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Horizontal strapping advice

ultracrystal | Posted in General Questions on

Hey folks,

I’m setting up to strap a house we’re building to accept some vertical siding.

The house is covered with 1.5″ of form insulation and the siding will be a board and batten look made out of cement fibre board.

There’s lots of information on this site about rain screens which is awesome.  Although I have found some information about horizontal strapping, I wanted to run a suggestion by the community I got from a manufacturer to see what you all thought.

The suggestion I received was to tilt the horizontal strapping down a few degrees and to stagger the strapping so as to allow some air passages from the bottom of the wall to the top.

What are your thoughts? 

Obviously, the wall’s ability to dry will be less than the ideal of vertical strapping, but if everything is flashed properly, I figure the minimal moisture that does get behind the siding should still be able to dry and if there is any accumulation roll down the angled strapping.

Cheers

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Replies

    1. ultracrystal | | #3

      This looks like an interesting product https://www.cor-a-vent.com/sturdi-battens.cfm but the downside is that it moves your nailing surface back to the structure where as if solid strapping is used, and at an appropriate thickness, the strapping can be used to hold the siding.

      I have reached out to their technical support to understand if I could sandwich their product behind the strapping but have yet to receive a responsive.

  1. jberks | | #2

    I cut grooves in my horizontal strapping.

    Layed them all together and set a 1/4" depth on my circle saw, cut a bunch of grooves to allow that little bit of a flow path.

    Don't know of this is effective. Just did it for peace of mind.

  2. Expert Member
    MALCOLM TAYLOR | | #4

    Eric,

    Have you considered using cement board panels as a base for the board & batten look you want? The advantages are: being able to use a conventionally vented run-screen cavity with vertical strapping, and having less joints under the battens where moisture can penetrate the wall.

    This is one I did using Hardi products:

    1. ultracrystal | | #5

      That's exactly what I'm looking at. Maybe I'm being too picky, but I figured horizontal strapping was the better option here since the battens won't necessarily align with my studs.

      Did your nails in the panel all fall under battens or did you just paint over them afterwards when they didn't?

      1. Expert Member
        MALCOLM TAYLOR | | #6

        Eric,

        This installation was much easier than yours because it didn't have exterior foam. Our code allows strapping to be attached to the sheathing as long as the sheathing is 1/2" or thicker, so aligning the battens with the panels was simple. However, the framing, strapping and battens were all on 16" oc. so the fasteners would have hit studs and all nails covered by the layers above.

        One caution. Most siding nailers don't like going through that much concrete board. You my have to pre-drill the battens.

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