Hardiplank siding...opinions please.

[Ed Gibbons]

I am considering using prefinished hardiplank siding on my home. Any feedback would be appreciated.
Thanks,
EG

[Steve Mellott]

We had Hardiplank siding installed on our home in Georgia. You never have to worry about termites which is an important selling point in a hot humid climate. The installers used special blades but it seemed to be easy to install. It also looked very nice.

Steve

[Bob Wingard]

I used 4' X 8' sheets of HardiPanel siding on the interior walls of my shop .. .. LOVE IT !! !!

I don't think I've ever heard a complaint about Hardi Products other than it's price. Seems to be great stuff. Won't burn .. won't rot .. bugs hate it .. doesn't absorb moisture .. takes paint well .. what's not to like ??

[george wilson]

I'm not an expert,but doesn't some of that concrete siding have layers of paper in it that rot and fall apart? Maybe some has fiberglass. Just a thought.

[Jason White]

I'm in the process of residing my own house using pre-painted James Hardie fiber cement siding. I think I paid about $650 for 400 square feet. I'm installing it about 5" to the weather.

It's way cheaper than cedar and I don't have to paint it. Plus I got the color-matched caulk. Very dusty stuff! Just make sure to use the right tools and some type of dust collection. RIDGID has a new fiber cement circular saw on the market that looks interesting -- doesn't require a vacuum. Instead it has an internal fan that directs dust through a hose into a regular 5-gallon drywall bucket.

Hope that helps!

Jason


I am considering using prefinished hardiplank siding on my home. Any feedback would be appreciated.
Thanks,
EG

[Jason White]

No.

You're probably thinking of the older Masonite siding, which was basically a type of hardboard. Terrible stuff!



I'm not an expert,but doesn't some of that concrete siding have layers of paper in it that rot and fall apart? Maybe some has fiberglass. Just a thought.

[Gary Curtis]

My new house near the Oregon border of Calif. has Hardi siding. Required by law in that county because of the fire danger in the mountains.

The planking was applied directly over the Tyvak moisture wrap barrier, and took the exterior paint with no need of a primer. After 3-plus years it's looking pretty good. It also has the added benefit of a bit of R-value heat resistance. Cuts easily and drills without splitting or splintering.

Gary Curtis

[Terry Teadtke]

Way less expensive than cedar and it's not going to split, rot, have paint bubbles, or warp. And don't even consider a composite like LP siding.

Hardiplank's going to last as long as the house.

Terry

[Tom Cross]

Hardiplank - excellent, highly recommend. Have it on our current home - 8 years to date. Holds paint much better than wood.

It does expand and contract length-wise more than wood. Butt joints and end of course need room to expand, about 1/8". A good installer will know about that. Install using blind nailing technique using galvanized roofing nails. Complete installation instructions are on the Hardi-Plank web site.

You can't go wrong with it.

[Jim O'Dell]

I resided my detached shop during the remodel early on. It's been on for about 4 years now. I need to wash it, but the paint goes on and holds great!! I used the regular primed 12" planks. I used paintable caulk between the butted ends and the end caps (1 X 4 Hardi) and also filled the holes where I drilled, counter sinked, and screwed it on. Found a trick, if you over fill the hole with caulk, then use a 4" putty knife slowly over it, it mimics the grain and the holes totally disappear!!! I also went on directly over Tyvek with no problems.
It is a mess. If you use a circular saw like I did, use a cheap one you can throw away, and get the special blade for it. I wore out 2 carbide blades before I got the special one. It works great. Have a fan behind you blowing the dust away. And the dust is hazardous!!! Or better yet, instead of sawing it, get the shears to cut it. Lots less dust I understand. There is also an adaptor to a regular drill that makes it into a set of the shears. But I'd do it again. In fact, one of these days I need to redo the shed next to the shop. The siding is eaten away, and who knows what critters live in there. I'll definately use Hardi again. Jim.

