Choosing the Right Cedar Siding Grade for a Mountain Home

Grade is the single biggest lever on the price of a cedar siding job — often a larger factor than profile, length, or finish. It is also the part of the order customers understand the least. Here is what the grades on our tally sheets actually mean when the boards land on your site.

What grade actually measures

Grade describes the appearance of the face of the board: how many knots it carries, how large they are, and whether they are tight or loose. It is not a structural rating, and it is not a durability rating. A knotty board and a clear board cut from the same log have the same rot resistance and the same service life once they are finished and installed correctly.

What changes is the look, the waste factor, and the price.

The three grades we stock

Clear Vertical Grain (CVG)

The premium tier. No knots on the face, with growth rings running nearly perpendicular to the board face.

• Extremely stable — minimal cupping and seasonal movement
• Takes a stain or a clear finish evenly, with no bleed-through around knots
• Effectively zero cut waste, so order tight to your takeoff
• The most expensive option, typically two to three times A-grade

Use it where the wall is the architecture: entry elevations, soffits under deep overhangs, and any wall people stand close to.

A-Grade / Select Knotty

A mix of clear runs and small, tight, sound knots. The workhorse of most of our siding orders.

• Knots stay tight and will not drop out over time
• Reads as a wood wall rather than a wood panel — texture without noise
• Budget roughly 10% for cut waste on a typical elevation

Knotty / #2 & Better

The rustic look most people picture when they think of a mountain cabin. Larger knots, more color variation, and the occasional loose knot you will cut around.

On a large gable wall, knotty cedar reads far better than it does on a single sample board. Judge it by the stack, not by the piece.

Budget 15% or more for waste, and plan to sort as you go.

Altitude changes the finishing math, not the grade

At 7,000 feet and up, UV exposure is the thing that ages a wall — not moisture. That pushes the decision in two directions:

1. Pre-finish, on all six sides. Boards finished after installation leave raw end grain and unsealed backs, which is where failures start.
2. Pick a pigmented finish over a clear one. Pigment is what carries UV protection. A clear coat at altitude is a two-year finish, not a ten-year one.

Grade does not change either of those. A knotty wall that is properly pre-finished will outlast a clear wall that was coated on site.

How to order

Bring us your elevations and we will run the takeoff with you. What we need:

• Square footage per elevation, and the profile you want
• Exposure — how much of each board shows once it is lapped
• Whether the walls are visible up close or read from the driveway

That last one is usually the question that settles the grade. Walk over to any of our yards and pull boards off the stack yourself — it takes about ten minutes and it saves a lot of second-guessing later.