If you've gotten siding bids in Bellingham, you've probably seen "rainscreen" on one quote and not another, with a few thousand dollars of difference attached. It's worth understanding what you're paying for, because in our climate it's the line item that decides whether your new siding lasts forty years or fails in twelve. Here's what a rainscreen costs in 2026, and why it earns its keep here.

A rainscreen typically adds $3,500 to $9,000 to a whole-house re-side in Bellingham, depending on the size of the house and the system. That's on top of the siding itself, and it's one of the best-spent dollars in the whole project.

What a rainscreen is.

A rainscreen is a vented air gap between your siding and the weather-resistive barrier on the sheathing. We build it with vertical furring strips or a manufactured drainage mat, so there's a continuous channel for water and air to move. The siding hangs off the furring, not flat against the wall. That small gap, usually a quarter inch to three quarters of an inch, does two big jobs: it gives any water that gets behind the siding a path to drain out the bottom, and it lets the wall dry from the back.

Why this climate needs it.

Bellingham gets roughly 35 inches of rain a year, and more than that, it stays damp for long stretches. Some water always gets behind siding, through the laps, around windows, in wind-driven rain. The question is whether it can get back out and whether the wall can dry. Direct-applied siding, nailed flat to the sheathing with no gap, traps that moisture against the wall. That's exactly how the old T1-11 and hardboard on so many Bellingham homes rotted the sheathing behind them.

A rainscreen breaks that cycle. The vented gap means the wall is never holding water against the sheathing, and it can dry between rains even on a shaded north wall that never sees the sun. In a drier climate you can sometimes get away without one. Here, it's the thing that makes a re-side last.

In a climate this wet, a rainscreen is the difference between siding that lasts 40 years and siding that fails in 12. It's the part cheap bidders skip.

What you're paying for.

The $3,500 to $9,000 covers more than a few strips of wood. A proper rainscreen install includes:

The system you choose moves the cost. Simple wood furring strips are the most economical. A manufactured drainage mat or an entangled-net product costs more but installs faster on some walls and works well where furring is awkward. We'll recommend the right one for your house. For the bigger picture of how this fits a whole re-side, see the Bellingham siding installation cost guide.

Does every material need one?

Almost every quality install in Bellingham benefits from a rainscreen, but it matters most under wood and fiber cement. Cedar and other real wood will not last here without a way to dry, so a rainscreen is essentially required if you want the wood to make it. Fiber cement performs much better on a rainscreen and it lines up with how James Hardie wants it installed. Even insulated vinyl benefits, though the case is a little softer there. The one place we always push hardest for a rainscreen is a shaded, damp wall, the kind common in Sudden Valley, Cornwall Park, and Silver Beach, where the wall can't dry from the front because the sun never hits it.

Is it worth it?

For a Bellingham home you plan to keep, yes, almost always. Spending $3,500 to $9,000 to protect a $20,000 to $40,000 re-side, and the sheathing and framing behind it, is cheap insurance against the exact failure mode that wrecks siding here. The county's permit reviewers and the WA energy code keep pushing toward better water management for the same reason. A rainscreen is not an upsell. It's the part of the job that makes the rest of the money worth spending.

For a free walkthrough and a written estimate, Bellingham Siding Co. installs rainscreen systems on every re-side, under fiber cement and cedar alike, across Bellingham and Whatcom County.