The Salt Air Alibi

Marcus is a locksmith in a small town on the coast. He carries a heavy bag of tools. He walks to a house near the water. The door lock is stuck. Marcus puts his key in the lock. The key does not turn. Marcus sprays oil into the lock. The oil runs out. The oil is black.

Marcus tells the homeowner that the salt air is the problem. He says the salt air eats the metal. The homeowner nods. The homeowner pays Marcus for a new lock. Marcus installs a lock made of cheap zinc. The zinc will corrode in two years. Marcus knows this. But the salt air is a good excuse. The salt air is always there.

I stood on my driveway last week. My neighbor Jim stood next to me. We looked at the side of my house. The wood boards were curved. The boards pulled away from the wall. The paint was gone in some spots. The wood was gray. Jim touched a board. The board moved.

“We had a hard winter. The ice stayed on the walls for three weeks. The ice was heavy.”

– Jim, Neighbor

I agreed with Jim. I said the winter was brutal. I felt better when I said it. If the winter was the problem, then my house was not the problem. My choices were not the problem. The weather was a thief. The weather stole my siding.

Everything has a Job

We do this with everything. We see a failure. We look for a cloud. We look for a storm. We blame the heat. We blame the rain. We blame the wind. But the siding has one job. The siding lives outside. The siding is made to be in the rain.

The siding is made to be in the sun. If the siding fails when the sun shines, the siding is not doing its job. The sun is just doing what the sun does. The rain is just doing what the rain does.

The Architect of Circumstance

I work in a prison. I coordinate education programs. Last month, I had a long talk with the warden. We talked about a new vocational class. I wanted to wait. I said we did not have enough space. I said the budget was too tight for the tools. I spoke well. I used data. I won the argument.

The warden agreed to wait six months. Two days later, I realized I was wrong. We had the space. We had the money. I just did not want the extra work of the setup. I had won the argument, but the result was a mistake. I used the budget as an alibi. I used the space as an alibi. I made the circumstances the villain so I did not have to be the failure.

The weather is the ultimate alibi for a building. If a roof leaks, people say the rain was too hard. If a deck rots, people say the humidity was too high. This is a lie. A roof that leaks in hard rain is a bad roof. A deck that rots in humidity is a bad deck.

The rain and the humidity are the reasons the products exist. We do not buy siding for the sunny days when the air is still. We buy siding for the days when the sky is gray and the wind blows.

The Living Material Trap

Wood is a living thing. Wood comes from a tree. A tree has cells. The cells hold water. When you cut the tree, the water leaves. When the rain falls, the water goes back into the cells. The cells grow. When the sun comes out, the water leaves again. The cells shrink.

The board moves. The board twists. The board cracks. This is what wood does. We know wood does this. We have known it for a thousand years. Yet, when the wood on our house twists, we blame the sun. We act surprised. We treat the weather like a freak accident. It is not an accident. It is the environment.

I looked at the gap in my siding. The gap was 14 millimeters wide. I could see the paper behind the board. The paper was wet. The wet paper would lead to mold. The mold would lead to rot in the frame.

I thought about the argument I won at the prison. I thought about how easy it is to be right and still be wrong. I was right that the winter was hard. But I was wrong to accept a material that could not survive a hard winter.

Engineering Out the Excuse

There are materials that do not use the weather as an excuse. Some materials are engineered. They use wood fibers and they use plastic. They call this a composite. The plastic protects the wood. The wood gives the board strength.

The board does not have cells that drink the rain. The board does not shrink when the sun hits the wall. This material is called

Composite Siding.

It is a tool for a specific job. The job is to stay flat. The job is to stay the same color. The job is to keep the water out of the house.

When you use a material like this, you lose your alibi. If the wall stays perfect for 15 years, you have nothing to complain about with your neighbor. You cannot stand on the driveway and shake your head at the sky.

You have to find something else to talk about. You might have to talk about the local sports team. You might have to talk about your job. The weather is no longer the enemy. The weather is just the background.

I think about the people who sell wood siding. They provide a list of instructions. They say you must paint the wood. They say you must seal the edges. They say you must keep the wood 6 inches away from the ground. They say you must wash the wood every year.

