Tudor style houses
I'm planning on building a home in the mountains. It is a high fire hazard area. I want a Tudor style exterior. I'm considering using Trex decking "boards" for the separators that give the appearance of beams. I've read that if I use wooden separators, the stucco will outlast them. Also, wooden separators would offer a path for fire to enter the building. Do you have any experience with using Trex or a similar product for separators?
It is important on a tudor style house to put flashing over every horizonal tudor member. Even if you use PVC trim. What I always say even if the trim doesn't rot, what the trim is nailed to will rot. Without flashing, water can run behind the trim.
A useful trick for flashing diagonal tudor members: You want to return the trim UP the vertical trim. This stops the obvious water funnel.
Another example of flashing the "V". You can see the importance of this. Without folding the flashing up you would have a water funnel, running water into the gap. I used to call this "V" on a tudor house, a "crotch",but some people found it offensive.
Here, we are replacing the stucco on an old tudor house. We replaced the vertical trim board, too. It had rotted at the bottom. Note the rot caused at the area around the "V". The rot below the window was caused by lack of flashing over the window. Also note how the wall was furred out to allow mortar to key behind the lath. This house was built in 1932, but the stucco could have failed sooner. This stucco and trim should last a lot longer than 92 years this time.
I complained about this when I was there. This addition was built by a big remodeling contractor, but I worked directly for the homeowner when the stucco contractor got run off. The backwards flashing is terrible, but the new tudor members were PVC. The paint was already peeling off because the trim was painted with regular house paint. PVC trim must be painted with a special paint or it will peel.
Tudor style stucco is old fashioned, but still considered very attractive today. The composite of color and texture adds a depth not available with other styles.