Types of siding: what American houses are clad in, and how to choose yours

Types of siding, and what most houses already wear

1. Siding first, brick second. Across the country, 40.4 percent of detached houses are clad in siding (vinyl, fiber cement, aluminum or steel, which the survey counts together), 22.7 percent in brick, 16.4 percent in wood and 13.7 percent in stucco.
2. Climate decides. Siding covers 59.5 percent of houses in the cold zone and 3.7 percent in the hot-dry zone, where stucco is on 71.8 percent. In the marine Northwest, wood leads with 46.0 percent.
3. New houses differ from old ones. Wood is on 22.2 percent of houses built before 1950 and 6.1 percent of those built from 2016 to 2020.
4. Material and style are separate. Lap, Dutch lap, board and batten and shakes are shapes. Most of them are sold in several materials, so pick the look and the material one at a time.

This page covers the types of house siding and how to choose between them. Each material has a deeper page of its own, linked from its section below. What re-siding costs is on our siding cost page, in its section on the cheapest siding. We publish no price averages, and we sell and install nothing.

Wood holds, then falls

Wood is the wall of 22.2 percent of houses built before 1950 and still of 23.9 percent of those built in the 1980s. Then it falls: 7.6 percent of houses built in the 2000s. Builders moved to siding and stucco. The oldest houses show the highest share of siding of any decade, 48.8 percent, which most likely reflects re-siding: the wall a family reports today is not always the wall the house was built with.

Stucco and brick follow the Sun Belt

Stucco rises from 8.6 percent of pre-1950 houses to about one in five houses built since 2000. Brick peaks with the houses of the 1960s, at 32.1 percent. Both are Southern and Western walls, so their rise most likely reflects where the country’s houses were being built.

What it tells you about an older house

A house from before 1950 that wears vinyl or aluminum today likely has an earlier wall underneath, often wood. That matters when someone quotes a tear-off: what comes off may be two layers, and on a house built before 1978 the old paint may contain lead. The section on identifying your siding goes further.

Clapboard, Dutch lap, board and batten and cedar-look shakes are styles. Vinyl, fiber cement, wood, engineered wood and steel are materials, and most of them are made in several styles. You can have board and batten in vinyl, fiber cement, wood, engineered wood or steel; we cover that combination on our board and batten page. So the useful order is to pick the look you want, then ask which materials offer it, then choose between those on climate, upkeep and budget.

The look comes first for most people

Style is what neighbors, buyers and historic boards notice. It also sets some of the cost, since a vertical or shake pattern takes more trim and more cuts than plain lap. Settle it before you compare quotes, or every quote will price a different house.

The material decides the next thirty years

Material sets the upkeep: painting or not, washing, sealing cut edges. It also sets how the wall handles impact, moisture and fire, and how easy it is to find a crew that installs it well where you live. Those are the questions the sections below take one material at a time.

Few re-siding jobs use it. A 2023 presentation by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for the Department of Energy gives its share of the total market as 3-5% insulated siding. The same slide shows that thin foam is common: 50% added fan-fold, meaning the folded foam sheets laid under siding as a backer. Foam an inch thick or more was rare, and the presentation lists the added effort and cost among the barriers.

Best insulated siding: the honest comparison

The best insulated vinyl siding is the one whose stated insulation value you can check on the label, compared with a second option: ordinary siding over a layer of rigid foam board. Ask for both prices. The foam-board route usually adds more insulation, and it works under fiber cement or wood as well as vinyl. More on that in the section on energy.

Types of wood siding

The main types of wood siding are bevel or clapboard, shiplap and channel, tongue and groove, board and batten, and shingles and shakes. A 1983 Forest Service bulletin on wood siding called bevel the usual pattern: For houses, bevel siding is perhaps the most widely used. It is also the look that vinyl, fiber cement and engineered wood copy most. Types of cedar siding include the same patterns plus split shakes and sawn shingles.

Where wood works

Wood is the original, and it can be repaired one board at a time for decades. It suits historic districts, where rules may require it, and the wet Pacific coast, where it covers 46.0 percent of houses in our count.

Where it struggles

It needs a finish on a schedule for life, and end grain left wet will rot. Each species shrinks and swells by a different amount as it dries; our wood siding page tabulates thirteen of them and covers the wood siding options from cedar to modified wood.

Types of metal siding

The types of metal siding fall into two groups. Residential lap and vertical panels in steel or aluminum copy the shapes of vinyl and wood. Corrugated and standing-seam panels, borrowed from barns and roofs, give the modern farmhouse and industrial look.

Aluminum siding options

Aluminum was common on houses from the middle of the last century and is still on many of them. It does not rust, but it dents in hail and its paint turns chalky in the sun. New aluminum siding options are limited; most homes that have it either keep and repaint it or re-side.

Steel siding

Steel resists dents better than aluminum and comes in heavier gauges. A scratch or cut edge that exposes the steel can rust, so the finish and the trim system matter. One quick way to tell the two apart on an existing house: a magnet sticks to steel and not to aluminum. Gauges, coatings and what eighteen makers’ warranties say near salt water are on our metal siding page.

On most houses built in recent decades, brick is a veneer: one layer of brick tied to a framed wall, with an air space and weep holes at the bottom to let water out. Older houses may have solid brick walls. Brick needs little beyond mortar repair, and it is not re-sided; masons repair it.