If you miss one step, the warranty is gone. If the wood fails, they ask if you painted it on time. They ask if you used the right sealer. If you did everything right, they blame the weather. They say it was an act of God. They say the sun was unusually hot that July. They have an answer for everything. The answer is never the product.

No More Shields

In the prison, I went back to the warden. I told him I was wrong about the vocational class. I told him we could start on Monday. He looked at me for a long time. He asked why I changed my mind. I told him I had used the budget as a shield.

I told him I wanted to stop making excuses for things that were within my control. He liked that. We started the class. The inmates are learning how to frame walls now. They are learning how to measure. They are learning that if a measurement is wrong, you do not blame the tape measure. You blame the hand that held it.

We want things to be easy. We want to buy the cheapest board and have it last forever. When it does not last, we want a reason that is not our fault. The weather is the easiest reason in the world. No one can sue the clouds. No one can fire the sun. The weather is a ghost that we can all point to. We nod our heads in agreement. We share the burden of the “unusual” season.

But seasons are rarely unusual when you look at the history. The sun has been hot for a long time. The rain has been wet forever. A house is a box we build to hide from these facts. If the skin of the box fails, the box is a failure.

Slat Solution makes a product that does not need the weather alibi. Their shiplap boards are made of wood-plastic composite. They call it WPC. The boards are high-impact. This means if a hailstone hits the board, the board does not crack.

The boards resist fade. This means the sun can shine on the wall for 4,000 hours and the color stays. The boards resist rot and mold. This means the rain can fall and the humidity can rise, but the board stays solid.

Real Savings, Real Responsibility

I looked at the price of the composite boards. They cost more than the cheap wood. But the cheap wood costs more over time. You pay for the paint. You pay for the sealer. You pay Marcus or someone like him to come and fix the things that broke. You pay in time. You pay in frustration. You pay every time you stand on your driveway and feel annoyed by the state of your own home.

We think we are saving money when we buy the material with the alibi. We think we are being smart. But we are just deferring the cost. We are pushing the failure into the future. We are waiting for a storm so we can say, “Look what the storm did.”

I told the warden that the inmates should learn about materials too. They should know that some things are built to fail and some things are built to last. He agreed. He said that most of the men in the prison were there because they had a good alibi for their bad choices. They blamed their neighborhood. They blamed their parents. They blamed the economy. Some of those things were real problems. But the choice was still the choice.

A wall is a series of choices. You choose the stud. You choose the insulation. You choose the cladding. If you choose a material that cannot handle the moisture, you have chosen the rot. You cannot be mad at the moisture for doing what moisture does. You have to be honest about the material.

I am looking at my house again. I am planning to remove the wood. I am going to install the composite shiplap. I want a wall that does not change. I want a wall that does not require me to be a part-time painter. I want to stand on my driveway with Jim and talk about something else. I want to talk about the new class at the prison. I want to talk about how the inmates are building things that will stand up straight.

The neighborly consolation of a “brutal winter” is a social glue. It helps us feel like we are part of a team. We are the humans against the elements. But the elements are not our enemies. They are the conditions of our existence. We do not fight the air; we breathe it. We do not fight the sun; we live by its light. When we build a house, we are making a deal with the environment. We are saying we can handle the conditions.

If you use a material that fails, you have broken the deal. You have tried to cheat the conditions. You used a product that was not rated for the reality of the world. Blaming the weather is just a way to avoid admitting you lost the bet.

I like the way the new boards look. They have a wood grain. They have a texture. They look like the wood I wanted, but they act like the stone I need. They do not warp. They do not fade. When the next winter comes, and the ice hangs from the eaves, I will not worry. I will not look for a gap. I will not look for a crack. I will know that the wall is doing exactly what I paid it to do. It is handling the weather. It is doing the job.

Marcus the locksmith came back yesterday. He replaced the lock on my back door. This time, I bought the lock. I bought a lock made of solid brass and stainless steel. It cost three times as much as the zinc lock Marcus usually sells. Marcus looked at it. He said it was a good lock.

He said it would probably last twenty years. He didn’t mention the salt air. He didn’t have to. The lock was made for the salt. The alibi was gone. We both knew it. We just stood there in the quiet air and watched the door click shut.