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Wes Billups
10-11-2010, 1:13 PM
Not sure if there is a better forum to ask this in so I thought I'd be safe posting here.

We just moved into an 18 yr old house that's in need of new siding. It's currently some form of tempered hardboard which wasn't well taken care of. Near the ground it's turned to mush and most of the joints are swollen.

I'd like to do something that's low maintenance and am debating between steel and cement board. Anyone have approximate installed costs for each of these?

If we go the cement board siding route, can it be used in conjunction with PVC trim.

We're located in Topeka, KS if location is important. This is also related to a new shop as we'll be building a detached shop next year and I want to use the same siding on the shop as what we put on the house.

Thanks,
Wes

P.S. I don't see much steel or vinyl siding around here, which may be due to the weather extremes.

Neal Clayton
10-11-2010, 2:26 PM
there were many lawsuits involving the type of siding you have, it was basically masonite, which if you ever used in the shop you know what happens when it gets wet.

as for vinyl, skip it imo. it's no different than a paint schedule on wood siding. instead of painting every 15 years you're replacing every 15 years. no matter what they pitch in terms of warranty and "maintenance free" it isn't. there are no maintenance free building products. vinyl siding will eventually warp in the sun, it and when it does it will start to trap moisture. it's maintenance free until you throw it away and buy more, basically.

hardi is the most durable but the factory 'paint' on the hardi siding will need to be redone every so often like wood siding does. perhaps not as often as wood paint (15 years versus 10-12), but there's the higher upfront cost.

if you prep wood correctly with the first paint job paint on wood siding can last ~12 years, so it's still a viable option due to the low cost. you should be able to get cypress siding pretty cheaply here in the southeast/midwest (under a dollar a linear foot for 1x6 laps around here).

put a pencil to the maintenance costs. don't automatically assume that there's a clear best option. there isn't. it all depends on how much of the maintenance you're gonna do yourself and how much the maintenance cost is.

Ben Franz
10-11-2010, 11:34 PM
I have a preference for fiber cement over wood. When compared with wood siding of decent quality, there is a definite price advantage. Lots of wood products on the market are milled from new growth trees and are badly behaved once installed. Proper back priming and priming of all cut ends during installation can improve performance but a lower grade wood plank will not hold up as well as cement. I always used the unfinished Hardie Plank rather than factory painted. There are a lot of joints that need caulking and I think it looks better to paint everything after caulking. Once painted, 12-15 years is a reasonable expectation for repainting.

Neal stated that the cement plank has a higher upfront cost. This was not my experience but wood siding prices may be very different in his region. If you're having the installation done by someone else, I wouldn't expect any major variance between wood and cement. The cement market is well established and cutting tools are very commonplace now. I used Hardie Plank on several client projects as well as my own house and noone has had anything bad to say about it.

As far as trim, IIRC Hardie now has fiber cement trim products available though I haven't used them. My preference was to use Winsor One - a finger jointed, pre-primed wood product with a slight rough sawn face texture. It comes in 16' lengths, dead straight and defect free at a reasonable cost. I would be reluctant to use vinyl trim (or vinyl siding or vinyl windows or vinyl anything) but that's mostly a personal aversion.

Bill Leonard
10-12-2010, 8:04 AM
I suggest Hardiplank, or Hardiplank. If Hardiplank isn't available then I'd find some Hardiplank.

Brian Elfert
10-12-2010, 11:02 AM
I really like seamless steel, but it is not cheap.

My house was built in 2001. The builder had included a premium vinyl siding in the original price. It was only like $1,500 to upgrade to seamless steel so it was a no brainer. The builder must have been using some big buck vinyl as steel is normally double the cost of vinyl or more.

Neal Clayton
10-12-2010, 4:55 PM
I have a preference for fiber cement over wood. When compared with wood siding of decent quality, there is a definite price advantage. Lots of wood products on the market are milled from new growth trees and are badly behaved once installed. Proper back priming and priming of all cut ends during installation can improve performance but a lower grade wood plank will not hold up as well as cement. I always used the unfinished Hardie Plank rather than factory painted. There are a lot of joints that need caulking and I think it looks better to paint everything after caulking. Once painted, 12-15 years is a reasonable expectation for repainting.

Neal stated that the cement plank has a higher upfront cost. This was not my experience but wood siding prices may be very different in his region. If you're having the installation done by someone else, I wouldn't expect any major variance between wood and cement. The cement market is well established and cutting tools are very commonplace now. I used Hardie Plank on several client projects as well as my own house and noone has had anything bad to say about it.

