My wife and I are in the planning stage of building our new home. We intend to build a timber frame adaptation of the Maple Forest Cottage featured in Fine Homebuilding back in the mid-to-late 90’s. This house has cedar lap siding and cedar shingle siding.
We love the look of the natural siding, but cringe at the thought of the maintenance required. We’re looking for some kind of synthetic siding that might look similar to the cedar, but offer a break from the maintenance.
I’ve been looking into fiber cement products from James Hardi and Cemplank. These look promising. Even though they need to be painted, I’ve read that the maintenance cycle can be more like 15-20 years instead of the 2 years for cedar.
My questions are these:
1) While I understand that it isn’t going to look exactly like real wood, can the siding be painted so that it looks reasonably close to the real thing?
2) Is my information correct about the paint life? Can I expect to get 15-20 years out of a premium paint on this surface?
3) Are there any other products I should be looking at?
Any observations and/or advice would be welcome. Thanks!
Replies
You can't get 15 or 20 years out of paint on anything.
You will certainly have to paint the trim unless you use plastic.
The composite cement siding is certainly as durable as
anything available today except masonry. There are several
wood grain patterns available that look fairly nice. None
look like real wood. This is partly because the cement siding
is much thinner than actual wood. If its a question of hardiplank
versus cedar, I would take the hardiplank even if it looks ####bit fake close up. From a hundred feet away, its hard to tell
except that the real cedar will be bowed and split and lumpy.
Maintainence is minimal. Paint will last as long as it theoretically
can in your climate. Wood looks nicer initially, but this stuff will
be going strong in 50 or maybe 100 years. Essentially fireproof,
termite-proof. I wouldn't use anything else on my house unless I
could do a fancy brick veneer.
The only stuff that is more durable is the old asbestos-cement
shingles that are no longer available. Lived in a house sided
with the stuff in the late 1800s or early 1900s. Color was
permanently mixed with the cement. Never painted in around
100 years. Looked as good as the day it was installed.
A subtle shade of lime green that always inspired folks to ask
"can't you paint that damn thing?" Nope.
I installed Hardie plank siding on my 100 year old house about 5 years ago and it still looks great. The siding literally absorbs latex paint and the paint becomes actually a part of the siding. It would be impossible to remove it. I believe that the paint job will last 15 - 20 years. I chose the flat look as opposed to the wood grain or rough sawn look as they were both too course for the look that I was after. I put the paint on with a cheap brush on purpose so that it would leave brush marks and give the too flat surface some texture and have many people not able to tell that it was not wood until they touched it. Nothing else even comes close.
Check into having the Hardie plank painted from the factory.The warranty is good,the siding is already painted and the only problem is to watch your walls. The siding is thin so it follows any waves in the wall.Shim where needed.
WE did a job where the lower half of the exterior walls were Hardieplank, the upper half was a fiber cement plank that had a shingle pattern but I don't remember the name of the product. Very good looking. I'm really sold on FC.
Ken Hill
Check the current James Hardie web page. I think they are offering a cedar shingle product that comes in small pieces, like cedar shingles!
Ok, I just checked their web page, and I'm right! (Don't you just hate that?) It's called Shingleside Shingles. They are 18" long (tall?) and 6, 8, 12 and 18" wide. Designed for 8" exposure. I didn't see if there is a texture, but just having the individual pieces will go a long way toward replicating real shingles.
I'm sold on Hardie plank but I know Certainteed also makes a cement siding and shingle product. You may want check price and tecture difference as well as warranty.
I've used both Hardi-Plank and Certainteed and there' s hardly a difference. Cement board is building a good reputation for reliability and has become pretty much a commodity. I, too, love the stuff and after finishing my chicken house with it I'm tempted to put it on my residence. I've got a 2 year old timber frame and log home finished off with board and batt cedar and shingles, but the cement board looks so good on the houses I've done, I'm tempted!!
There was a string a couple of weeks ago about staining cement board to replicate cedar. Seems like Piffin had some knowledge on the subject. Sounded promising! Some people would bitch even if they were hung with a new rope.
You guys are great. Thanks for the advice!
Here's the site for the stain:http://www.superdeck.com
Notchman... you have a chicken house sided? Wow.
My yen to get a few laying hens went from converting a little worn- out and partially rotten 8 X16 storage shed to a hen house to my wife getting involved and applying everything from Martha Stewart to Fung Shuie and carping about all the odds and ends of matls. left over from jobs to a full fledged hen house revival! I'll have the most valuable (or costly) brown eggs on the planet!
(But it is looking pretty cool!) Some people would bitch even if they were hung with a new rope.
My folks just broke even on a chicken coop I built about 10 years ago... lol
In answer to your question about staining Hardie siding; Along with their new line of pre-painted siding (the "Color plus" collection), Hardie now also offers a pre-stained option that looks suprisingly good. They have four color options in the stained. It certainly merits some checking into.
One other thing, I've installed a couple of different brands of fiber-cement siding, and Hardie is heads and tails better quality than any of the others I have used. Cemplank is so brittle and generic that we could not put a nail anywhere near the end of the piece without first predrilling to prevent the corner from breaking off. This was never a problem with Hardie
I'm currently building my own home, and I wouldn't use anything else but Hardi plank on it.
Yes, there is a texture to the Shingleside. I used it on my second floor, and regular old smooth HardiePlank clapboards on the first. I'm not sure about Hardie, but some fiber-cement manufacturers also make trim boards. Hardie supplies the shingles in mixed sizes -- I got 50% 6-in., and 25% each of the 12-in. and 8-in.
I would do it again. I have a hard time telling that it's not wood, and I installed the stuff! It's heavy, and hard to cut without the right tools.Andy Engel, Forum moderator
How about an article on 'Fine Outbuildings'? T. Jeffery Clarke
Quidvis Recte Factum Quamvis Humile Praeclarum
Funny how I keep reading these comments about restaining natural siding every 2 years.
I am pleasently surprised at how well the natural WRC siding has held up on my house over the past (about) 16 years. We sprayed on two coats of CWF, by Flood, after siding it in the mid 80's and it still looks great. The only thing I've done is hose it off with a garden hose once every few years, and not even that until after maybe 10 years or so. The thing is, rain hardly ever hits the house, and we live in the Pacific Northwet, where it rains quite a bit. If you want your natural siding to last, protect it with the roof.
Sure wish I had used stainless steel nails though. Those black spots around the HD galvy's don't look very good. Live and learn, I guess.
Edited 5/9/2002 4:39:44 PM ET by jim blodgett
I also have WRC siding on my house and also use CWF by Flood with the UV protection. I live in the hot and humid part of the country with plenty of the hot summer sun. I have to reapply every two or three years where the sun hits it all day and it has still broke down. Also paint jobs do not hold up as well as you'll are discussing. I doubt that the paint from cement fiber board would hold up more than 5 to 7 years on the south or southwest side of the house. Around here brick is used on new homes 8 out of 10 over the $100,000 dollar range. But we have the clay and at least one brick factory in the county. I hate to say it but vinyl siding is the second siding of choice and it is used almost all the time where the house can't be bricked. I have seen one new home so far in this area with the cement fiber board. I will have to admit it looks good. As far as sidings go it is relative to geographic location at least to some extent. I do like my Western Red Cedar though. The CWF makes it a reddish brown tone that is beautiful.
Tony
We've got a book coming out in the spring of '03 on sheds and barns. Andy Engel, Forum moderator