Siding on brick houses

Brick houses still carry siding: on gables, dormers, second stories and additions. When those are re-sided, the new material has to meet the brick at clean flashed edges. Matching the existing color or texture of those upper walls is often the hard part.

Polymer shakes

Molded polymer shakes copy split cedar in thick, deep panels with varied widths. They are often sold as vinyl or polymer shake siding: the color goes through, there is nothing to stain, and a panel reads as several shingles from the street.

Best composite siding: how to judge it

Because composite covers so many recipes, judge each product on four things: what it is made of, how it is fastened and gapped, what the warranty covers, and whether a crew near you has installed it. A product few people install can be hard to repair in fifteen years.

Types of lap siding

Within lap, the choice is mostly exposure, the visible height of each course, and the edge: straight clapboard, Dutch lap or beaded. Narrow exposure reads as older and finer; wide exposure as plainer and more modern. The Forest Service bulletin puts the effect this way: These patterns of siding are applied horizontally and tend to make a house appear lower and longer.

Vertical siding options

The types of vertical siding are board and batten, reverse board and batten, V-groove and tongue and groove, and vertical metal panels. The same bulletin adds: Vertical siding tends to make a house appear taller. Vertical patterns need solid backing behind them and careful flashing at every horizontal joint, so ask how the installer handles both. The best vertical siding for a house is the one whose joints shed water, as battens and laps do.

Board and batten in each material

Board and batten is the vertical style with the most searches. Each material’s version, vinyl included, is covered on our board and batten page, with dimensions and spacing.

Cold and very cold

Siding is on 59.5 percent of houses in the cold zone, which takes in the northern Midwest, the Northeast and the high West; in the very cold zone, wood rises to 33.6 percent. Freeze and thaw punish water left in a wall, so flashing and a good barrier matter more than the cladding. Vinyl turns stiffer in deep cold and cracks more easily if struck, and panels move most where the temperature swing is widest.

Mixed-humid

The broad middle of the country, from the mid-Atlantic through the Ohio and Tennessee valleys, has siding on 49.2 percent of houses and brick on 32.0 percent. Freeze and thaw, summer heat and humidity all reach these walls, so a wall that drains and an installation that keeps courses locked in wind are worth asking about.

Hot-humid and coastal

Along the Gulf and in Florida, brick leads at 39.8 percent and concrete block follows at 14.7 percent; siding is on 17.0 percent. Moisture and hurricanes drive the choice. Ask for the siding’s wind rating and the fastening schedule that goes with it, and for corrosion-resistant fasteners near salt water.

Hot-dry

In the desert Southwest and southern California, stucco is on 71.8 percent of houses and siding on only 3.7 percent. Sun fades finishes and heats dark walls. In wildfire country, some states and counties regulate what exterior walls may be made of; ask your building department before choosing.

Marine

On the cool, wet Pacific coast, wood leads at 46.0 percent and stucco follows at 25.4 percent. Constant moisture rewards walls with a drainage gap behind the siding and a finish that is kept up.

On the material line alone, thin vinyl is usually the lowest. Over the years, painted materials add repainting, and materials that need specialist crews add labor. Our cost page lists what sets each material’s price to buy and what it asks to keep, line by line, without dollar figures.

House siding options and costs: what moves a quote

For any material, the quote moves with the wall area (not the floor area), the number of openings and corners, what comes off the old wall, the sheathing and barrier underneath, and the trim. The best house siding for the money is the one whose quote is complete on those lines.

Citing a 2021 Guidehouse market study, a 2023 Pacific Northwest National Laboratory presentation for the Department of Energy counts about 3.5 million homeowners who spent money on siding projects that year, and adds: very few projects added 1-in or more of exterior continuous insulation. A layer of rigid foam under new siding, taped and flashed, adds insulation over the studs, where cavity insulation cannot reach.

Questions to ask about insulation

Ask whether the quote includes a continuous insulation layer, how thick, and how windows and doors will be extended to the new wall depth. Ask the same question whether you choose vinyl, fiber cement or wood: the foam goes under any of them.

1. Look at a cut edge at a corner or a window. Color all the way through means vinyl. A gray core under paint means fiber cement. Wood grain means wood.
2. Try a magnet. It sticks to steel siding, not to aluminum.
3. Press and tap. Vinyl flexes and sounds hollow; fiber cement is rigid and heavy; aluminum dents easily.
4. Look at the joints. Vinyl panels overlap at their ends. Fiber cement and wood boards butt together, often with caulk or flashing behind.

Older houses: what might be underneath

On older houses, the visible siding may cover an earlier wall. Our count shows wood on 22.2 percent of pre-1950 houses today, and many more were built in it. Gray, cement-like shingles on an older house may be asbestos cement. The survey counts shingle walls separately, as composition shingle, on 1.5 percent of detached houses; it does not say what the shingles are made of. The Environmental Protection Agency warns: Generally, you can't tell whether a material contains asbestos simply by looking at it, unless it is labeled. It also advises: Material that is in good condition and will not be disturbed (by remodeling, for example) should be left alone.

Lead paint before 1978

The EPA’s estimate for older houses: Approximately three-quarters of the homes in the United States built before 1978 still contain some lead-based paint. Paid work that disturbs painted surfaces on those houses must be done by a lead-safe certified firm. That applies when old painted siding is removed or cut, not only when it is painted. Our siding repair page explains the exemption for small repairs.

Once the shortlist is two or three materials, get written quotes for each on the same scope. Our contact page says when our own introduction line opens; the questions above work with any installer you find.