How the two differ in kind
Both of these end up as a weatherproof skin on the same wall, in most of the same materials — wood, engineered wood, fibre cement, steel, vinyl. What separates them is the direction they run, and the direction they run is measured against the studs. Lap siding crosses every stud in the wall, which means the framing you already paid for is its fastening base: each course is nailed where it passes a stud, the courses stack up the wall, and nothing whatsoever is added behind them. Board and batten runs parallel to the studs and therefore crosses none of them. True boards have to be given a horizontal base to fasten into — blocking let in between the studs, horizontal nailers run over the sheathing, or a sheathing the manufacturer and the adopted code will accept as the fastening surface in its own right. That base is labour and material across the entire wall area before a single visible piece goes on, and it is the part of this decision nobody photographs.
The complication that catches people out is the rainscreen. A drained, vented cavity behind cladding works because its furring runs vertically: water that gets past the face falls down the strips and out at the bottom, and air rises up the same channels and dries the assembly. That is the standard detail everyone draws, and it is a lap-siding detail — one layer of vertical furring is simultaneously the drainage path, the vent path and the nailing base for the courses. Vertical boards want the opposite. Their furring has to run horizontally so there is something to nail into, and horizontal strips laid across a cavity dam the water and interrupt the airflow. Reconciling the two means cross-strapping — vertical strips first for drainage and venting, horizontal nailers over them — or a proprietary drainage and vent mat, or horizontal strips deliberately interrupted so the cavity still runs. All three work. All three are extra thickness, which pushes the cladding plane out, which shows up again at every window jamb, every trim return and every roof-to-wall junction.
In front of the wall, the difference is that lap siding sheds water by geometry and board and batten sheds it by covered seams. A lapped course overlaps the one below it, so gravity does the work whether or not the coating is perfect, and the lap is self-flashing by shape. Board and batten has nothing lapping in the direction water actually travels: each vertical joint is closed by a batten that must stay fastened and stay overlapped onto both boards, water sheets straight down the face to whatever detail is at the bottom, and every board and every batten presents cut end grain pointing directly into the splash zone. None of that makes it a bad cladding — it is a very old and very durable one — it just relocates the durability from the shape of the product to the quality of the detailing. So the answer here is conditional, and it is worth knowing on what: whether the wall is open or already clad, whether you are buying true boards or a panelised board-and-batten system that fastens to studs the way sheathing does, whether a vented cavity is in the assembly, whether a board can cross the wall in one piece, and whether the whole house is getting the vertical look or only a gable. That last one is not a fudge. Splitting the house between the two is what most buildings that want vertical actually do.
The factors that actually differ
Show
| Board and batten | Horizontal lap siding | |
|---|---|---|
| What it fastens to | Runs the same direction as the studs and crosses none of them. True boards need a horizontal base built for them: blocking between studs, horizontal nailers over the sheathing, or a sheathing the manufacturer and the adopted code accept as the fastening surface. Panelised board-and-batten systems are the exception — they span the studs like a sheet good and the applied battens are decorative. | Runs across the studs, so every course crosses every one of them and the existing frame is the nailing base. Nothing goes on behind it that was not going on anyway. This is precisely why a lap re-side can stay a cladding job and nothing more. |
| Rainscreen furring, and which way it has to run | The awkward case. A drained cavity wants vertical furring so water falls out and air rises; vertical boards want horizontal furring so there is something to nail into. Reconciling them means cross-strapping the wall in two directions, a drainage and vent mat, or horizontal strips interrupted so the cavity is not dammed — each of which is real thickness and a real detail. | The easy case. One layer of vertical furring over the water-resistive barrier is the drainage path, the vent path and the nailing base at the same time. The standard rainscreen section every detail library carries is drawn for this orientation. |
| How the wall sheds water | By covered seams rather than by shape. Nothing laps in the direction water travels, so each vertical joint depends on a batten staying fastened and staying overlapped onto both boards. Water sheets down the face uninterrupted to whatever is at the base of the wall, where every board and every batten presents cut end grain — the most absorbent face of a piece of timber, pointing into the wettest place on the building. | By geometry, before detailing gets a vote. Each course laps the one below, so gravity does the shedding whether or not the paint is intact, and the lap is self-flashing by shape. Its exposed lower edge runs with the grain rather than across it, and its end grain lives at butt joints and corners, tucked behind trim. |
| Wall height and the joint you cannot hide | Wants to cross the storey in one piece. Where the wall is taller than the boards you can buy — or handle safely — you are buying a flashed horizontal joint, normally dressed as a trim band, and it becomes a line across the elevation that has to be designed rather than concealed. | Made in handleable lengths and joined as routine. Butt joints are staggered, backed or flashed, and they land inside a pattern that is already horizontal, so they read as part of it. Extra wall height is simply more courses. |
