Cedar Siding

[Westex93]

I'm soon to be re-siding our house and I'm looking for input. I finally talked LOML out of log (I think) due to the cost and was thinking about cedar or possibly stained Hardi-Plank. Anybody have input on either? Will the Hardi-Plank take stain well enough to reasonably pass for cedar? If I decide to go with natural cedar, is it unreasonable to buy 1x6 stock and just rip corner to corner to make my own bevel siding?

Thanks in advance!

Wes

[HarmsWay]

I come from the land of cedar, but I would pick hardi-plank 100 times out of 100. I'm not sure anyone does cedar here anymore. Hardi gives you a choice of textures and it will look like cedar unless you were planning on a clear stain.

One down side is workability. If you're doing it yourself and have a whole house to do, buy or rent some shears instead of a diamond blade. A saw creates too much dust. Score and snap works well for smaller areas but would be too tedious for a whole house. My shed is Hard-planked.

I used cedar for the window, door and corner trim.

Bob

[Tom Slick]

Buy the hardi factory finished with the matching nails. don't mess with painting/staining.

http://www.jameshardie.com/homeowner...Tab=jsnavLink0

[jonmulzer]

I think you are VASTLY underestimating just how much ripping would be required to side a house. And work like that is better done on a bandsaw. Dirty Jobs even had an episode about making the siding and it scared the crap out of me. Those guys worked so fast, so close to the blade that I was surprised any of them had enough fingers left to open a Coke can.

[DaveS]

One thing about cedar siding is that, around here, the carpenter bees love it. And since the carpenter bees love it, so do the wood peckers.

The fake owl motif is not really what I was planning when creating my landscape design.

[Westex93]

Thanks, everybody. I have indeed settled on fiber cement siding. Hardi will be my first choice, as it's available locally. I found a color online that looks pretty good, but I'll have to get my hands on a sample to see if it's really what I want. I agree, the prefinished stuff would definitely be the way to go if I can get the right color.

In my search I also came across this stuff from Cerber: http://siding.builddirect.com/Fiber-..._10022843.aspx . A good bit more expensive than Hardi, but it sure looks good! I think I'll request a sample of it, too, for comparison.

Thanks again!

Wes

[ragswl4]

We are using CertainTeed fiber-cement siding on our new home/garage. We chose it because of the stained material that they have available. Looks pretty good, although the stain is not baked on like the hardi-board colored siding. LOML wants mahogany stained look so this is what we chose. Locally its $17 for an 8in x 12ft section. Whatever you get, be sure to look at an actual sample as the colors on the internet tend to be different than reality.

[Tom Slick]

This article might be of some interest
link doesn't work

it's courtesy of http://www.jlconline.com

[siliconbauhaus]

All the above is good advice. I'm pretty sure you can't stain hardie or any other cementitious panel but you can certainly paint it with latex.

[Westex93]

Link doesn't work for me, Tom. Looks like you need a login.

I understand the Hardi CAN be stained. I haven't seen the finished product after what we installed was stained. There's several on line references to staining it, don't know about the longevity.

I've about settled on something prefinished myself, though.

[Tom Slick]

You can find that article by going to the www.jlconline.com link and clicking on "Decorative Shingling With Fiber Cement"

I'll bet that site doesn't allow linking to PDF files from outside.

[Westex93]

Ah, got it. Thanks.