Anyone here re-side their house with Hardie boards…..

[RetiriusMinimus]

We’ve got painted cedar shakes now..tired of painting… considering vinyl, but a GC that’s done work for us in the past suggested those hardie cement boards. I had heard of moisture issues with these so….

 

[Bamaman]

I've got vinyl siding on the top story of my lake house. It's out of favor with customers now.

The Hardie board is a very popular siding on homes, and it's reasonably quick to install. But many people are now using a comparable product called LG Smartside. I'm thinking it's available with colors already applied.

 

[street]

Cement board or hardy board are an excellent product and will last forever. That is what people are going with. No hail damage and stands up like no other siding on the market. IMO

 

[FlaGator]

Hardie siding (and similar cement-based products) is common in the FL Panhandle. Also meets the building/wind code.

 

[ERD50]

We’ve got painted cedar shakes now..tired of painting… considering vinyl, but a GC that’s done work for us in the past suggested those hardie cement boards. I had heard of moisture issues with these so….

Cement board or hardy board are an excellent product and will last forever. That is what people are going with. No hail damage and stands up like no other siding on the market. IMO

+1 Hardie cement board is FANTASTIC.

We had it put on our addition in 2005, and also replaced the failing cedar siding on that side of the house (East), and South sides. Remember, this stuff is cement. Moisture does *not* affect it (you may be thinking of other non-cement 'hard-board' products).

I painted it myself at the time (it was primed, you can order colors now), and not being a pro, I probably didn't get as thick and even a coat on as I should have. But still, TWELVE years later, with zero maintenance, it looked almost as good as the day the paint went on. The paint (solid-colored stain in my case), just sticks to this stuff. There was absolutely *zero* peeling or cracking in 12 years. It looks better than the cedar did after two years.

And the woodpecker that made holes in the cedar wouldn't touch it. Insects don't touch it.

Did I mention that it is FANTASTIC?

And the only reason to repaint after 12 years it was the paint had sort of worn/weathered and looked 'thin'/transparent, and I needed the cedar on the other sides of the house painted, so I had the whole thing done.

I highly recommend this product, but make sure your installer is familiar with it, and knows how to cut it, and nail it w/o blowing it out. Ours could have done abetter job, but it still was 10x greater than cedar. And you will recoup at least some of your money with less frequent painting. But it's also great that it looks good for so many years between paint jobs, instead of "Oh, house is looking bad, I really should spend those $$$ to get it painted). No guilt, it looks great for a decade or more.

-ERD50

 

[REWahoo]

We used HardiePlank lap siding on the back of our house, built in 1998. The stuff is great!

 

[SecondCor521]

My house was originally built with it back in 2004. I painted the exterior in 2020, and I remember being very pleased with how easy it was to paint and how well the paint went on.

I did have a person who mowed my lawn once damage one of the boards. I did a lousy job of patching and painting it, but that's my fault. I've also had a few places where the bottommost board just above the foundation has had small (maybe 1/2" x 6") chip off. I've just left those.

Overall, it's looked good and been very low maintenance. If I could choose, I'd choose it over anything else except maybe the painted redwood (!) on my parent's home.

 

[GoneFishin']

Replaced old masonite siding several years ago with Hardi Siding. As others have said, this stuff is bullet proof and we live in the bug capitol of the US. Woodpeckers won't touch it. Paint stays fresh as a daisy way far longer than we ever had with the old (what looked to me like) cardboard junk. Best thing we ever did. Added some new insulation and house wrap while we were at it. Hope that helps.

 

[N02L84ER]

Two of our neighbors have replaced their siding with Hardi Siding. We plan to replace ours within the next few years too, primarily because of the woodpeckers. We currently have cedar siding.

 

[pb4uski]

We have vinyl cedar shakes on our home. We paid extra to upgrade. The cedar shake vinyl is much thicker than clapboard vinyl. Vinyl is final... no painting for me.

A neighbor rebuilt the same time that we did with Hardiboard and we replaced the masonite on the north side of our old house with Hardiboard and painted it. While it is a fine product, my understanding is that even the prepainted Hardiboard will need to be painted after 15 years so not for me.

 

[Telly]

Hardie siding is made with cement powder, bonding agents, and felt. It is laminated in a press. For lap siding or vertical siding 4' x 8' panels, it is thin and brittle. Lap siding's bottom edges, or in the case of vertical siding, the bottom edge of the panel, can be broken/chipped by hail. The nailing methods and spacing to edges is critical to avoid breakage. It is cut with a diamond masonry blade, and puts out clouds of abrasive dust that should not be inhaled. See the manufacturers complete installation sheets for proper use. It has moisture problems if used too close to the ground to get splashback, as the instructions clearly indicate. Also the bottom has to be kept a minimum spacing away from a roof, splashback issue there.

