Cedar Shingle & Clapboard Siding in Newton, Brookline & Wellesley

Cedar shingles, shakes or clapboard?

• Shingles are sawn smooth on both faces and laid with about five inches showing. They wrap corners well and suit Capes and shingle-style houses.
• Shakes are split, not sawn, so they are thicker and rougher. They cast deeper shadows but need wider joints and a breathable underlayment, because the rough face holds water longer.
• Clapboard is a beveled board, thin at the top and thick at the butt, each course lapping the one below. It gives Colonials and two-families in Newton and Brookline their clean lines; vertical-grain boards hold paint far better than flat-grain.

On a repair we match what is there. On a new wall we help you choose.

White cedar vs red cedar

Eastern white cedar is the local shingle: light, close-grained, weathering to the silver-gray you see on the Cape. It is shorter and thinner than red cedar, so it goes on at a tighter exposure.

Western red cedar comes in longer, wider pieces with more natural oils. It stays darker, takes stain well, and is the usual stock for shakes and clapboard.

Grade matters as much as species: clear, vertical-grain stock has no knots and moves less. We name both on the estimate; see how we build a siding estimate.

Paint, stain or let it weather?

Paint seals the wood and gives you any color; it holds well on back-primed, vertical-grain clapboard. Once the film lifts, though, water gets behind it, and the next coat only lasts if the old one is scraped and primed properly.

Stain, solid or semi-transparent, soaks in instead of forming a film, so it fades rather than peels and recoats with less scraping.

Natural weathering suits white cedar shingles. They gray faster on the sunny and windward sides, so a north wall can stay brown while the south wall silvers; a clear coat or bleaching oil evens that out, and we do that work too.

Back-priming: the step you cannot see

Wood siding fails from the back as often as the front. Moisture from inside the house and rain driven under the courses get behind the boards; if the back face is bare, the board swells and pushes the paint off the front.

Back-priming means every clapboard and shingle gets primer or sealer on the back and ends before it goes up, and fresh cuts are primed on site, because bare end grain drinks water fastest. With housewrap and flashing at every window and corner, that is what keeps a wall holding paint.

How long cedar lasts here, and what cuts it short

Cedar can outlast the people who put it up, as long as water gets out faster than it gets in. What shortens its life here is neglect: gutters overflowing down a wall, ice dams pushing meltwater behind the shingles, a split water table, or a failed caulk joint at a window casing.

Look at the siding each spring after the nor’easters: bottom courses, corners and the wall under each window, for soft spots, cupped boards or slipped shingles. Recoat before the finish fails. Gutters and roof repair are on our other exterior services page.

Where cedar fits: Newton, Brookline and Cape-style houses

Cedar is the right call when the house was built for it: clapboard Colonials and two-families in Newton Centre, Waban and West Newton, shingle-style houses in Chestnut Hill and Brookline, and the Capes in Wellesley, Needham and Dedham.

Parts of Newton and Brookline are local historic districts; before changing the siding material, the shingle exposure or a trim profile there, check with the town’s historical commission. We match exposure, corner boards and casings to what the house had. In Boston proper, exterior work generally goes through the city’s building permit.

Repair or replace?

Repair comes first in our name and first in our cedar work: most calls are a few boards, not a wall. Rotted clapboards under a window, split shingles on a corner or a soft water table can be cut out and replaced piece by piece, then primed and painted to match; that is the work on our wood and cedar siding repair and painting page. Full replacement makes sense when boards are cupped and splitting across whole walls, rot shows behind the trim in several places, or a past job skipped the housewrap. A texted photo of the wall usually settles which one you have; for the full-wall option see siding installation and replacement.

How it works

1. Call, text or send a photo. A shot of the problem wall and a wider one of the house help us tell repair from replacement.
2. Site visit and written estimate. We probe suspect boards, check flashing and corner boards, and look for rot behind the trim. The free estimate names species, grade, exposure and finish.
3. The work. We strip what has to go, repair soft sheathing, run housewrap and flashing, and install back-primed boards or shingles with stainless or hot-dipped galvanized nails. Paint, stain or clear coat follows.
4. Walk-through. You check every repaired course with us before the truck is loaded; offcuts, nails and scrapings leave with us.

Where we work

Cedar work keeps us close to home: the Newton villages are about 5–15 minutes from our base, Brookline about 10 minutes, and Wellesley and Needham about 15 minutes, and between them they hold most of the clapboard and shingle walls we are asked to repair or re-side. Farther out, the older shingled streets of Cambridge, about 20–25 minutes, and of Belmont and Arlington, about 20–30 minutes, send us steady cedar work as well. The whole territory is Boston and about 30 miles around Chestnut Hill; the service area page lists every town, and Newton, Brookline and Wellesley have pages of their own.

Text a photo of the wall to (857) 245-9588, call the same number, or get a free estimate online.

Where we work

Based in Chestnut Hill, we cover Boston and the towns within about 30 miles. First-wave town pages:

• Newton
• Brookline
• Boston
• Wellesley
• Needham
• Watertown
• Waltham
• Cambridge
• Belmont & Arlington
• Dedham & Westwood
• Milton & Quincy
• Somerville & Medford
• Full service area