Cement siding

[Chuck]

We plan to use cement siding on our new house. Is there any signifant difference in the major brands?

We are somewhat concerned about the vertical butt joints being somewhat unsightly. Some people we have talked to (incl the mfr of Hardiplank) say to butt these joints tight although the literature says to leave a 1/8" gap. Our contractor plans to instal a felt backing at the joint to improve watertightness.

Any insight would be appreciated.

[Dave J]

When doing some shopping for my own house before putting up cement siding I was told by a vendor that there is a difference in the way the the manufacurers cure some of the product. According to him Hardi is the only one doing a wet cure resulting in a harder plank. Then again guess which product he was selling.

[Justin B. Jensen]

Chuck -

The cement plank products are by my best estimation very comparable and comeptitive in quality and pricing. We have installed both Hardi product and we are presently installing 6000 SF of CertainTeed WeatherBoards with two coat paint pre-finish.

We are making our purchasing decision based on two things: product warranty and service. The warranty for the CertainTeed product is excellent with 50 years on the cement plank and 26 years on the paint. Service will have regional variances -we get excellent service from CertainTeed in our market.

I suggest you pick a siding style and price it among the manufacturers taking time to understand the warranty and to get a feel for your local distributing vendors commitment to service.

[beezo]

have the cement siding manufacturers come up with tha accessories needed to complet the job? I have not looked at them for a while but have a customer that seems to be leaning that way although we are just in the beginning stages of the estimating. A couple of years ago when I looked at some of them they had no pieces for the corner boards so you had to make them yourself by cutting and putting two pieces on top of each other. And on the prefinished stuff-does it seem to be a better grade of primer than is sometimes on some of the primed trims? Sometimes that primer is so thin that I have a hard time believeing they even primed it. That situation does not seem to happen as much as it used to but I still see it some. And how is that warranty? How you used the product long enough to really have any feel for just how the product will hold up?

[Jim Eggert]

I have used HardiPlank in the past and will use fiber cement again, possibly even using Certainteed which appears to be Justin's material of choice. However, I believe the standard product warranty is 50 years for all the major players, meaning the actual siding itself. My interpretation of the pre-stained or pre-painted warranty, in this case 26 for Certainteed and 15 for HardiPlank, both preprimed and two coats states simply that it is for cracking and peeling. These warranties do not cover fading which I would expect to happen under normal weathering conditions. The majors all use major suppliers of stain and paint so the issue is "At what point will I repaint or restain my 50 year fiber cement siding?" I have fiber cement on my own home and encourage my customers to seriously consider upgrading for the long-term benefits.
Jim

[Justin B. Jensen]

Beezo -
The manufacturers are still grappling with the trim details - we have been using MiraTec but they are now out of business. In the interim we will probably use Weyerhauser's masonite trim which is available in 5/4 keeping you from having to build up or plate out the corner boards, water table, frieze and window trims.

As for the long-term viability of this product I cannot speak for it as we do not have long term applied product history. This is a relatively new product in this area and it will be years until it proves itself in field use. I believe I had heard that Hardi has been making / selling their product in Australia for a significant period of time - something on the order of 100-years.

The factory 2-coat paint finish that we are presently installing appears to be a good finish but time will tell. We opted for pre-finish on this particular project due to the cost of installed finishing related to the height (over 35') and access - but then I had to spend thousands on aluma-pole scaffolding to install it so that was probably a false economy. I do expect that the house will require paint before the manufacturers warranty ever comes into play. It is likely that sunlight and general weather exposure will degrade the finish before it ever flakes or peels from the substrate.