[jerry theros]

first time here.... I replaced 51/2" bevel siding on my house some seven or eight years ago, its held paint well and haven't had any problems thus far. Since then I've done a few jobs with this material including installing their shingle products, over tyvek, 5/8" exterior sheetrock for a 1 hour firewall as this application is in the hills of northern calif. If your job is of any scale at all, I'd recomend getting a pair of cement shears, I've done it scribing and with a saw blade for the 1" trim product they make....the shears are the only way to go good luck

[Barry Nelson]

Keep buying it because James Hardie will need the money,they face a billion dollar compensation payment to people who contacted mesatheyloma (sp?) whilst working with it ,they are starting to run out of money.Used to be called fibro over here in Australia,whole houses were made from it,i.e. ceilings,interior walls, exterior walls, outhouses etc etc it had asbestos in it,but I think they have changed the formulation, was a great innovation ,cheap,finished well,had some insulating properties.Now the chickens are coming home to roost,they face hundreds of claims.Now anybody who even remotely worked with it is lodging a claim.

[Steve Jenkins]

I used it to reside my house. I used the 8-1/4 for a 7" reveal. Worked great. we used the primed and painted it ourselves. I mostly used the circular saw blade designed for the siding but recently bought a dry cut diamond blade at 'the depo" and like it much better. The ones for the siding work fine and are pretty cheap but do get dull fairly quickly. The diamond was around 40bucks but seems to last forever.

[Don Bullock]

My house and shop/garage building have hardiboard on the exterior. It's a code requirement because of the possible wildfires in our area.

[Rick Fisher]

The Color-plus is the way to go with Hardi.. About the only problem you could have is efflorescence.. (yikes spelling).. Its a proven product, very good.

I have it on my house and its been excellent.

[Luther Oswalt]

I have it on my house, garage and shop. It is maintenance free and is a beautiful siding ... you will cerntainly like it ... be sure to follow their instructions when installing it ...
Leo

[Bryan Parlor]

I am considering using prefinished hardiplank siding on my home. Any feedback would be appreciated.
Thanks,
EG

I have been very pleased with Hardie shingle side but it was very time consuming to install (our house has a lot of windows and a 45 deg roof going down three floors). I would have used the Shingle side panels if they had been approved for use in our area. Its holding the paint very well.

To keep the dust down I scribed the cuts with a utility knife and snapped the shingles in a workmate. Any cut ends that were visible were cleaned with the utility knife. Its helpful to put the nail holes in on the ground if your hand nailing.

I used the Hardie plank as a starter strip and cut those by the score and snap method but I found the plank material has a different composition and is harder to cut with a knife than the shingles. I did buy a carbide tip knife but found I liked the utility knife better.

Bryan

[george wilson]

No,I am not confusing Hardie with masonite siding. I had a house with that stuff on it years ago. I had to keep replacing it. A contractor friend mentioned to me that the paper layers rot in Hardie. He would not use it again.

Unless they started using something other than paper in Hardie,I'd be careful about it. Find out WHAT is holding the concrete together. This is just what I've been told about it. Be careful.

[Ben Franz]

I used HardiPlank on several projects, including my own house. I've never heard anything about delamination problems in the siding or panels. They did have a similar product used for roofing that degraded severely under constant UV exposure so maybe that's causing some confusion. There hasn't been anything in trade publications about Hardy siding problems. I like the product a lot and don't hesitate to recommend it to clients. I haven't used the prepainted stuff because of cost and I think there's too much "wear and tear" on prefinished goods in the typical construction environment.

Cutting is very hard on typical carbide tools and the dust is horrible. An alternative to the special saws is a set of power shears - I use Snapper shears but there are alternatives available. I find them to be as fast as sawing and more portable for use on scaffolding or pump jack staging. I cut from the back side and use a speed square as a guide. Tight cutouts are easy with a jigsaw and carbide abrasive blade. My $.02.

One other thing to watch - the siding is very flexible and will show any waviness in the underlying framing. It doesn't bridge over dips the way a cedar or redwood product does.

[Jonathan Spool]

I have used the shingle siding and love it. Prefinished is an excellent plan. Don't confuse it with LP siding which is crap.

[Ed Calkins]

We used the shingle siding on our house (in 2001) and it has been excellent. Prior house (cabin) had cedar and woodpeckers constantly attacked it. We are in a fire risk area and you can hold a propane torch to the hardie shingles without combustion. I would never use any other "man made" siding but Hardie is great and the shingle product we used (comes in varying widths to look realistic) looks just like cedar shingles. We used latex paint and after 8 years it still looks new. Ed

[Mike Elo]

Just follow the NEW installation procedure. When I put mine on my new house in 2001 hardie instructions said to leave an 1/8" gap on the butt joints and fill joint with a non specific filler. I used Vulkem 116. Now I have a new house that almost all the butt joints have failed. I complained to Hardie and the man said it was considered general maintenance to have to replace the caulking every 5 years or so. So much for low maintenance. Now I have to repaint and re-caulk every 5 years or so. But I can buy cheaper paint. I don't need 15 year paint now. The new procedure said to leave the butt joint tight and don't caulk and and putt flashing behind each joint. I think this makes the joints looks like crap. I would go ahead and put a little caulk in each joint just so they weren't so visible. It does seem to hold up well and takes paint great. A cheap diamond tipped saw blade will cut this stuff for a long time, it is very dusty though. I would probably use it again.