| Movement, and the rule that governs it | Solid boards move across their width, which is why the batten is nailed through the gap between two boards rather than through both of them, and why a wide board gets a single fastening line rather than one at each edge. Pin a board at both edges and it splits as it shrinks. One rule, invisible once the wall is finished, and the classic failure — a wall of split boards that looked perfect for two seasons. | Movement is absorbed by the assembly instead of managed by a rule. Each course is fastened on one line and free at its lapped edge, so shrinkage takes up inside the lap and splits nothing. There is no equivalent detail to get wrong; the fastening schedule is just the fastening schedule. |
| The dimension you lay out to | Across the width. Board count is the wall width divided by the module you choose, so the layout problem is where battens land relative to window jambs and corner boards, and whether the leftover width is split evenly between the two end boards or left as a sliver at one corner. | Up the height. Course count is the wall height divided by the exposure, and the exposure is capped by the minimum head lap the manufacturer publishes — which puts a floor under the course count, not a ceiling. So the layout problem is landing course lines on window heads and sills and carrying the same lines around the building without a jog at the corners. |
| Fastening lines, and where the heads show | Two sets of them — one along every board, one along every batten — so the linear runs of fastening roughly double for a given wall width. The batten's line is on the face of the building by definition: a visible row of heads running the full height of every batten, each one a coating detail and a corrosion detail. | One line per course. Most lap systems blind-nail, so the course above covers the heads and the finished face carries no fasteners at all. Face nailing exists as a specified schedule for higher wind exposure, not as the everyday default. |
| Repair | The more accessible repair of the two, and one of the more accessible on any cladding. A damaged batten is one strip off and one strip on. A damaged board means pulling the two battens beside it, taking the board out and putting a new one back — all of it worked from the face, with nothing above it disturbed. | Worked from under the overlap. The damaged course is captured by the course above, so the repair begins by freeing that course — a zipper tool on an interlocking product, split nails or a careful pry on a nailed one — and everything disturbed has to go back correctly before the wall is weatherproof again. |
| What the elevation gains, and what it gives away | Vertical lines pull the eye up, so the wall reads taller and narrower — which is why it flatters gable ends, entry volumes and small buildings that want presence. What it gives away is tolerance on plumb: a batten beside a corner board is a plumb line, repeated at every module, and any lean in the wall is drawn on the outside of the house. | Horizontal lines lengthen a building and settle it onto the ground. What it gives away is tolerance on level: a wandering course line, a sag, or a corner that has settled is legible from the street the moment the courses stop running parallel to the eave. |
Which one, and when
Choose board and batten when…
- The wall is open — new build, or a re-side taken back to the sheathing — so the nailing base, the cavity and the cladding plane depth are all still free decisions rather than retrofits paid for twice.
- You are buying a panelised board-and-batten system rather than true boards. It fastens to the vertical framing the way sheathing does, which takes the horizontal-nailer problem off the table and lets the rainscreen furring stay vertical where it wants to be.
- The surfaces are tall and simple — gable ends, an entry volume, a small outbuilding — where boards cross in one piece and there is no horizontal joint to design around.
- You want the elevation to read taller and narrower, and the building's massing can carry it.
- Repairability from the face matters: a batten or a board comes off and goes back without touching a single piece above it.
Choose horizontal lap siding when…
- You are re-cladding an existing house, and the framing behind the sheathing is a nailing base you already own — the job stays a cladding job, with nothing built out and nothing re-detailed at the openings.
- A drained and vented cavity is in the assembly and you want the simple version of it, where one layer of vertical furring does the draining, the venting and the fastening at once.
- The walls are tall — two storeys, or anything a board cannot cross in a single piece — and you would rather have courses than a horizontal band you have to justify architecturally.
- The elevations are cut up with openings and returns, where each course's offcut starts the next and every detail around a window is already a solved one.
- The building is long and low, and horizontal lines suit the massing that is already there.
Now run your own numbers
This page holds no prices on purpose — a national average is wrong for almost every real project. Quantify both options with your dimensions and your local quotes.
Frequently asked questions
- Does board and batten need horizontal furring or blocking behind it?
- True boards need a horizontal fastening base of some kind, because they run parallel to the studs and cross none of them. There are three legitimate versions: blocking let in between the studs, horizontal nailers run over the sheathing, or a wood structural panel sheathing that the manufacturer's instructions and the adopted code accept as the fastening surface on its own — that last route is common with engineered wood and it depends on a minimum panel thickness and a specified fastener penetration, so read the instructions rather than assume it. Over a furred rainscreen there is no choice at all: the boards can only reach the furring, so the nailing layer has to be horizontal. The real exception is panelised board-and-batten siding, which is a large-format sheet with the vertical grooves formed in it and the battens applied to the face. That behaves like a sheet good — it spans the studs and fastens to them at the edges and in the field — so it delivers the vertical appearance without the extra layer behind it. If you have been quoted 'board and batten' and the cost looks close to lap siding, this is usually why, and it is worth knowing which one you are buying.
