What would you guys recommend, Hardi board on the corners or cedar and why. No mater what I do, the Horizontal hardiplank will be butt and caulked into the corners. IF I uses harditrim for the corners, I would furr out the corners to make the finish corner trim stand out beyong the face of the siding.
Also, do you guys recommend using harditrim for the finish facia board?
This stuff isn’t cheap, but I really am not lokking forward to having to repaint or replace cedar in the future
Another thing, I would rather but the siding just primed and spray the finish at a later date with my airless. Or should I buy the siding prefinished?
Would you really recommend using stainless steel or galvanized nails for the blind nailing. This home is about 1 mile from the beach and 1/2 mile from the bay. Are stainless nails really necessary this close to the ocean when used in and “unexposed” blind nailing? Darn, those stainless gun nails are expensive!
Replies
Stainless nails aren't that expensive when you consider the total cost of the project. Use stainless and you won't have to worry about corrosion.
I used a PVC 1 piece corner trim with my hardi lap siding. It will get you the thicker profile you're looking for and you don't have to worry about rot. I think I used Azek, but there are other manufacturers. I'd be sure to wrap the corner with an extra piece of felt to provide insurance against the caulk failing at the PVC/hardi joint. A good polyurethane caulk would work well here.
If you buy the siding pre-finished from hardi, be aware there are only 8 colors available.
Andy
I build near the water (salt) frequently and would not hesitate to use galv nails when blind nailing Hardie. But I'd use stainless for face nailing. Of course Andy is correct - in the scheme of things, stainless aren't that costly provided you already have a utility or siding nailer that accepts the plastic collated stainless. You may even check out plastic collated aluminum nails instead.
I prefer the built-out corner detail to butting siding to corner boards myself. I use it exclusively (unless remodeling to match) because it's more weather resistant and looks great. Plus it's faster and easier.
I first wrap my corners (over housewrap) with peel and stick WSU (prefering Grace Ice and Water Shield or ProtectoWrap to the mineral surface types) about 12" to 18" wide. Andy's preference for building/tar paper is good too and just about as good - I just go overboard and use it as a marketing point with clients. No one around here likes 'second best' solutions.
Then I just run the siding long towards the corners - score and snap about 1/2" back from the corner. Once a corner is done, I cover with corner boards of whatever flavor I'm favoring at the time.
I like PVC (Azec and the like) but it has a couple of problems. Thermal expansion will open up butt joints more than wood. Linear expansion can be 'tremendous'. I've seen a summer installation of facia show 1/2" gaps in winter. OR worse a winter installation pop right off the wall in summer. Both freak clients out. Ship lap slip-joints are the only solution I've come up with.
HardiTrim is dimensionally stable and holds paint very well. But of course there are problems - The edge milling is crummy. The 7/16" stuff is pretty smooth but the edges are rough. And you just can't get a precision cut for clean looking butt joints. The XLD full 5/4" trim has even uglier edges. It's intended for butting siding to at corner boards and around windows as 'casing' but you still see enough of the rough edge to detract from the installation (in my opinion). But once all the stuff is painted and you stand back 10' - it all looks great. Again, I'm just a little fussy. One nice thing with using HardiTrim with the siding is you won't get much movement anywhere so you don't have to follow Hardie's prescriptive gapping and caulking schedule.
There are actually more than 8 colors available. True, Hardie ColorPlus only has 8 or so but there are several aftermarket finishers that purchase Hardie siding in bulk and put thier own coatings on. I stopped by the booth of one company at the Remodlers Show last year who had premium coatings in like 28 colors and would run custom lots (useful for tracks and big volume builders).
One caution with any of the precoated sidings/trim: If you face nail, don't use a wide brush to touch-up. Use an artist brush and just dab. The touch-up paint has a different sheen than the factory cured coatings and wherever you touch up will look obvious. Dabbing is less noticible. Nice thing with precoated Hardie is you don't have to recoat unless you mess up the siding during installation. And you get 15 year or better warrantees on the factory finish. (But my guess is the warrantee is about as good at that of asphalt roofing). A friend of mine who lives in a tough climate installed prefinished Hardie 10 years ago. The house looks like it did the day it was sided. The paint looks like it's only 1 year old.
Mike Guertin
Edited 10/12/2003 9:13:57 AM ET by MIKE GUERTIN
Mike,
I'm interested in your built-up corners. If I'm reading your post right, you put the corner trim on top of the siding? I assume that cutting the siding back 1/2" from the corner gives a nice channel for any water to drain that gets forced into the corner through the gaps between the siding a trim (as well as an airspace to allow drying). I've always worried that those gaps would invite little critters to make a home in the corners, especially where I live in Florida - have you had any problem with this? It seems like this method of installation is certainly weathertight, and quicker than cutting butt pieces (especially when walls aren't plumb) to trim, but I'm always worried about bugs.
I agree that Azek and other PVC's can move a lot, and the hardi trim's lousy edges are a major reason why I don't like to use it. It seems kind of amazing to me that they can't create smooth edges on three sides of their product. I tried butting some hardi-trim with a concrete repair caulk in the joint. I tooled it a little to match patterns on each piece of trim and it's very difficult to see the joint now that it's painted. I don't know how well this will hold-up long term, though. So far, no problems after a year.
For corners though, I've had good luck so far with 1 piece formed PVC corners - there is no butt joint to come loose and and the trim width is equal on both sides of the corner. I recently got a sample of this stuff: http://www.moistureshield.com/. It's a wood fiber and polyethylene composite material. The corner trim has a two piece interlocking design that is supposed to keep the butt joint from opening. Hmm, the website seems to be down right now - maybe they're already out of business! :)
Ah, wasn't aware of aftermarket refinishing. Does anyone know offhand how much of a price premium prefinished hardi runs?
I've only had bees make nests in the corners. I guess you'd be concerned about termites and ants (as well as lizards). I've never worried about the bees and wasps.
Another idea for corners that is really good is Tamlyn and sons aftermarket vinyl trim for fiber cement. You won't see them listed on Hardie sites because hardie wants us to use FC for everything. But Tamlyn has premium inside & outside corners as well as starter strips and lots of other neat trim pieces. All out of paintable heavy PVC. Not like Azec though, more like heavy duty vinyl siding lineal stock.
http://www.tamlyn.com/
MG
That tamlyn looks like good stuff. Thanks, I'll check it out.
Andy
I recommend not using cedar because it will shrink and swell with humidity, eventually breaking the caulk seal.
I also recommend against using aluminum nails with fiber cement. Cement is corrosive to aluminum. Around salt water it would be especially bad. You may have trouble shooting aluminum through the fiber cement as well.
On my own three year old home, I used Hardie Facia for the facia. It's not very thick, thinner than the trim, I believe, but it looks and works fine as a facia.
Here's a link to a similar thread.
http://forums.taunton.com/n/mb/message.asp?webtag=tp-breaktime&msg=35483.1