Hardiie Siding Installation

[Beltzington]

Building a small shed 6x8 and was going to sheath the outside walls in 1/2" OSB. Typical siding for walls osb is 7/16" so I was going thicker to improve rigidity of the structure. However, after reading the extremely poor manufacturer installation instructions I see hardie board needs to be nailed to the studs which seems to discount their product value. If it needs to be nailed to studs why bother with sheathing? What is their warranty concerns with siding attached to 1/2" sheathing? I hope their is a better product that can be nailed wherever on 1/2" OSB.

 

[s219]

I have seen Hardie installed on many homes and I can tell you that the installers do not always aim for the studs. In some cases that would be impossible, like when hanging a 4' wide 10' long sheet of the vertical Hardie panel -- in those cases you try to hide the nails where battens will be, and that will almost never line up with studs. They shoot it in the best they can. Haven't ever heard of it coming loose. We have a lot of the vertical Hardie on our house and it's been great so far.

Hardie does have some restrictive warranty requirements, probably to cover their butts. For instance, they require installers use their brand of flashing at joints in lap siding, and so on. I have only seen official Hardie flashing used on one house, and that was a guy who just followed the instructions without questioning them. Most other guys use little tabs of felt paper behind joints, which seems perfectly fine to me.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I want any siding put on to be nailed at the studs. Stronger.

Sent from my VS986 using Tapatalk

 

[Citydude]

Is there a reason you can't nail it to the studs?

 

[teejk]

"Why bother with sheathing"? Isn't most siding installed over sheathing but attached to "meat"? And particular to your case I don't think you want exposed cement board on the inside of a shed (repairs can be a PITA as are most lap siding repairs).

 

[747driver]

I never just install any siding without having a sheating product behind it. You need the sheating to keep the framing and the building from racking and for rigidity. If you just nail the siding ( lap siding ) to the studs it will not lay smooth to the wall like if you had sheating behind it. Now if you are going to use the 4x8 sheets of Hardie then you will be ok without using the sheating. 7/16 osb is fine.

 

[newbury]

I probably did it wrong but -
I had T11 on a shed but even with repainting every 5 years or so it rotted at the bottom.
So I tore it off and put on Hardieboard PANELS about 10 (?) years ago over a layer of roofing felt. I screwed it directly to the studs. Best decision I could have made. Caulked at the seams, painted it well, ignored it for the last 10 years. Still looks great.

Recently there have been threads here discussing the downfalls of Hardieboard,

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I probably did it wrong but -
I had T11 on a shed but even with repainting every 5 years or so it rotted at the bottom.
So I tore it off and put on Hardieboard PANELS about 10 (?) years ago over a layer of roofing felt. I screwed it directly to the studs. Best decision I could have made. Caulked at the seams, painted it well, ignored it for the last 10 years. Still looks great.

Recently there have been threads here discussing the downfalls of Hardieboard,

My shed is 20 yrs old, i want to do the same with hardi panels. 20 yrs with painted osb isnt bad, but rotting at bottoms.

 

[wcampbell47]

Back in '98 I built two shops using hardie. What a pain!! At that point in time there was a flyer between each sheet warning that if the plane of the cement was broken (nail set too deeply or hammer mark) the warranty could be voided. My recent endeavors have been constructed using T111 nailed to the studs. I do use a moisture barrier prior to nailing on the T111. New house built in '12 and the contractor used hardie. All joints and exposed nail heads had to be caulked. IMHO hardie is used because the insurance rating for fire resistance is high. Other products are easier to cut and not so heavy for us old timers to handle.

 

[PILOON]

I only used Hardie on one job. (Canexel is the popular siding here)
A local yard was clearing primed only Hardie so we bought all the balance as I recall for $600.
The house in question was 24 X 48 and was covered with wavey cut cedar siding that was simply prohibitively expensive to duplicate.
The project was adding a 2nd floor to the existing building.
Rather than matching the siding we did the 2nd story with the Hardie and I installed vertically ala 'board and batten' style.
(made the outer plank overlap inners by 1" each side.)
Once finished the entire house was stained with a water based opaque stain and at some 13 years later looks just a nice as the day it was installed.
I never did see warranty papers and simply used my nailgun and 2 1/2" common nails.
I also have 'boxed in' 2 chimneys with that Hardie material and what with sparks from wood fires I feel safer as cement won't burn.

 

[EddieWalker]

First thing to remember about warranties is they are basically worthless. In every case that I've actually won in a warrantee, all I got was a replacement of the bad product. This is with laminate flooring. You still have to remove the bad product and install the new one, which is where all the money comes into play with labor.

Hardie is a great product, but it has no strength. You need sheeting for two reasons. First it is what keeps your building standing up. If you didn't have sheeting, your walls would rack, which means they will move or fall over. Standard OSB does a great job of this. Spending more, or going with a thicker, stronger product doesn't hurt anything, it's just more money to get the same results. I personally prefer Zip System osb. It's a tighter material with the vapor barrier already attached. It's more money, but it comes in longer lengths which is really nice when you want something that will need to be longer then 8 feet.

If you use OSB or plywood, you still need house wrap. The primary purpose of this is to keep the wind out, which carries moisture into areas you don't want moisture, but it also allows insulation to work properly. Wind destroys or severely reduces the effectiveness of wall insulation.

If you are installing Hardie sheets that are 4ft by 8ft, remember that it's very weak and will break easily. I personally hate the stuff because I do not like how the seams look, or how it looks to hide them.

Hardie Lap Siding is one of my favorite products. It has no strength either, so you have to be careful handling it so it doesn't snap on you. I don't worry too much about hitting a stud, and have never noticed that before on their website. That must be something new that they just came up with. I use long roofing nails in a coil nailer to install the lap siding. I put a nail in every foot. I start in the middle, then put my level on it and go to one side, then I do the same going the other direction. It's very fast and easy to do by yourself. Once I showed my parents, my dad, who was 76 at the time,did his entire house on his own with my Mom watching over him.

Be sure to buy a Hardie saw blade for your circular saw. It will melt right through Hardie like it's nothing. You have to wear safety goggles because the blade through chips all over, but there is no dusk like the older blades created. The more you pay for the blade, the longer it lasts. I found that ten dollar blades go dull in a day, but a $50 blade will last years.

I'm currently in the process of residing my house with Hardie lap siding. I first install Zip System over my existing siding, then tape all the seams. I can leave it exposed to the elements and install the Hardie Lap siding over time, when it's convenient for me to do so. For me, this is ideal because I'm also working on multiple additions and changes to my house.