I've left scraps of hardie plank (the lap siding) and Hardie trim (the nominal 1" x 4" trim board) outside on gravel to see what happens. The Hardie Plank degrades and starts to come apart. The Hardie Plank is more robust. It wouldn't be recommended to do what I did with any type of siding, but it goes to show that Hardie plank is not indestructible.

The Hardie vertical siding is a mess to try to install on any structure where the studs are not reliably on 16" or 24" centers, the issue being that every 4' there will be a panel-to-panel meet, and it has to be over a stud, and you can't angle any nails through Hardie. So every 4' the house has to be perfect to get the panel-to-panel joint to be exactly in the center of the stud. For proper installation. Haha, yeah right. Who's gonna know when it's new?

Our house is primarily brick, and had horizontal ship-lapped cedar siding for the rest. The cedar siding was a continuing maintenance headache. About 10 years ago I pulled off all of the cedar siding, and pulled off the original foam sheathing. Re-did the sheathing with 3/4" poly iso 4 x 8 sheets, I rebent roofing drip edge to make a bottom-edge protector for the poly iso sheets. Caulked the sheets to studs as I put them up. Then applied and taped the moisture-permeable membrane over that. Then 4 x 8 sheets of LP SmartSide vertical siding over that. The LP Smartside is an engineered wood product. Very easy to work with, cuts with regular wood tools, etc. Panel edges do not have to land directly on studs. Before installation, I oil-based primed the bottom few inches of every panel, front, bottom edge and back. And then latex-painted the back and bottom primed areas. I did this as the bottom edges in places are close to the ground (house on slab), and splash is prevalent.

I WILL say good things about Hardie Trim, their replacement for wood 1" x 4" trim boards. They are pretty solid. Expensive, too. I used those for the outside corners and around windows. I drilled through-holes, and used a countersink bit on the holes. Then used long coated deck screws to reach though everything to studs. The countersinking put the screw heads about 1/8" below the surface. I then used Urethane caulk applied and worked in well with a putty knife. Easy to simulate the wood-look ridges on the Hardie Trim in the caulk. Urethane caulk cures in a few days. Even though the Hardie Trim comes "pre-primed", the pre-anything on Hardie is pretty weak. I used oil-based primer again on those. I also caulked the Trim to siding panel joints, keeping water out.

So I made a hybrid, and it is lasting very well, even through a monster hail storm, and many hail storms that wouldn't be called monster-level here, but would be in other parts of the country!

 

[Marita40]

Yes, I had the original 100+ year old cedar siding replaced with Hardie board two years ago. I hated to lose the original siding, but it was in bad shape. It was a fantastic decision. The house really has a new lease on life and the historic elements were not lost at all. Mine was installed already factory painted.

 

[iloveyoga]

We replaced our siding with Hardie board 10 years ago and we have been very happy with the results. It made our house look so much nicer too. We used the kind that has the paint baked in so no more painting at least for the foreseeable future.

 

[Midpack]

Good to hear! Our new (5 yo) house is all Hardie board siding, though it wasn’t a conscious choice, every home in this neighborhood is Hardie board. Very common with new construction in NC. Looking forward to years of service, only wondering if we’ll ever need to paint it, but not anytime soon if ever.

 

[JoeWras]

We had a section replaced that matches our 40 year old masonite. The crew did a good job in assuring the bottom edge was not resting against the shingles, as the masonite was. They flashed behind and left a gap.


So, yeah, good stuff. Installation is crucial, and it should not sit on something that maintains moisture.


Did I say installation was crucial? Don't install it like this. Yikes!

 

[old medic]

We are needing to remove the original hard board siding on our house built in the early 70s... probably asbestos with lead paint. We are going back with OSB, Tyvek wrap and still unsure of what for siding.

 

[Midpack]

We are needing to remove the original hard board siding on our house built in the early 70s... probably asbestos with lead paint. We are going back with OSB, Tyvek wrap and still unsure of what for siding.

