Replacing Cedar Siding on Michigan Home: What Homeowners Should Know
- Lake Effect Exteriors
- 5 hours ago
- 9 min read
There is a big difference between replacing siding on a house and replacing siding on an older house where the siding is part of the architecture.
That distinction matters especially with cedar.
Across Michigan, there are homes where cedar shingles, cedar lap siding, and original wood trim are not simply exterior materials. The size of the boards, the reveal, the texture, and the way everything is detailed around the windows and rooflines are part of what gives the house its character.
When that siding finally reaches the point where replacement makes more sense than another round of repairs or painting, homeowners are faced with a difficult question:
How do you improve the exterior without making the house look like something it was never meant to be?
We run into this regularly on older homes throughout Southeast Michigan.
The answer is not necessarily to put cedar back on the house. It is also not automatically to replace it with whatever siding product is easiest to install.
The right answer starts with understanding what made the original exterior work in the first place.
Start With the House, Not the Siding Sample
One of the easiest mistakes to make during an exterior remodel is choosing a siding product first and then trying to make the house work around it. On an older home, we prefer to work in the opposite direction.
Before deciding what should replace the cedar, look at what is already there.
How wide are the existing boards or shingles?
What is the reveal?
Is the siding smooth or textured?
How thick and substantial is the window trim?
Are there original corner boards, frieze boards, crown details, water tables, or other trim elements?
Are the gables sided differently from the main elevations?
Those details can be easy to overlook when they have been on the house for 80 or 100 years, but changing them all at once can completely alter the appearance of the home.
Sometimes the best siding replacement is the one where someone drives past afterward and cannot immediately tell that the exterior has been redesigned.
It simply looks like a better version of the house that was already there.
Why Cedar Siding Eventually Needs Attention
Cedar can last a long time when it is properly installed and maintained.
But it is still wood. Over decades of Michigan weather, cedar siding can begin showing problems such as peeling finishes, splitting, cupping, loose shingles, deteriorated edges, rot, and moisture damage.
The areas that usually tell the story first are the places where water has the easiest opportunity to sit or get behind the siding:
Around windows and doors
Near roof-to-wall intersections
At the bottom of walls
Around decks and porches
Near gutters and downspouts
Behind vegetation
Around improperly flashed penetrations
A few damaged boards do not necessarily mean an entire house needs to be resided. But once deterioration becomes widespread, homeowners can reach a point where they are repeatedly paying to scrape, repair, caulk, replace individual pieces, and repaint an exterior that is still continuing to age underneath. That is usually when the replacement conversation begins.
Should You Replace Cedar With Cedar?
Sometimes.
If maintaining the original material is the highest priority, real cedar remains an option.
There is something about genuine wood siding that manufactured products cannot completely duplicate. Cedar can be stained, painted, repaired individually, and detailed in ways that are completely appropriate for historic architecture.
For certain restoration projects, putting cedar back may be the right decision.
But homeowners should also understand what comes with that choice.
Cedar requires ongoing maintenance.
Painted cedar will eventually need to be repainted. Stained cedar needs to be maintained. Moisture management remains important. Individual shingles or boards can deteriorate over time. That does not make cedar a bad material. It simply means homeowners need to decide whether maintaining natural wood is something they want to continue doing for the next several decades.
For some people, the answer is absolutely yes. For others, the goal is to preserve the look of the cedar without continuing with the same maintenance cycle.
That is where alternative siding products become interesting.
LP SmartSide as a Cedar Replacement
LP SmartSide is one of the products we frequently consider when the homeowner wants to move away from traditional cedar while maintaining a more substantial, wood-oriented appearance.
It is an engineered wood siding product rather than solid cedar, but it gives us a lot of flexibility when working with older architecture.
Depending on the home and the profile selected, LP SmartSide can be used to recreate traditional lap siding, board-and-batten designs, shake siding, and substantial exterior trim.
One of the things we like about it on older homes is that the conversation does not have to stop at choosing a siding color.
We can look at the proportions of the original exterior and think about:
Siding reveal
Smooth versus textured finishes
Window trim dimensions
Corner boards
Frieze details
Gables
Soffit and fascia
How different siding profiles interact
That makes it useful on projects where maintaining the character of the home is a priority. We recently encountered exactly that situation on a cedar-shingled home in Huntington Woods.
The homeowner wanted to replace the existing cedar but did not want to lose the smaller shingle reveal and smooth appearance that gave the house its character.
That project ultimately became an early test installation of LP SmartSide's 8-inch Brushed Smooth Shake profile.
What made that project interesting was not simply that the product was new.
It was that the entire product decision started with the architecture of the house. That is how we believe these decisions should be made.
What About Fiber Cement?
Fiber cement is another option worth considering.
Architecturally, it can work well on certain older homes As with any siding product, though, the profile and detailing matter. The fact that a product is high quality does not automatically mean every profile will look right on every home.
If the original house has a particular cedar reveal or very specific trim proportions, we still need to look at whether the available fiber-cement profiles reproduce that appearance closely enough.
That is why we generally prefer comparing actual samples and dimensions on the house instead of choosing based solely on a manufacturer's photograph.
Can You Replace Cedar With Vinyl Siding?
Yes.
Vinyl is generally less expensive than many engineered-wood or fiber-cement siding systems and requires relatively little ongoing maintenance. There are also significantly better vinyl products available today than many homeowners associate with older vinyl siding
.
The question on an older home is usually less about whether vinyl can be installed and more about what happens to the architecture when it is.
