Barn wall residing

In repairing a two-story city barn with a deteriorated wall, I'm proceeding with a residing project, and I'd like to remediate what I can along the way.

You may recall my question about rotted wood. I've since learned how you can handle rot, in some cases, with wood epoxy, and plan to use that where I can. Other wood may be sistered or replaced.

For the badly weathered wood in place, I'm considering doing a quick, light slap with deck cleaner -- although I question the value myself, and wonder whether the oxalic acid might hurt the wood further. I think it will help me determine what I need to fix a little better, though. At least I won't need to sand afterward.

The next step will be a coat of boiled linseed oil, to improve the wood's flexibility so it can accept fasteners. If I could do more than one coat, I would, but I think just the one will have to do. Can't get

*too* involved. I have definitely found this to be of value with finished-surface wood. I'm less interested in the appearance improvement for wall studs, though. ;-)

The building isn't square, and the rot problems mean that the comparatively new roof is sagging, as a couple of rafters have pulled away from the roof beams. Fortunately the lower floor was given a secure cross-bracing when walled with OSB and that's held things together.

My biggest conundrum is the sheathing question. Since we'll probably have to do some major repairs to the framing (hopefully by next summer), I don't want to just cover stuff up that has to come back down. Ideally we'd do the whole shebang from the inside out. For various reasons ["neighbors", "city code enforcement"], we need to get a cosmetic layer up now. But later we will need to work on corner posts, sill plate, and probably even jack up the wall some, to save the roof.

I'm thinking a good choice would be a combination sheathing/siding material such as Hardiboard or SmartSide, or siding-patterned plywood panel. My theory is that I can put up the siding using a pattern that leaves clapboard breaks near the end walls, so that we can remove only that portion later on for corner post work. Does this make any sense? What about cost considerations? Previously I was leaning toward sheathing panels no matter what, because of worries about wall deformation, but now I know that it's horizontally braced somewhat from the inside. So I think "just" siding could do the job, for a lot less work. If I later insulate this portion of the barn, though, will that be a poor choice? Would my plan make it easy enough to change at a later date? Is engineered wood as robust as old clapboard in terms of removal and re-use? What if jacking, etc., undo any deformation -- how hard would that be to handle if the siding is now "bowed" because the middle studs have been raised up? And what about cost? What about labor? Would plywood really be faster for installation/removal, because you do need to fasten it just about as much? And what fasteners should I choose for this contingency? Deck screws?

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Dan Hartung
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