In reply to OHSCrifle :
Dudes probably getting the "go away" quote
In reply to OHSCrifle :
Dudes probably getting the "go away" quote
Fueled by Caffeine said:In reply to OHSCrifle :
Dudes probably getting the "go away" quote
All 4 of them? They keep following up, so they're acting like they want the work. There's a house about 2 miles away that had it done last fall, and as I was driving by Monday saw them in the driveway, so I stopped and asked who did his. It was a different company, slightly smaller house, cost him $130k.
I didn't handle the quotes, my wife did it all, so they'd be telling her to "go away". I'd be surprised if a contractor saw a $2M house under renovations and decided "nah".
brad131a4 (Forum Supporter) said:I'm old school cedar lap siding and battan. Love Craftman style houses. Starting to get the box slab sided monstrosities popping up around me the last few years. Looks like some 6 year old drew up the designs.
The guest house is cedar bevel siding. Other than keeping the carpenter bees and woodpeckers away, it's great, and 100% my style. Main house is a colonial and can't really pull it off, so figured the 8 inch Hardie boards made more sense.
Apparently a contractor sees a $2 million house under renovations and says "Gotcha!"
In reply to SV reX :
That is why I asked here. I figured they were high based on area/value, and wanted to see if it was another reason.
In reply to Steve_Jones :
We live in different worlds.
Where I live, $2 million will buy one of the most premium lakefront properties with 6000 SF, a 2 story boathouse, designer kitchen and baths, a separate guest house, and a pool.
Where you live, I suspect $2 million is kinda normal.
So, my perspective isn't very helpful.
When we built our house 11 years ago, we decided on Hardie board for the whole thing. It was a big up charge from vinyl, but I'd have to ask my better half if she still has the contract and just how much it was. Honestly, I'm not a huge fan. If we were to build another house, I would do something different than Hardie board. 
I'm not sure what that would be, but I would exhaust all the alternatives at the local building supply stores.
In reply to lotusseven7 (Forum Supporter) :
What kind of issues are you having with it?
In theory, it's supposed to provide a lot of additional fire resistance, which seems like a major selling point for peace of mind and insurance purposes, especially if you're located in a UWI, and it's rot-proof, which tickles my "minimal maintenance" button.
I was looking to replace the vinyl siding on my house in the near future, so this stuff recently came to my attention. It seems like a pain in the ass to install but if you get 50 years out of it whatever.
In reply to lotusseven7 (Forum Supporter) :
I'm curious what you don't like as well. I don't want vinyl, and the LP Smart Side looks like osb board that will fall apart when it gets wet, what's left? I'm only coming up with real wood lap siding, and assume the upkeep on that would be crazy.
I understand having an aversion to Hardie. It doesn't have a natural look and feel. It gives buildings a tract home look. And it's much worse if you buy the "wood grain" material. It really looks fake.
But I'm super fussy with details. I've spent decades working in historic buildings, and have a strong eye for detail.
Hardie holds paint really well, and is virtually indestructible. It's an excellent material for 90% of owners.
I'd debate whether it is actually useful for fire resistance for a structure. Buildings don't actually burn by their exterior skin bursting into flame. Flammable materials like wood need to be exposed to heat for a prolonged period before they sustain a flame. Imagine a fire pit full of logs that you are throwing lit matches at. That's not how you get a fire started.
Buildings more typically burn from embers and heat sources providing sustained exposure to heat. (for example, embers sitting on a roof). It's also very common for buildings to burn from the inside out. Embers get sucked into ventilation openings, then have plenty of time to smolder in exposed framing inside the walls, crawlspace, and attic.
If I was building in a high fire risk area, I might use Hardie, but it would be about 5th or 6th on the list. First I'd use a fire resistant roofing material, then I'd make sure there were fire stops and blocking in the framing. I'd compartmentalize the building with fire resistant separations. I'd then manage ventilation openings, then have fire dampeners in the HVAC system. Id consider building techniques that are more fire resistant than framed buildings (like masonry), then AFTER all that I'd consider using Hardie (if it had to be a framed building).
Short answers tonite and I'll expand on them tomorrow. Sorry, headed to bed.
- shrinkage
- trim pieces
- ability to seal under each course
We have both 8" horizontal and random shake.
