walrus, I've cucessfully used cedar for many years and find it the best and probably the most expensive. I oil base prime the pieces before installation on all sides, including edges. Then I assemble them in place. Yes you can wrap the top with some horizontal detail trim but you probably won't find it in cedar. You'll have to use pine here. A gap at the bottom of the column is always a good idea as it helps keep the rain water from soaking into the wood. After completion I put two coats of acrylic latex top coat either in low lustre or satim finish. To close the gap on the bottom of the post you can always add some kind of complimenting base molding. Good Luck, The PorchGuy Here is a link that might be useful: My Album

Here are the new Permacast porch columns, installed this afternoon. I had ordered them on Aug. 13th, and waited and waited and then told they were on a two week back order. Finally they came in and then waited a week for the lumber yard to deliver them to my house. Called contractor twice but he never returned my calls. I found out this morning that he had been on vacation in Colorado! Good thing he called, I was going to give him the rest of this week and then I was finding someone else. ha. I think the columns look great. NO pitts, NO cracks, No seams. I was going to hire a painter but since they look so good and contractor didn't even recommend sanding, I'm going to do it myself. The only thing is they didn't countersink the screws that went in under the caps. Some were sunk better than others but he said he was afraid to tighten too much for fear the material would crack. I suppose I can fill them over with a bit of caulk before I paint. Probably be the only person who notices. Anyway thought I'd post an update. So far, I'd recommend this product to others. However, we'll see after painting how well the paint holds up to weather,ect. Thanks for all the input while I made my decision.

SB - No, not using tropical wood flooring for sure! Our posts are under generous overhangs but will certainly be exposed to UV and wind blown rain and snow - no getting away from that. We had original Doug fir sills on our old house (built in 1936) that were rock solid when we sold 2 years ago. They were painted but even so, the wood will last when taken care of which is one of the reasons we opted to use it here. The other reason being there weren't a lot of choices for 8 x 8 posts :-/ am_e here are a couple of quick pics I just grabbed. Our posts arrived pretty rough sawn. Before they were set in place I used a belt sander to smooth them out a bit - they're not baby butt smooth by any stretch but I wanted a little less texture and splinters! This is a post cut off that I sanded and put clear Penofin on the left. when they're first sanded the wood is very light as you can see but it begins to darken really fast. Here are the front porch posts in place. They were all sanded and looked like the sample above 5 or 6 weeks ago and they've already darkened. Getting color samples of the Penofin is proving to be difficult - none of the places here that sell it have the sample color tubes so I called CA. The website says they will ship but when I told them I'm in NC they directed me to a place in IL. Called them (they have no website) and if I email a list of what I want and my phone # they'll call me for a cc# to charge me for the shipping - oy. I'd like to get this done, like soon, ya know! Could be a week + till I even see a sample then test, then decide then order the color I want..... The clear is beginning to look ok to me.

Sorry to disappoint you Michelle. but the paint will weather and degrade over a decade or two, but the cement board will last at least 50 years or longer. Unlike vinyl siding the great thing about cement board is it will take new paint well and when styles or your taste of color changes so can your siding color. The only truly maintenance free materials are brick and stone which can last many lifetimes, or Copper which can last 50 lifetimes. In second place would be commercial grade metal roofing and siding with a 70% polyvinylidene difluoride (PVDF) coating and will last a lifetime. Metal panels coated with galvalume and then PVDF will last two lifetimes. A house roofed with 26 ga or better metal roofing panels coated with galvalume and PVDF is expensive but will never need replacing in a lifetime and something to never worry about. Additionally most insurance companies will give at least a 10% discount on home insurance rates when this metal is used Considering a new homeowner may need to re-roof a house 3 times in their life if they build young the true cost for the metal roofing is at least breakeven, but with $200-$300 savings on insurance rates over 40+ years the metal could save you money. Side note, if Versalex uses HVDP paint on your siding then it will last 30 to 50 years.