Hardi plank, horizontal or vertical?

Sigarms · Jul 8, 2007

Thank you for the responses to my previous question per siding.

My wife and I have decided that we like the James Hadi plank, however, it has been an interesting ordeal just to get people out to look at the house since it's not vinyl siding. No way will we be able to tackle this project on our own.

I was able to get one guy (yes, only one) to come out to look at the house who does a lot of work with the Hardi product (recomended by a hardi distributor). Wife and I went out to look at his work on a previous house (per his suggestion), and it looks like he does good work. Does a lot of custom homes, it's just him and his dad and perhaps some labor they can find (he mentioned that he can't keep anyone who actually wants to work on a regular basis).

His feeling is to go with the horizontal plank since you don't have to paint it, caulk it or put in weather strips at the connecting joints. He also mentioned that since it's labor intensive and he (or we) would have to paint it (vertical siding you will need to paint), overall cost of the job will be lower with the horizontal plank (pre painted).

As mentioned before, the only concearn my wife and I have is that it may change the look of the house too much. This contractor assured me that it would actually look better.

The only question I have, and I'm hoping for some experience, is what to do about the tight spots between the windows? Fact is the house has a lot of glass. We realize that trim will most likely have to be used, however, with some of the windows so tight together, we don't want a row of windows to look like "one big box" with the trim.

I've also included a pic of a set of windows next to the brick chimney. Keep in mind, we have the "exact set up" with windows and chimney on the other side of the house. The question is what to do with that small gap between the window and chimney? (just put trim around it?).

We don't want to spend the money and not be happy with the final outcome with the way the house looks.

I'm looking for suggestions or any input.

Thanks!!!

Mickey_Fx · Jul 8, 2007

Lots of Hardie siding used in this area and all I've knowingly seen was the horz planks. But I see they are now making 3 styles. JamesHardie Siding Look over thier web site and you may find an answer to your questions.

Diesel-ME · Jul 8, 2007

Sigarms,

That's a very interesting puzzler re: the tight spots between the windows. If you lean towards using a horizontal clapboard or shingle product, then one thing you could do would be to buy one or two pieces of a wood product and cut little pieces to mock up the fit and look. Just temporarily nail it on over the current siding. Yes, the pieces of horizontal siding would be short, but there's no reason not to install in this scenario when there is , say, at least 4 inches to cover. I agree that where you may have an inch or two, trim would be the way to go.

I have not used the Hardi shingle product, but the horizontal clapboards are always caulked at the ends (butt joints and end joints against the trim). You can order Hardi product pre-painted or just pre-primed. I like to paint after installation so as to paint over the caulking.

Maybe the shingle look would not be such a change of look as clapboards would be...??..

Paul

8561 · Jul 8, 2007

I would definately go with the horizontal siding. As far as around the windows, I would trim them with Hardie Trim. It comes 5/4" thick by standard width dimension. I have it on my house. I would also recommend pre-painted to color, and then plan to put a second coat on the whole place. The horizontal will be blind nailed, but the butt joints and the trim will be face nailed. I hit the holes with caulk, then paint the whole thing. You'll find that dirty hands from the contractors installing will require it to be addressed anyways. If that's the plan going in then it's no big deal. By the way, I recommend the smooth finish, the artificial wood grain rough sawn looks exactly like its described, artificial.

WhyNot · Jul 8, 2007

Sig, for the windows next to the chimney I would just put up a piece of trim from the edge of the window to the chimney all the way up the side of the house. On the other windows and doors you could get some coil stock that is the same color as the windows and bend (or buy it pre fab) some j channel like you use on vinyl siding and slip pieces of the hardi board in between. From a distance the channel will look like an extension of the window. Up close you will see that it is not but, no matter what you do unless you rip off all the old siding, the new is going to stand proud of the windows. You could also rip down some trim to about 1" wide and paint it to match the windows and that would give same effect.

KentT · Jul 9, 2007

Personally, I'd just put trim around the windows and doors. You could make the windows look like one large set, rather than individual windows. Then, you could use horizontal, vertical or shake/shingle looks -- i.e. any of the alternatives.

_RaT_ · Jul 9, 2007

8561 said:
I would definately go with the horizontal siding. As far as around the windows, I would trim them with Hardie Trim. It comes 5/4" thick by standard width dimension. I have it on my house. I would also recommend pre-painted to color, and then plan to put a second coat on the whole place. The horizontal will be blind nailed, but the butt joints and the trim will be face nailed. I hit the holes with caulk, then paint the whole thing. You'll find that dirty hands from the contractors installing will require it to be addressed anyways. If that's the plan going in then it's no big deal. By the way, I recommend the smooth finish, the artificial wood grain rough sawn looks exactly like its described, artificial.

I'm with Tim on this too. Iff you look at some window websites like Andersen, you can get some ideas of what ways you can trim or detail windows. In some situations, you simply use nothing but trim, no horizontal siding of such short lengths that it gets to busy. Remember, you don't always have to paint each piece of trim a different color then the body color. There are instances where you want trim to stand out and other times you do not. I would prefer the horizonal look but have also seen where a batt and board was used and it looked great. The Hardi shingle look is also very nice.

inveresk · Jul 9, 2007

I'm in the process of recladding the house at the present time and am using cedar bevel horizontally. I thought it would look bitty if the trim were different widths in different locations so just accepted cuts would occur where they would occur. There isn't a problem with the small pieces between windows or at corners as the attached photographs show. They look fine.

One of the reasons I didn't want to go with vertical cladding is that for the most part it would only be fixed to the ply. Fixing the planks horizontally means the siding is fixed to the studs at 16" centres.

I used knot free cedar bevel fixed with stainless steel lost head nails. The bevel was pretreated with semi transluscent stain. I stained the trim on site after it was cut to fit but before it was fixed.

Hope the photographs help.

Egon · Jul 9, 2007

That does look nice.

Sigarms · Jul 9, 2007

Thank you for all the replies.

Diesel, the the closest I have in space between windows is 5" (in front of the house, and whats between the window and chimney), so I'd guess I'm good to go so to speak. Back of house (pic of four windows, the spacing is 7" apart between each other).

8561, you have me curious. When I went out to look at the new house being built that this guy was doing work on, hoizontal "board" plank, however, I didn't see any handprints, and I get the impression from the contractor that you don't need to re-paint the horizontal plank becuase it's already pre painted. I'm a little confused now. I also noticed on this job (not finished yet) that there was no caulk used between joints). We also have the same opinion on the "artificial wood" look as well.

Rat, thanks for the suggestion on the website. Again, a picture is worth a thousand words. On that note mickey, appreciate the website, already had found it, but to be honest, I have not found the home office of Jame's Hardi to be helpful in anyway (I've called their office three times in three weeks to ask a simple question, but apparently dumb homeowners don't rate a return phone call. Apologies, nothing irritates me more than a business who will not at least return a phone call). Good thing my wife likes the product

inveresk, I'm impressed, did you do that yourself? I could only hope that the contractor could do as good of a job. I also aprreciate the pictures. Really worth a thousands words for an idiot like myself when it comes to work such as this.