I found this article on The Craftsman Blog and wanted to share it: https://thecraftsmanblog.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-wood-siding/
Wood siding has been ubiquitous with home construction for thousands of years. From home as rustic as the log cabins built by earlier settlers to the grand Georgian Style mansions wood siding has played a pivotal role in its many shapes and forms. In this post I’ll teach you a bit about the history and the designs that have been popular through the different historical time periods and commercial available historic wood siding patterns still available today.
Identifying the name of the siding on your house can help you immensely as you search for the inevitable replacements you’ll need over the years due to repairs and rot.
CLAPBOARD SIDING
One of the simplest forms of wood siding, clapboard are essentially just solid dimensioned lumber that are installed horizontally in a shingling effect from the bottom to the top of the wall.
Clapboard do not have rabbets or other patterns milled into them. They are historically around 3/4″ thick and come in varying widths. Some of the most popular are 6″ and 8″ widths.
Historically, clapboard was face nailed through both boards at the overlap, but unless the board are vertical grain old-growth wood it’s wisest to nail through only on board with each nail to allow for movement of the wood.
BEVEL SIDING
Similar in appearance to clapboard siding, bevel siding is a flat board cut into an isosceles triangle and attached horizontally to the wall with the thicker side toward the bottom.
Bevel siding uses lumber more efficiently than clapboards since you can usually get two beveled siding boards out of one clapboard during the milling process.
Bevel siding overlaps the course below it by an inch or more and is face nailed just like clapboards. Bevel siding is most often found is widths of 6″ and 8″ though it is not uncommon to find examples with 10″ or 12″ wide boards.
\
NOVELTY DROP SIDING
There are several types of drop siding similar to this design, but historically, novelty drop was the most popular. Created in the 19th century with the advent of the industrial revolution and the vastly improved mechanization of lumber mills novelty drop siding hit its stride in the 1870s and was immensely popular until the 1930s and is still used today.
Novelty drop siding is characterized by the Dutch inspired swoop at the top and a hidden rabbet at the bottom like shiplap to allow it to be self-spacing unlike clapboard and bevel siding.
Novelty drop patterns became standardized in the 1910s as lumber manufacturers began talking more and choosing standard profiles. Homes built before this period may have slight regional differences in the size and shape of the swoop.
BOARD & BATTEN SIDING
Unlike the horizontal siding options we’ve discussed above, board and batten siding is a vertical wood siding made by installing vertical boards (usually 8″+ wide) along horizontal nailing strips let into the wall framing. The boards are installed with edges butt against each other with a slight gap for expansion and the joint is covered with a smaller vertical “batten” that is usually between 1″ and 2″ wide.
Common as an accent in gable ends of styles like the American Bungalow, Gothic Revival houses as well as other vernacular cottage style houses. It was one of the first types of milled siding available in the mid-19th century due to the simplicity of the milling process.
The picture above shows the siding from the top view rather than from the side like the other illustrations in this post since board and batten siding is one of the few wood sidings that is installed vertically.
CLICK for the full article from The Craftsman Blog