I think the only true rival to Hardie (or more generically fiber cement siding) has got to be real wood siding such as cedar, which is naturally rot resistant and historically used as siding for that reason. But if you think fiber cement is expensive, try pricing out real cedar, and then think of the maintenance. My early 70's house with cedar siding has held up after 50+ years but there are some problem spots I will need to address eventually, especially near roof transition edges.
Good morning.
- Even though this stuff is made from "concrete" and one would assume that it shouldn't shrink, it does over time. It's been on the house for just under 11 years and on the south-facing sides of the house, it has definitely shrunk a bit. I'll get a picture later today, but you can definitely tell the difference between that side and the other sides of the house. It's not really noticeable to,people until you point it out, then they immediately can see what I'm trying to explain to them. Not a huge deal to most and it shouldn't bother me, but it does.
- We bought all of the Hardie trim to go around the windows and do all of the corners. It's cement, so it doesn't exactly cut cleanly. To do the window surround trim, the 45* cuts at the corners of each window aren't smooth cuts and do require a bit of caulking to get a smooth finish. Then there's how it needs to be attached, nails or heavy gauge brads. This stuff, unlike the 1/4" siding is a full 1" thick. It gets nailed in place and then the hole left by the mail/brad needs to be filled with caulk and smoothed over. Now you buy both the "touch-up" paint and caulking from Hardie based on the color of the siding so that it's a supposed perfect color match, but it isn't. It's not that the color isn't the same, it's that the texture of the siding is a bit rough and the caulking goes on smooth, so when light hits it, it absorbs or reflects the light differently and you can definitely tell where the nail holes have been touched up. Then there's the shrinkage in the mitered corners. They went from being tight to now some are 1/8" to 3/16" gaps! I'll get some pix tonite. This is much more noticeable on the trim than the lap siding.
- Finally is how the lap siding is installed. Now, I'm not a home builder even though I've done a few, so I'm saying this based on my experiences and common sense. The house was originally wrapped in your standard Tyvek house wrap which kept getting ripped off due to the wind and the homes location. Standard staples didn't do it. I bought Low-E house wrap and had it installed with cap nails and all of the seams taped. It provided some minor R-value as well as a nice clean surface to attach the Hardie. Because the siding is attached with pneumatic nailers that shoots a specific nail that looks like a roofing/shingle nail but has a ringed shank. The install is pretty straight forward but I questioned the small gap under each course of siding and if a line of caulk should be used above the nail course before the next piece was attached. I was told no by the supplier, the GC, the sub supervisor and the laborers. Fast forward to after we moved in and in the years following and I see all kinds of creepy crawly things running up under the siding. Now, do I think that there's huge nests of spiders and other bugs under the siding, maybe? Do we have a pest control service take care of the house quite often, yes we do. Do I lose sleep over it, no but I also don't tell Jen what I see or else she'd be freaked out. I don't know if it can be sealed with caulking for some reason but if you could, there would need to be a tanker truck full of caulking on the job site during installation. I don't think it's feasible, it's just something that I can't quite wrap my head around, but those much smarter than me have determined it isn't necessary, so be it.
The stuff looks nice of the house and the color choices(lap and shake) with the shingle choice and real fieldstone make for a look that we're 1000% happy with. I often say that if the house burned down tomorrow, I would rebuild it the same way, same colors and the same stone. Due to the design of the house we were limited to using the shake siding only on the high peaks and dormers. I like the shake and would have used more of it if the design were different. It's been basically "maintenence free" all these years and this year I plan to re-caulk all the miter joints around the windows, garage doors and corners of the house. After that, I think repainting the trim will help hide the repairs and make me happier with the shrinkage issues.
This shows the corners, mitre cuts and just how much shrinkage occurs.
The joints pictured are on the south facing side of the house around the garage doors and man door. They get sun the most during the day and really have huge gaps. Other joints around the house have little to no shrinkage! Before I get flamed that the screws caused the gaps, those are in so I can hang fresh pine greens and lights during the holidays. I wouldn't have put them there if there were no gaps already.
The corner shot shows how clean the cuts aren't. Now if I were doing the whole house myself, I would have quickly sanded the cut edge and applied a bead of caulking before nailing them together rather than on top after nailing.
Finally how sloppy the caulking looks between the ends of the siding and trim board. Also how apparent the nail holes become over time. Like I said before, it's been years and I need to take a week and redo all of the trim on the house, I think it needs a re-fresh.
