HArdiePlank nailing question- waves
I am on a condo board.
Contractor is telling us in his bid that you HAVE to face nail 8 inch hardie siding to prevent waffling ( that is, waves/gapping open and shut at the bottom of the planks) I do not know what that condition is called but thought it was discussed recently here and other than an uneven stud line, the most likely cause is variations in nail set when blind nailing is done – one gun at 80 psi one at 140 etc? I did a search but could not find info.
True false? opinions?
We have one building in Hardie that has some waffling only seen in certain light conditions – no one has ever noticed- but we would rather have that, than all the extra nails that are visible with face nailing and caulking that will fall out after 3 years and mess up the paint job.
Replies
Go to the James Hardie website. they have pDF installation documents there. Should give you what you want.
I did I did not see that addressed maybe I missed it. I e mailed them too
Edward,
Not a pro, but recently finished residing my home with blind-nailed Hardiplank. If the substrate is uneven, you will have wavy siding, regardless of whether you face nail or not. On my house, in a few places (I'm talking about 2 or three spots on the entire structure) a strategically placed face nail was necessary to snug things down. Any more than that is just to cover sloppy installation, IMO. Good luck.
My new home is blind nailed. No issues.
I have seen siding that was nailed as was suggested to you and it had waves all over the place. What I do is to nail the top portion as hardie suggests and then put a small dab of urethane caulk every 32" near the bottom to keep it from lifting. It sticks the bottom of a course to the point where the previous course was nailed. It turns out great and have never had any waves or slapping from the wind. I have never face nailed hardie board except on mitered corners.
I ONLY face-nail Hardy - it's just too thin.
Forrest
Hardie always has some waves in it - as you said, under certain light conditions or when you look at it from certain angles.
Just did my own home in 8 1/4" Hardie, 7" exposure. Only face nailed to smooth outh ripples or in a few spots where it was just too floppy. It looks good, my neighbors can't say enough about it.
Try another contractor if you are not happy with this one. The Hardie website does have clear instructions and if memory serves the 8 1/4 is the widest that they reccomend blind nailing for, but it works fine.
We've been using Hardi since 1995 or 96. Almost always its the 8 1/4 with 7" reveal. We blind nail everything, but bottom nail where it is needed.
If you use the 7 1/4" with 6" reveal, the siding lies much flatter. We use finger jointed studs too and it doesn't really help, it does but you still have to bottom nail.
We nail with hd 8d nails so the heads aren't huge. Once its all painted, you can't really see the bottom nails. There is a group of retirement condos not far from me and I have to tell you when its dusk and the outside lights are on, you can see the irregular shadow line all over the place.