[Scott Schwake]

Now I have a new house that almost all the butt joints have failed.

Ditto that, here's what mine looks like

[Steven Valentine]

One of the best things I did when building my house. I did not use the prefinished stuff, but the Mexicans, ahem, Latin Americans did a fantastic job painting. They used Flood stain (similar to Cabot solid stain)...an excellent product, and they hand brushed two coats of a fairly dark shade of green. Looks incredible. Just don't use the Hardi products for your trim boards. We were told to use Mira-Tec (at least I think that's the name) and it is great as well. Out lumberyard specifically did not even carry the Hardi trim boards as they had bad experiences with them previously. Also, FYI, if you use Hardi soffit boards (12" and 16" wide) be careful, because they break incredibly easily. You can buy shears, or special blades ($50), but it works just as well to take a used circular saw blade and turn it around backward on your circular saw. And don't forget a good dusk mask. It is concrete afterall. Also, the price shouldn't be a problem...it's a third of the cost of cedar, and vinyl to me looks like crap. Hope this helps.

[Steven Valentine]

Should have used the 50 year caulk...:)

[Kelly C. Hanna]

We installed about 350 sf the other day to replace some beveled siding on an old house. Used the shears and wasn't all that impressed with them. The cut was a bit sloppy and it had a back bevel in the wrong direction.

The product is fantastic....if I were to have any siding choice it would be Hardi-Plank.

[Alan Trout]

Overall the Hardie siding system products are good. It is just like anything else installed wrong it can be a problem. And being an inspector I have seen many instances of not being installed according to manufactures recommendations. Far as durability it is far superior to most wood sidings and much better than vinyl at least in the hot climates. It holds paint well and I have never seen any delaminate. I have even seen it used for unapproved locations such as boat houses and docks in direct contact/exposure with water and it has never come apart.

Good Luck

Alan

[Bill White]

Used it on two homes, and am using it as accent shingles on the one we're building now.
Had to go to battle with the insurance agent to convince him/them that is did NOT class the home as a "siding" home (class 10 ins. rating). Finally won the war on that one.
Stuff cuts well with an old-fashioned siding shingle cutter like was used on asbestos siding.
Bill

[Brian Backner]

+1 on the Hardi Plank siding. Had my house redone about 12 years ago - one of the first in New England - I had to have it imported direct from Hardi as the only distributor we could find was in California. I had it shipped directly to the Cabot finishing plant and had it prepainted. Even with that it was STILL cheaper than cedar. It's starting to look it's age now, meaning it will soon need to be repainted, but it has held up well.

One thing I would recommend, because of the caulk breaking away at the butt joints, is to put a piece of flashing vertically behind those joints. Extend it several inches above the top of the row you're installing to within about 1/4" of the bottom (so 1" onto the previous row with the standard 1-1/4" overlap). Six or eight inch width would be fine. If you are using corner boards, make sure you flash behind them as well (I nailed them onto the house only at the corners with long finishing nails on a 45 degree angle - this allowed me to lever the the corner board up to slip the flashing behind it. When I was done flashing both sides of the house at the corner, I came back and nailed off the corner board before caulking.

Brian

[Terry Brogan]

A comment and a question. Someone mentioned R-value. There isn't any, to speak of. It's buried in the website detail, and well buried at that. It's very small. That being said, the standard Hardie is 5/16, but they make another version that's twice as thick, 5/8, called Artisan Luxury, that was, last time I checked, only being marketed and sold in the South. I looked into it because I live in Chicago and would appreciate a heavier siding in the winter. But I couldn't find anybody who'd installed it or liked it, and getting it up here was going to be a pain. Anybody heard of it?

http://www.artisanluxury.com

There's a product called bear skins for back-flashing butt joints:
http://shop.bearcubproducts.com/