
A Long Moss Season
Between the fall rains and the short, cool, often overcast Whatcom County spring, a lot of homes go months without their north- and west-facing walls fully drying out. That's ideal growing conditions for moss, algae, and mildew — organisms that thrive on organic material like wood and hold moisture against the surface even longer once established. Keeping cedar clean and sealed against that cycle is a recurring job, not a one-time task.
The Maintenance Reality
Cedar siding isn't a "paint it once and forget it" product. To hold up in a climate like ours, it needs:
- Re-staining or sealing on a regular cycle — typically every 3 to 5 years, sometimes sooner on sun- and salt-exposed elevations.
- Regular washing to keep moss and mildew from taking hold, especially on shaded or north-facing walls.
- Prompt caulking and touch-up wherever boards check, split, or pull away from fasteners.
- Careful attention to any spot where water can sit — bottom edges, butt joints, and areas behind trim.
Skip a maintenance cycle or two — which happens more often than not once the excitement of a new exterior wears off — and cedar starts cupping, checking, and graying unevenly. Once moisture gets past the finish and into the wood itself, rot can set in from the inside out, often before it's visible from the ground.
Combustibility
Wood siding is also a combustible material. That's a straightforward physical fact, not a knock on cedar specifically, but it's part of our overall standard: we install non-combustible siding on every home, and that rules out wood products across the board.
Why We Standardized on James Hardie Instead
We made the decision to install James Hardie fiber cement siding exclusively, and cedar's climate sensitivity is a big part of that decision. Hardie's fiber cement is engineered specifically for wet, coastal climates like ours through its HZ5 product line, it's non-combustible, and it comes with a factory-applied ColorPlus finish backed by a real transferable warranty — so you're not stuck on a re-staining schedule to protect your investment. It won't cup, split, or feed moss the way wood does, and it holds its look through the salt air, driving rain, and long damp stretches that define a Birch Bay winter and spring.
We'd rather tell you upfront why we don't install a product than sell you something we know needs more upkeep than most homeowners plan for. If you're weighing siding options for a home in Birch Bay or anywhere in Whatcom County, we're happy to walk through what we'd recommend for your specific house — no pressure, no obligation. Reach out for a free estimate and we'll give you a straight answer.