You might want to do a little more research, what you have may not be comparable to Hardie board. FWIW

Hardie Board should not be confused with "hardboard," which is dense, pressed particleboard made from wood. Common misspellings include hardiboard, hardyboard, hardyplank, hardypanel, HardiPlank, and HardiPanel. Knowing the manufacturer's name will help with accurate spelling. James Hardie Industries PLC is headquartered in Ireland.

https://www.thoughtco.com/what-are-hardieplank-hardiepanel-178360

Cement-fiber siding made prior to the 80s had asbestos in it. If your house is older, it may require abatement.

https://sidingauthority.com/hardie-board-siding/

 

[JoeWras]

To expand on the edge deterioration problem. Pictures below show the old masonite absorbing moisture. This section was replaced with the Hardie product. The contractors all warned me that even cement board can't be installed this way. Cement board has edge moisture absorption problems too. The solution they used (no picture, sorry) was to put step flashing behind this and raise the siding above it about 2", so the edge is never sitting on wet, like my old masonite did. Amazingly, still lasted 35 years.

 

[JoeWras]

Hardie Board should not be confused with "hardboard," which is dense, pressed particleboard made from wood. Common misspellings include hardiboard, hardyboard, hardyplank, hardypanel, HardiPlank, and HardiPanel. Knowing the manufacturer's name will help with accurate spelling. James Hardie Industries PLC is headquartered in Ireland.

This was a concern of mine. I nerded out and took a picture of the product info they were installing (on the back of each plank).

 

[CRLLS]

Our old house had an English cottage style facade. There were 4x8 sheet of ply, with glued-on small pebbles. Then 1x6 planks were nailed over the joints. Over the 20 years or so, the stones started to fall off. Instead of tearing everything off and starting from studs, we cut Hardi-panel (possibly a competitor's version) to fit between the cedar boards. We used a nail gun as was recommended. We then caulked around all the edges where they met the cedar. That was some 17 years ago. Occasionally we drive past the house and that part still looks good IMO. I would do it again if the situation warranted.

I gave some leftovers to a friend, and he stored them flat on the ground for many years. As I recall, they did pick up some mold but structurally they were still pretty good after >10 years.

 

[Ronstar]

Great thread. I'm not sure what BIL Put on his house, but it's amazing. it's either hardie board, lP SmartSide, or something similar. I plan on residing my detached workshop when it comes time for a new roof. I have 20 yo vinyl siding now and it's starting to show its age. I plan on using lp smartside for siding, soffit and fascia.

 

[ERD50]

To expand on the edge deterioration problem. Pictures below show the old masonite absorbing moisture. This section was replaced with the Hardie product. The contractors all warned me that even cement board can't be installed this way. Cement board has edge moisture absorption problems too. The solution they used (no picture, sorry) was to put step flashing behind this and raise the siding above it about 2", so the edge is never sitting on wet, like my old masonite did. Amazingly, still lasted 35 years.

I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure that step flashing along a side wall like that is the standard (probably code) way to do it. It helps keep the water from running down the wall.

A 2" gap is probably more than I've noticed. I think even a small gap is enough to let it dry out quickly, a larger gap is good for snow/ice build up.

-ERD50

 

[Badger]

I live about 100+ yards from the ocean and built a 16'x16' addition to my house many years ago and used cedar siding then a few years later built a 12'x20' sunroom addition and used Hardiboard siding that had a texture like cedar siding. Both are holding up well and then when I sealed, primered, and painted the cedar and primed and painted the Hardiboard you can't tell the difference 2' from your eyes. I expect both to hold up for many more years to come and with painting every 7-8 years well after I am gone.
I plan on adding an attached shed to the first addition that will also be using Hardiboard for siding. Since I am losing strength and fighting arthritis the shed will be hired out. I'll miss swinging the hammer but time has come to BTD.


Cheers!

 

[RetiriusMinimus]

Wow. This is great input in under 24 hours.... Thanks. My GC has installed it for many years so no issues. Sounds like a fantastic product. We were looking at vinyl shingles, not the clapboards, since you end up with all those pesky lines...

 

[JoeWras]

I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure that step flashing along a side wall like that is the standard (probably code) way to do it. It helps keep the water from running down the wall.

A 2" gap is probably more than I've noticed. I think even a small gap is enough to let it dry out quickly, a larger gap is good for snow/ice build up.

-ERD50

Yeah, many of my house's problems stem from lack of code of 40 years previous. I'm helping build new houses with Habitat for Humanity, and I shake my head at just how deficient my house is. But time marches on.

2" is aggressive, but I'm OK with it because this is more of a decorative element than a structural. Because of the sight lines, you can't see the gap from the ground. I took these pictures from a ladder.