[skidmark845]

Anyone use hardie board to side a house? Is it better then vinyle siding? Any opninions would be appreciated. How oftern do you have to paint it?

[Shamrock]

Uh...isn't nearly everything better than vinyl?? Here on the Outer Banks, we get some pretty extreme weather. The Hardi Plank seems to hold up quite well...even on the oceanfront. Paint seems to be lasting a good ten years plus unless subjected to hurricane force winds sand blasting the side of a house....and then it's only paint damage thats a problem. I've found that the Hardi Plank does definitely need protection from situations where soil may build up against it over time (we get a lot of that here with sand). If subjected to moist soil over an extended period of time, the boards will delam. Other than that, it seems like a very good product....except it's heavy!

[Grumpy]

You can't compare hardie to vinyl. It's like comparing an apple to an orange. We do more fibercement than vinyl and I think it is a much better product in many ways.

[Gordo]

Originally Posted by Shamrock

Uh...isn't nearly everything better than vinyl?? Here on the Outer Banks, we get some pretty extreme weather. The Hardi Plank seems to hold up quite well...even on the oceanfront. Paint seems to be lasting a good ten years plus unless subjected to hurricane force winds sand blasting the side of a house....and then it's only paint damage thats a problem. I've found that the Hardi Plank does definitely need protection from situations where soil may build up against it over time (we get a lot of that here with sand). If subjected to moist soil over an extended period of time, the boards will delam. Other than that, it seems like a very good product....except it's heavy!

Ditto.

[maj]

To what they said, Oh, I guess Gordo really didn't say anything, but I'll ditto him too

Skidmark.... Do your homework first on fiber cement, it's not like "hangin'" vinyl....

[Sider' Brian]

"Anyone use hardie board to side a house? Is it better then vinyle siding?"
I like HardiPlank however the cost to value ratio favors vinyl in my area the only negative I see in Hardi (besides the painting) is chipping.
We do a fair bit of Hardi repair jobs (approx. 30 a year I would guess) just due to chipping of the base trim alone.

[Grumpy]

We do not use fibercement for the trim boards. We use a composite called Miratec. We had too much breakage with the thick heavy fibercement trim boards. The other option some guys do is cedar, but we prefer the miratec for the trim boards when installing fibercement siding.