siding: Hardie-plank or cypress?

[Travis Porter]

One other suggestion as to installation. I was watching TOH a while back and they were installing it. The installer put a strip of felt paper behind every joint to help prevent water from getting behind it and then caulked all joints as he was installing it. It made it a whole lot easier to finish. IIRC, to get final inspection of my shop all joints had to be caulked and all material primed before it would pass.

On my shop they did not do this and I wished they had. Unfortunately, I saw the TOH episode well after my shop was built.

[Alan in Little Washington]

Originally Posted by brenthenze

By the way, Alan, did your Hardi-plank come with that nice chain hoist and the attached surface planer, or was that extra?

The HardiPlank was free, the hoist and tools cost me a couple hundred thou, however!

One thing- my house was the first HardiPlank job for this crew. They did a decent job, even cut some bent studs and sistered new ones to remove surface irregularities in the larger walls like the garage. It took them quite a few days to complete the job. When they were done they told the builder to call someone else if he had any more HardiPlank jobs to do!!!! They were used to slapping up vinyl, and could finish an entire house in one day! Not going to happen with HardiPlank, though if they were experienced and had the right tools it would have gone much faster.

[dancam]

Hardie Plank is the way to go. I had mine pre-primed and painted (all sides) and the paint job is guaranteed for 15yrs. The siding itself carries a 50 year.

One point, a previous post stated the siding does not dent. This is not true, I had a rock roll down a long hill and it launched off my retaining wall and hit the house and put a dent in the Hardie plank. Hardie rep said the best way to fix is a bondo patch and over paint. Not a big deal...but it does dent.

Dan C.

[max_in_graham]

One of the added benefits of Hardie Plank is that it's much more dense of a material than just about anything you can use in its price range.

That added density will keep the noise down on the outside of a shop... the obvious benefit is that you can't hear the wife calling you to go shopping at the mall, when you'ld rather be working on a project in the shop!

(Not that I would do such a thing, or condone such actions....)

[scsmith42]

Hardie-plank siding is without question durable. In some instances though, you can't beat the look of real wood siding.

Here are some photo's of my farmhouse project. The siding is southern yellow pine, with a medium oil based stain. Up close, the grain pattern really jumps out at you.

Scott

[thrt15nc]

One more for hardi-plank. I just built a 12X20 yard shed and sided it with the 8" lap siding. Piece of cake. I didn't have any shears. Tried a couple of cuts with a hardi-plank blade in a Skil saw and realized in about 3 seconds that was going to be way to slow and dusty. So I used the score and snap method to make cuts. I was surprised at how easy that was. I used an old 4-way file to clean up the cuts and that went quickly also. I also placed pieces of roofing paper behind the joints as outlined in Hardi-plank's spec sheets. Used standard cement board screws from Lowes and then 8d 2" galvanized nails where needed. It looks great.







Tom