As far as trim, IIRC Hardie now has fiber cement trim products available though I haven't used them. My preference was to use Winsor One - a finger jointed, pre-primed wood product with a slight rough sawn face texture. It comes in 16' lengths, dead straight and defect free at a reasonable cost. I would be reluctant to use vinyl trim (or vinyl siding or vinyl windows or vinyl anything) but that's mostly a personal aversion.

yeah, here in the south we get cypress very cheap. it's quite durable in the weather, is a pretty fast growing tree so there's lots of it, and even unfinished it'll last 15 years or so in the sun and rain due to the natural watery sap in the tree, so it's a no brainer for siding and fences here in this part of the world, other than the fact that it'll need paint maintenance like any other wood. just gotta consider the paint cost versus the others and see which you prefer.

Jim Becker
10-12-2010, 8:58 PM
We re-sided with Hardie cement siding when we put the addition on a few years ago...factory finished, even. (They had an acceptable color and it saved a bundle on paint and labor) Our trim is a mixture of Azak and wood. The pre-finished siding has a 25 year "paint" guarantee.

Dave Lehnert
10-12-2010, 10:44 PM
I have vinyl siding on the gables of the house. It's close to 30 years old and see no need to replace it.

Rob Fisher
10-14-2010, 2:44 PM
I'll throw my hat in for fiber cement siding. If you can get the prefinished with a warranty that you are happy with, it will probably be cheaper than painting. Though it will eventually need painted in 15 or 20 or 25 years or so.

Curt Harms
10-15-2010, 5:36 AM
The only complaint i'd heard is if not properly installed, it'll rattle in the wind. We have it on a 1995 townhouse and it looks to be good for the foreseeable future. I'm sure there's a reason it fell out of favor, I just don't know what it is.

Brian Elfert
10-15-2010, 8:41 AM
One of my co-workers had aluminum siding and had it replaced with vinyl siding after a hail storm. The color fades over time and it is more suspectible to hail damage than other types of siding.

My steel siding does creak a little bit when it expands and contracts as the sun hits it, but not a big deal.

Curt Harms
10-16-2010, 5:08 AM
One of my co-workers had aluminum siding and had it replaced with vinyl siding after a hail storm. The color fades over time and it is more suspectible to hail damage than other types of siding.

My steel siding does creak a little bit when it expands and contracts as the sun hits it, but not a big deal.

Thanks Brian, that makes sense. Ours hasn't faded much over 15 years and our part of the world doesn't get much in the way of severe convective storms- hail, tornadoes etc. It does dent easily, we have a spot where a storm door knob removed from the closer hit.

Larry Edgerton
10-16-2010, 8:54 AM
I just replaced all of the wood siding on a house in Jackson Mi. It lasted a 130 years. Pretty hard to beat that..........

We went with Azek for trim and prestained cedar for siding. The owner wants it to look authentic and last another 100 years or so.

Check out "Michigan Prestain" on the net, they deliver to your area, and I have used their products for years.

Cedar shingle siding is what I am using on my new house, again from Michigan Prestain, will last the rest of my life with no problem. I will make my trim out of Azek, mostly because the good quality wood that will last has priced itself too high for my budget.

Brian Elfert
10-16-2010, 5:57 PM
I can find many, many cases of wood siding lasting less than 30 years for every case of wood siding lasting 130 years. I have nothing against someone who wants to install wood siding. They just need to be prepared to do a lot of work on their siding.

Me personally I wouldn't install wood siding on my house if I got it for free.

Neal Clayton
10-16-2010, 8:58 PM
I can find many, many cases of wood siding lasting less than 30 years for every case of wood siding lasting 130 years. I have nothing against someone who wants to install wood siding. They just need to be prepared to do a lot of work on their siding.

Me personally I wouldn't install wood siding on my house if I got it for free.

because in the past 30 years people have un-learned how to finish wood thanks to shady contractors and paint companies.

which leads to people thinking the wood is to blame when they get screwed by a paint contractor and a marketing brochure at the paint department in the BORG.

Bill Cunningham
10-16-2010, 10:01 PM
I have Aluminum on the house which we had installed 35 years ago. A good powerwash every so often brings it back nice. I made the horrible mistake of putting vinyl siding on my new shop. You can't even weedwhack close to the building without damaging the siding, never again. When my Garage fell down due to a heavy snowload, I pulled all the aluminum siding off, took it to the scrap yard and got $235.00 in scrap value for it.. Rip of any other type of siding, and you have to pay to get rid of it..