[beezo]

I have just finished working on some houses that are 8 years old and have the masonite 5/4 trim boards installed on them. They look terrible. I think that the manufacturer will tell the homeowners that the trin was never painted correctly, nor caulked correctly. There were lots of trim boards that were swollen, cracked and we even had some that had fungus like mushrooms growing on them. The boards down at ground level I could understand because there were lots of shrubs and garden plantings and a sprinkler system. The bottom of the band board was not primed or painted so it was logical that it absorbed water. But we were replacing boards that were on the chimmney 35 feet in the air and around windows on all sides of the house. And it was not just this one house. This area has it's own subdivisions based on the cost of the housse around the golf course. These homes I was working on start at $250,000 and were originally sold as the summer homes for people. When I saw this type of material used I was really shocked. I do not know if they have improved their product but it makes me wonder about putting a 50 year cement board on and using a Masonite product for the trim. I thought that I had seen a company advertise in a magizine that was supposed to specialize in trim and corners for cement board installations. Anybody know what it might be? I cannot find it now. Is this 5/4 material the same type of thing that so many of the lawsuits are being filed on? It would also seem to me if Hardie has been making this product for so long and supplying it to Austrialia { I had heard a similiar story} that they would have come up with a soultion to this problem. Could it be that Hardie has a solution that is not availaible here or at least not widely known. Also do you install this product over Tyvek or similiar materials or tar paper?

[Justin B. Jensen]

We used the MiraTec masonite product because we could not locate a "50-year" or cementious trim and at the time they offered the best warranty on their product. Now they (MiraTec) are out of business and I'm looking down the road wondering if I'm going to have a warranty nightmare on my hands. I debated on using dimensional natural Cedar; now I wish I would have.

In our favor are the facts that we had the product pre-painted, we jobsite-painted all cuts and we attached the material using stainless steel nails with countersinking set flush so as to not penetrate the surface temper of the masonite.

As for building paper, we have gone back to 15# felt for our work.

[Sonnie Layne]

I'm gonna jump in 'tho I'm not a siding contractor or even a GC who hires such. Most of my business is replacement of junk that should never have been applied. I have a acadaemic mindset and I've never understood how anyone could expect masonite/pressboard etc to stand to anything more than about 30% absolute humidity. We've dryed the components to zilch, destroyed the lignins which naturally adhere the fibres and not replaced them with anything but steam and pressure. I consider myself a painter that could paint for painters and I will not guarantee that all my priming could make this stuff work. It won't work in the lab. It won't stand up to the scrutiny of simple logic. It will never work in the field. Well, maybe in a mushroom farm if they could sterilize it, but horse dung is cheaper. And as good as masonite for siding projects.

Also, it's been my understanding that Hardie is an Aussie product, at least it was invented by a neighbor south of the belt, so we may not be getting all that's available. It's a fact in other manufactured lines as well.

my two cents (worth a penny)
Sonnie

[Jim Eggert]

Beezo
If the trim mfg you may be referring to is the Tamlyn mouldings, I encourage you to be careful. The mfg has absolutely zero control over the distributors and when you get whacked that is why. In my case paying over $10 for an 8' moulding versus $3.50 for a 12' piece from my siding supplier is just a little much. There is not that much difference is a plain white moulding unless I'm blind!
Jim

[beezo]

So what are the choices for trim board and corner boards if we do not use 5/4 masonite and do not use Tamlyn? Is there no cement board manucafurer that makes trim boards? I also have looked at Certinteed's Prime Trim. I am not too impressed with it either. Kinda like Sonny said, pressure glued together and pieces that I am not sure will hold up. I wonder if that is what the cave man said when others started building with wood-some new fangled idea that feller has -we will see how it holds up. I still feel several hundred years of wood may be thw way to go. Is there any way to combine vinyl siding corners with the cement boards so you don't have to paint as often?

[KEITH]

CEMPLANK MAKES TRIM BOARDS IN 7/16 AND 7/8 THICK .

[Sonnie Layne]

THANK YOU KEITH
As I'v admitted I'm neither a siding sub nor a GC, but I didn't fall off the turnip wagon yesterday either. I'll have a look Keith, thanks for the respose.

regards,

Sonnie
www.sonnielayne.com

[Chuck]

Justin and all- thanks for your insight. My contractor plans to use MiraTec trim. He may not have gotten the word or else has a "stach" somewhere. Is it possible someone has picked up the product line?

[dave keller]

MiraTech is not a company . Masonite makes the product called MiraTech.

Masonite has not stopped making or distributing MiraTech. They did discontinue some Hardboard siding products, maybe you have confused that with the hardboard trim called MiraTech. Or maybe your lumber yard was misinformed, or maybe your lumber yard just wants to sell you something else.