I am considering having fiber cement siding applied to my house. I live in Denver, and my house was built in 1973. The company wants to remove my existing siding and wrap my house. I would like to consider having insulation blown in the walls while the siding is off. In other construction projects, I’ve seen that the insulation is not the best. What’s the thought on 1) using fiber cement siding as the choice of siding, and 2) should I have insulation blown in the walls or will the wrap and siding provide additional insulation?
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The wrap might help, the siding won't. The r value of cement siding is about 0.15. I'd have cellulose blown in.
I have hardiplank on my house, very very happy with it.
Edited 11/16/2008 7:27 pm ET by Dam_inspector
That's good to hear. Hardi is what I'm considering, so that's good to know. Thanks for the info.
Disclaimer: I am not an insulation expert, but here is my $.02 worth.
1) Fiber cement siding seems to be good stuff, although you will have to paint it periodically.
2) Additional blown in insulation is probably a good idea when the siding is off. House wrap, when properly applied, will help prevent air infiltration while letting the house rid itself of moisture vapor. However, siding and house wrap have virtually no R-value.
House wrap is applied improperly more often than not. The goal is a seamless envelope. This is of course impossible. Therefore, a proper installation involves apropriate lapping and lots of tyvek tape to seal all of the seams, both in the material itself and where the material encounters a penetration like a window or door.
Google Tyvek and go to the installation instructions to see what the manufacturer recommends - print that section and give it to your siding installer. Make it known that those instructions are to be closely followed and no siding is to be hung before you get to inspect the Tyvek install - otherwise you are throwing good money down a rat hole with little benefit.
Jim
Excellent points. Thanks for your feedback
What is inyour walls now? You need to know that first. I like fiber cement and Have used it on my place.
I built my house in 1972. The 2nd floor is siding. I replaced it a summer ago with fiber cement siding. I like you are thinking had foam install before removing the old siding. Just did not have the contractor patch the siding since I was going to replace it any way. The contractor's employee's did a good job of filling the voids in the 2X4 cavity. I noticed even though they were making a good effort not much was being added. If I was to do it over I would have an energy audit with infare camera shots done first to see if the adding extra insulation would be helpful. After the siding was removed on a wall I had the siding contractor reflash over each windows, then install bituminous tape for air infiltration around each window, and then install a high grade tyvec house wrap with alum material on the outside. Over that I had the siding contractor install Benjamin Obdyke Home Slicker. This past summer Hurricane IKE came up the OHIO valley and we experienced 80 MPH winds for about 5 hours. The siding stood up to it with no issues.
I like your ideas.I was also going to mention an energy audit. There's an article about energy audits and infrared imageing in the new Jan 09 FHB.I'm about two thirds done putting fibre cement on my own house. I'm using the pre painted stuff. It looks good and should last for a good long time.
I purchased prepainted also but could not buy the color I needed. So I primed and painted it on top of the factory color prior to installing it. Should last awhile.
Thanks for you suggestions.
A recent issue of FHB also mentioned prepainted fiber cement siding with a 20 year warranty. Not having to paint anything except the cut ends sounds like a real winner to me.
If you're worried about the insulation levels from settling or just not having any, having it blown into the cavities and adding insulation bord under the siding are serious contenders for consideration to me. An energy audit using infrared will give you a great deel for how much it will help.