Lynden Siding Why Board & Batten Is Everywhere in Lynden Right Now
Walk or drive through Lynden and the surrounding Whatcom County farm country and you'll see board and batten popping up on new builds, barn conversions, and remodels alike. The vertical lines read as clean, modern-farmhouse, and honestly they just fit the agricultural character of this area better than a lot of other siding profiles. It's a good look. The problem is that board and batten is also one of the easiest siding styles to get wrong, and the mistakes don't show up until a few wet winters have had their way with the wall.
What Board & Batten Actually Is
At its core, board and batten is wide flat panels installed vertically, with narrower strips (the battens) covering the seams between them. That's it. But how those panels are made, how the seams are flashed, and what's happening behind the panel is where a good installation and a bad one diverge completely.
Vertical siding runs water down the wall instead of shedding it off horizontal laps the way clapboard does. That's not a flaw, but it does mean every seam, every batten fastener, and every transition needs to be detailed correctly, or water finds a way behind the cladding. In a climate like ours — with driving rain off the Strait, salt-laden air working into fastener heads and cut edges, and a moss season that stretches from fall through spring — a board and batten wall with sloppy details will show staining, panel cupping, or rot at the bottom courses well before a properly built one ever does.
Why We Install This Style Only in James Hardie Fiber Cement
We don't offer board and batten in vinyl, LP SmartSide, or primed wood, and it's not because those products can't be cut into vertical panels — they can. It's because vertical siding is unforgiving of exactly the weaknesses those materials carry:
- Dimensional stability. Vertical panels are long, continuous runs with fewer horizontal breaks to hide movement. Wood-based products expand, contract, and can telegraph waviness down a whole wall face. Fiber cement holds its shape.
- Cut-edge exposure. Board and batten involves more field cuts and butt joints than lap siding. Any product that's vulnerable at a raw cut edge is a bigger liability in this style, not a smaller one.
- Fastener and seam durability at the coast. Salt air corrodes cheap fasteners and degrades caulk faster than people expect. James Hardie's HZ5 product line is engineered for exactly this kind of moisture and freeze-thaw exposure, and we pair it with corrosion-resistant fastening to match.
James Hardie makes true vertical siding systems — flat panel products designed to be installed with battens over a proper water-resistive barrier and drainage gap — rather than a horizontal product repurposed for a vertical look. That distinction matters more on this style than any other.
What "Done Right" Actually Means on the Wall
The panel material is half the equation. The other half is installation, and this is where most board and batten failures actually start:
- A drainage gap behind the panel. Vertical siding needs somewhere for incidental moisture to go besides sitting against the sheathing. A rainscreen furring strip or drainage wrap behind the panel is not optional in a climate that sees this much sustained rain.
- Correct batten spacing and fastening. Battens need to land on framing or furring with the right fastener pattern — not just nailed wherever is convenient — so the seam stays tight and the panel isn't over-fastened, which restricts the natural movement Hardie panels are engineered to allow.
- Factory-primed and sealed cut edges. Every field cut gets sealed before installation. This is a five-minute step that gets skipped constantly on rush jobs, and it's the single most common reason we see edge swelling on other people's board and batten work.
- Proper flashing at windows, corners, and the base. Vertical panels concentrate water flow at these transitions. Flashing has to be built to handle it, not caulked over as an afterthought.
Color and Finish
James Hardie's ColorPlus factory finish is worth choosing for board and batten specifically. Because the vertical lines and batten shadows are so visually prominent, an even, factory-baked finish shows better than field-applied paint, and it holds its color and resists the chalking and fading that this much sun-and-rain cycling causes over time. It also carries a stronger finish warranty than a job-site paint job ever will, on top of the product warranty on the siding itself.
What This Costs You If It's Skipped
None of the details above are expensive to do right at the time of installation. They get expensive later — as tear-off, sheathing repair, and a second install — when they're skipped. Board and batten is a style that rewards patience during installation and punishes shortcuts more visibly than almost any other siding profile, because there's nowhere for a bad seam to hide on a flat, vertical wall.
Get an Honest Look at Your Project
If you're considering board and batten for a home, addition, or shop building anywhere in the Lynden area, we're happy to walk the property, talk through where the style makes sense structurally, and give you a straightforward, no-pressure estimate using James Hardie's engineered panel systems — built the way this climate actually requires.