If the original home has thick cedar siding, deep window trim, narrow reveals, or detailed woodwork, a basic vinyl installation can flatten some of those details. That does not mean vinyl cannot be used well.
It means the contractor needs to think beyond simply covering the walls.
On a house where architectural character is important, trim dimensions, accessories, transitions, siding profile, and overall scale become especially important.
The Siding Reveal Matters More Than Most Homeowners Realize
This is one of the details we pay particular attention to on older homes. The reveal is the amount of each siding course that remains visible after the next course overlaps it.
Changing the reveal changes the number of horizontal lines across an elevation.
That can dramatically change how large or small the house appears. Imagine an older cedar-shingled house with relatively small individual exposures. Now replace those with a much larger siding profile. Technically, both materials may be described as shake siding. Visually, they can feel completely different.
The same principle applies to lap siding. A narrower traditional reveal can create a very different exterior than a wide contemporary siding course. There is no universally correct reveal.
The important thing is understanding how the new siding relates to the proportions of the house.
Do Not Forget the Trim
We often see homeowners spend months comparing siding products while barely thinking about trim. On an older house, we would argue that the trim can be every bit as important as the siding.
Look at an original window on a well-preserved older home.
The casing probably has depth.
There may be a sill.
There may be a header detail.
Corners may have substantial boards rather than thin accessories.
Rooflines may include frieze boards or other transitions that visually separate the wall from the soffit.
If all of those elements are simplified during the siding replacement, the house can lose much of its original character even if the siding itself is a good product. Whenever possible, we document the existing exterior before demolition.
That gives us something to reference when deciding which details should be preserved, recreated, simplified, or intentionally changed.
What Is Behind the Cedar Matters Too
The architecture is only half of the story. The other half is what we discover when the cedar starts coming off. Older Michigan homes can have very different wall assemblies depending on when they were built and what work has been done over the years.
Once the siding is removed, we may find:
Original wood plank sheathing
Fiberboard
Plywood or OSB from a previous remodel
Old building paper
Little or no modern weather-resistive barrier
Previous window modifications
Old flashing details
Isolated rot
Insect damage
Layers of siding from different eras
This is one reason we are cautious about treating siding replacement as purely cosmetic. The new siding is only the outermost layer of a wall system. If there are water-management problems behind it, that is the time to address them. Installing beautiful new siding over deteriorated sheathing or bad flashing simply hides a problem that will eventually come back.
Pay Particular Attention to Windows and Doors
Older homes often become most complicated around openings.
Over the life of the house, windows may have been replaced once, twice, or several times.
Original wood windows may have been changed to replacement windows.
Trim may have been wrapped in aluminum.
Old flashing may have been disturbed.
New siding may also be thicker or detailed differently than the material being removed.
Every one of those conditions affects how we approach the new installation. We want water to be directed out and away from the wall, while also making sure the finished trim does not look like an afterthought. That combination of water management and architectural detailing is one of the areas where careful planning matters most.
Think Twice Before Covering Everything in Aluminum
Older homes frequently have original exterior wood trim that has been wrapped in aluminum during a previous remodeling project. Wrapping trim can reduce maintenance, and there are places where it makes sense.
But we do not automatically believe that every piece of original wood should disappear under aluminum.
Sometimes removing old cladding reveals trim worth restoring or recreating.
Other times the existing wood is too deteriorated and replacement is the practical answer. The important point is to make the decision intentionally. Once original trim dimensions and details are removed, getting that character back later can become considerably more difficult.
When Should You Repair Cedar Instead of Replacing It?
Replacement is not always the right answer.
If most of the siding is still sound and the deterioration is isolated, repair may make more sense.
We would consider repair when:
Damage is limited to relatively small areas
The existing cedar is otherwise in good condition
The homeowner wants to maintain the original material
Matching cedar is available
Moisture problems causing the damage can be corrected
The existing paint or stain system is still manageable
Replacement starts making more sense when deterioration is widespread, maintenance is becoming constant, large sections have already been repaired repeatedly, or the homeowner simply does not want to continue maintaining a natural wood exterior.
There is no magic age where cedar suddenly needs to come off.
The condition of the actual house should drive that decision.
A Good Cedar Replacement Should Still Look Like Your House
This is really the point that ties everything together. There is no single “best siding” for every older Michigan home.
Real cedar may be right for one house.
LP SmartSide may be right for another.
Vinyl may be entirely appropriate on another project.
What we do not like is making the material decision in isolation.
If you own an older home, take a photograph of the exterior before you start looking at siding samples.
Look at why you like the house.
Maybe it is the cedar shingles.
Maybe it is the narrow lap siding.
Maybe it is the window trim.
Maybe it is the way the gables are detailed.
Maybe it is something you have never consciously noticed until you start imagining it gone.
Those are the details worth talking about before demolition starts. A successful exterior remodel does not necessarily need to preserve every original piece of material. But it should understand what is being replaced.
Replacing Cedar Siding in Michigan
At Lake Effect Exteriors, we work on cedar-sided homes throughout Michigan and regularly help homeowners compare siding profiles, trim options, finishes, and exterior details.
As an LP SmartSide Preferred Contractor, we have a wide range of profiles and design options available to help preserve the character of homes while updating its exterior.
Our job is to look at the architecture, condition of the existing exterior, maintenance expectations, budget, and goals of the homeowner and determine what makes the most sense for the project.
If you are considering replacing cedar siding on a Michigan home, we would be happy to take a look at the exterior and talk through the options with you.