Grew up in MN and worked on a siding crew back in the late 90's. We did vinyl and aluminum. Both have pros and cons. Fast forward to today and I PM Multi Family in Phoenix and we have started doing a lot of Hardy in the last 5 or so years to break up all the stucco.
Cost wise, I have no idea between vinyl, aluminum and hardy. Vinyl and Aluminum have never been an option to cost against. It is slightly higher, ~10% over a standard 3 coat stucco system for panels, with planks being a little more. One of the major reasons is the fire resistance as SVreX mentioned above. Embers will not ignite the paneling from the outside and all Multi Family have to carry a 1 hour envelope at exterior, hardy does that.
Installation is very experience driven. We have newer crews that have issues with cutting, fitting and duration. Experienced crews fly and have cuts as nice as a MDF router cut.
Architecture of the house will drive options as well. A stone wainscot will look great on some, not on others or brick accents. We have been putting ACM and pre-finished metals on both MF and flips I work on the side for single family homes. ACM can do some pretty drastic changes to look of house for the same money.
I see that the 2 Million house premium has been applied. I bought were I'm at before the big inrush of Microsoft, Google and general tech and high-end workers found out about this area.
Now my little house is valued at over 1 Million 
. Some people think WOW until they hear about what my property tax costs.
Problem is now all contractors instantly pop on a 40 or 50% increases on their bids because of it.
That there is the joy of perceived wealth. Great if you have it but bullE36 M3 if you don't.
Only thing I have going for me is that I can do most of my work. So I'm a bit immune to the wealth fee imposed to other people around me.
In reply to lotusseven7 (Forum Supporter) :
Thank you, very informative. Beautiful house, you made great choices.
In reply to lotusseven7 (Forum Supporter) :
This is a great explanation. Perfect example of why GRM is great. Informed people exchanging ideas and helping each other.
I've moved a bunch, both renting and have owned 4 homes of my own. When we had stucco we had problems with water penetration and mildew. When we had cedar we had problems with knot holes, paint endurance, pests, and wood rot. When we had vinyl it looked really cheap and would turn green with mold. We dodged a bullet once after losing a bid on a house with LP siding, learning later about the recall and lawsuits. Now we have hardie plank siding paired with wood trim (original) and vinyl or aluminum trim (recent fixes).
Hardieplank has been my favorite so far. After spending tens of thousands on fixing rot and water intrusion damage over the years I never want to see wood on the exterior of my house again.
One last picture to try and explain the whole shrinkage issue that I see. This is the south-facing side of the house at night where you can see a bit of the "curl" at the end of the pieces. This side of the house gets mid-morning until late afternoon sun exposure and has lots long pieces due to the lack of windows. Day and night shots.
Steve_Jones said:I'd be surprised if a contractor saw a $2M house under renovations and decided "nah".
Ferrari Tax.
People charge extra to work on high-value stuff, like Ferraris and $2M houses partly because the owners are likely to be extra particular about the quality of the work, sometimes even to the point of coming off as entitled and being exceedingly difficult to please, and partly due to the liability of inadvertently damaging the property.
If the new kid at the Lube 'n' Tickle curbs a wheel on a dental hygienist's Santa Fe, the cost to correct that is far lower than if he does the same on a supercar. The same logic applies to houses. Contractor knows he's going to need to bring his A team and they're going to have to be on their A game. That costs extra money, plus extra time to go over it with the owner, plus some extra to cover some extra hassle six weeks later when the owner calls back and complains that ever since they replaced the siding, the 7th floor guest toilet won't flush and his grass is going brown and his kid is getting terrible grades in American Literature, and if you don't make it right he has the time and the resources to sue you back to the stone age for his own amusement.
Ferrari Tax.
In reply to lotusseven7 (Forum Supporter) :
Thanks for the pics, I don't think I've ever seen that issue before.
In reply to lotusseven7 (Forum Supporter) :
I'm pretty sure what you are calling "curling" is actually swelling.
The joints were not located on the studs. Then they used cheap caulk. And since then the caulk is probably past its maintenance life. So the joints let water in, and the material swells near the end of the board. Since they aren't breaking on a stud, the ends aren't secured well to resist the swelling. When they swell, they push everything out of alignment.
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