Building with eastern red cedar

Hello, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. We love visiting old houses. We once toured Eutawville houses that weren’t flooded by the lake. One was built about 1810, and for 150 years, wasn’t ever painted. It was built of eastern red cedar heartwood which has all sorts of compounds that prevent rot and insect damage. Native Americans used it for canoes and ceremonial buildings. Farmers found that eastern red cedar fence posts hardly ever had to be replaced. These trees are quite slow-growing. Nowadays, you can’t get heartwood. My gardening work partner and I used to work for a woman who built a house at Kiawah from cedar, but had to replace the whole outside with treated lumber, as the cedar sap wood boards didn’t hold up to those challenging conditions