- How do I run a vented rainscreen behind vertical boards?
- You resolve a direct conflict: the cavity needs to drain down and vent up, and the boards need something horizontal to hit. Three approaches are in common use. Cross-strapping runs vertical furring over the water-resistive barrier for drainage and venting, then horizontal nailers over that for the boards — the most robust and the thickest. A drainage and ventilation mat gives the cavity its space and its path without vertical strips, leaving horizontal nailers to be fixed through it into the framing. Or horizontal strips are deliberately interrupted at intervals, or notched, so water and air still get past them rather than being dammed on top of each one. Decide this before you price the job, not after, because the extra build-out is not a cladding line item — it changes the depth of the cladding plane, which changes window jamb extensions, trim returns, the sill detail, the roof-to-wall junction and the soffit. On new construction that is a drawing decision. On a retrofit it is the reason the vertical option costs more to change to later than to choose at the start.
- How wide should the boards be, and how wide the gaps?
- This is a genuine design variable rather than a specification, which is exactly why it deserves attention: it is a dial that multiplies the bill. A narrower module means more boards, more battens, more fastening lines and a busier, stronger rhythm on the wall; a wider one means fewer of everything and a calmer elevation. The constraints on it are physical, not aesthetic. The batten has to cover the gap between the boards and keep a meaningful overlap onto each board even after both boards have shrunk in dry weather, so gap and batten width are chosen together. Wider boards move more across their width and split more readily if fastened wrongly, which is why the single-fastening-line rule matters most at the wide end. The related profiles are worth knowing before you commit: board-on-board laps a narrower board over the gap instead of a flat batten, and reverse board and batten puts the batten behind, so the wall reads as a recessed groove rather than a raised strip. When you run the board and batten calculator, feed it the module — board width plus the gap you intend — rather than the bare board width, or the count comes back high — divide by the bare board and you are buying a board for every gap as well. It counts across the wall's width only, so multiply by the wall height for linear material, and remember the batten count is the board count plus one, because a batten covers each seam including the two outer edges.
- Can I use both on the same house?
- Yes, and for the vertical look it is the most common honest answer. Board and batten on the gables, on a projecting entry volume or on an upper storey, with lap siding on the main walls, gets you the appearance where it is actually seen and keeps the bulk of the wall on the cheaper, simpler substrate. The discipline is to divide by building form rather than by mood: change cladding where the building changes plane, changes volume or crosses a floor line, so the transition has something to be about. Two details matter at the junction. It is a flashed horizontal joint — a water table or trim band with a drip, not a caulked seam — and the two claddings will very often sit at different depths, because one of them has an extra nailing layer behind it. That step is either designed as a shadow line and a trim thickness, or it is discovered on site. Decide it on the drawing.
- Can board and batten go straight over my existing lap siding?
- Not straight over, no. The old lapped wall is neither flat nor plumb — it is a stack of overlapping wedges — and vertical boards laid onto it would bear on the thick butt of each course and bridge the thin part above, so the boards rock, the fastening is uneven and the finished face telegraphs every course line behind it. Getting there properly means building a flat, plumb plane first and then a horizontal nailing layer on top of that: two build-outs, with the fasteners still required to reach framing rather than stopping in the old cladding, and every opening re-detailed for a cladding plane that now sits substantially further out than the windows were installed for. At that point you are doing more work than a tear-off and getting a worse wall, with an old cladding layer sealed up inside the assembly. The usual honest route for a re-side is to strip to the sheathing, fix the water-resistive barrier and flashings while you can see them, and build the base the new orientation needs. If the answer to that is 'not in this budget', that is a real answer, and it points at lap siding.
- Which costs more, and where does the money go?
- This site publishes no figures, so the useful thing is the shape of the cost rather than a number. Lap siding's cost tracks wall area almost cleanly, and its fastening base is free in the sense that it was already bought as framing; what varies is the labour around openings and corners, where the offcut from one course usefully starts the next. Board and batten loads several lines at once. There is a full-area layer behind the cladding that lap siding does not need — nailers, blocking or cross-strapping — which is labour and material over every square of wall before anything visible is hung. There are two material lines in front instead of one, and the batten line is peculiar: its count scales with the wall's width while its length scales with the wall's height, so a long low elevation and a tall narrow one with the same area produce very different batten orders. The fastening runs roughly double for a given width, and the module you pick multiplies boards, battens and fasteners together. Against that, board and batten owns the cheaper repair of the two — worked from the face, with nothing above it disturbed — and a panelised system removes most of the cost gap by removing the layer behind. The asymmetry worth pricing is the exit: because the substrate and the cladding depth are what change, switching orientation later is never a cladding swap. Run both calculators on your own elevations — one returns a board and batten count across the width, the other returns squares of wall area net of openings — and put those quantities in front of your own quotes.