Give Board-and-Batten Siding a Sacrificial Water Table Board

The Problem

The bottom few inches of wood siding die first. Rain splashes up from the ground, water running down the wall exits at the bottom edge, and the exposed end grain of every vertical board drinks it all in — end grain wicks water many times faster than face grain. When that lower band rots on plain siding, the repair means surgery on the whole wall's boards.

The Technique

Traditional facades solved this with a water table — a horizontal board at the base of the wall that's designed to be lost:

1. Run a horizontal skirt board around the base of the wall, below the siding, kicked out or capped so water running down the face drips clear of the foundation.
2. Land the vertical board-and-batten siding on top of it — the siding's end grain now terminates on the water table, up and away from ground splash.
3. Let the water table take the abuse. It's the sacrificial layer: splash zone, drip edge, and end-grain shield in one piece.
4. When it eventually rots — decades on, with decent wood and paint — cut it off and fit a new one. The siding above never knew anything happened.

This renovating couple is restoring the detail on a 150-year-old house whose original boarding survived precisely because the sacrificial section below it did the dying — the Swedish name for the piece translates literally as "sacrifice board."