Why not Japanese Shou Sugi Ban Siding it is real wood but is almost black requires no real upkeep and the bonus is it is almost fireproof too.

https://pioneermillworks.com/shou-sugi-ban

https://deltamillworks.com/our-products/exterior-cladding/?fwp_charred_wood=charred

Not limited to black or nearly black!

Wood look tiles are generally porcelain, NOT ceramic.. They do NOT fade. Your pictures appear to be porcelain tile, as well

First are they meant for exterior siding where you live .

Look up wood tone, they do realistic wood look hardie board. I used it to accent my house and it looks amazing https://woodtone.com

Thanks for the links! Yes, the tiles are outdoor ceramic, by sunlight test I meant does it look good is strong sunlight, direct, angled and overhead.

I looked at some indestructible treated pine called Accoya, originally made by Kodak. Kodak tried to find other uses for their dying business of photo chemicals. The stop bath (concentrated vinegar) chemical preserves cheap wood it turns out. My neighbor clad his entire 2 story house in the unstained butter colored (not cheap) Accoya treated pine and it is a mess 5 year later. The color does not age uniformly at all. It will last forever but man is it ugly.

Now the Shou-sugi-ban is interesting. I saw it a couple months ago at my contractors other jobsite but did not understand it. It looked fragile in person. Like the char on just the one side of the wood would be something you had to upkeep with occasional fire. Maybe have a torch ready when a piece chipped off or got discolored. I obviously need to do more research on the upkeep if the cladding gets scuffed or dented.

Interestingly on decoenthusiaste's link the the one company, Pioneer, they bought all the millions of board feet of Accoya from Kodak, they are now charring it in this process. Plain Accoya is $20sqft... can't imagine Shou-sugi-ban'd Accoya is going to be! Luckily I only need 300sqft.

I will check out Hardi-board too! Thanks again!

Thanks Beverly, I'm going to have a lot of cement in the yard with poured in place cement benches so the wood or convincing wood-look is a necessity somewhere I think, to counter all the hard surfaces. So can't use metal siding but I did some some metal faux wood called Dizal that looks good close up. I'm waiting for samples.

https://dizal.com/photo-gallery/

I'm finding lots of the synthetics are installed as rain screens and are lifted off the surface of the house by a rail mounting system. A couple windows would end up being slightly recessed with their use... I'm trying to avoid that.

Hard to beat Hardie board for aesthetics, durability, fire resistance and overall value.

I've used Hardie board on two houses and it's just great.

I've found a real wood that been treated and dyed with a non-toxic dye that is saturated all the way through the wood. If you scratch it, the scratch is gray! No maintenance or sealer needed with a 50 year warranty! I think this is the product I'm going with. I'll post pics when I'm done. Thanks for your help and suggestions!

do you have to coat that real wood product w/a UV protectant varnish? I can't imagine real wood out in the sun w/no UV varnish. Even boats w/teak need to keep it coated.

50 year warranty??? what is this stuff?

Sorry, I got busy there! It is the acetylated wood that I mentioned earlier in this thread but this new version has been dyed through. That new dying process solves the problem I had with it... waiting for it to uniformly gray! Which could take years. This new dyed version is a little spendy but if I don't need to ever paint or stain it, it will pay for itself eventually. If I get it up on my house in the next couple months I believe I'll be the first to use it, that's how new it is.

So you know, the plain acetylated wood process has been around for decades. It doesn't need sealing or maintenance and is far superior to teak. It is resistant to UV, rot, fungus and insects and has a 50 yr warranty. You can use the wood for a pier on the water or have it in contact with soil too but there is only a 20 year warranty in those cases. Pretty amazing.

BTW, here are two different shades of the grey acetylated wood on my naturally grey'd (5 years) Ipe wood decking. I'm not too far from the water so I like the driftwood look.

Can you provide a link to this source?

Sure. This is the tongue and groove cladding I bought.

https://resawntimberco.com/product/grey-matter-accoya-for-exterior-siding/#:~:text=Description-,GREY%20MATTER%20by%20reSAWN%20TIMBER%20co.,does%20not%20require%20a%20finish.

These are the decking planks that I bought to make to make gates and to use as fascia.

https://resawntimberco.com/product/oxford-accoya-for-interior-and-exterior-cladding-and-decking/

Pretty excited to have ordered about 600 sqft, more than I had anticipated. My neighbor just ordered 10,000 square feet! His entire new house exterior will be this wood... and his decks! I can't wait to see it.

Paul, that's really nice looking. wish I would have seen this before I redid our deck.

Can you give me an idea of pricing? just ballpark?

the planks and the tiles?

Love the idea of doing a clad exterior! I may have to look deeper into this.

The 1 inch thick deck planks were $26 sqft and the 3/4 cladding was about $23. About double my budget but with the thought of no maintenance, treating, staining and ladders as I'm get older, I went for it. I'll post pics here when I get done on this project in the next few months. It will be about 9 months to get pics of my neighbors place entirely clad.

@Beth H. This wood siding looks phenomenal. I have the best installer that knows all the rules on how the accoya wood needs to handled and installed... stainless screws and nails, there needs to special spacers used wherever the wood touches the substructure. Let me know if you ever need his name. Look at that cut in dryer vent!

A word of warning, the only west coast rep for the wood, Laarni Benabese is not trustworthy. If you must go through her get everything in writing from her and ReSawn siding. Not sure if the company itself is as bad as she is. She guaranteed me certain lengths up to 16 feet, in writing, but when the truck arrived... it was nothing but 8 footers! How I wish I would have recorded her calls as she was trying to gaslight me later. I thought about suing at least in small claims court. A recording would have helped but you know... the wood looks great even with seams on wider sections. I will let it go.

My neighbors cladding is almost all up. It looks really great. Let us go through a rainy season or two and I'll report back how its holding up.

Any updates on your neighbors siding? Fading? Weather and wear? Thanks!