How do you replace the bottom courses of siding?

[Stytooner]

I always use latex in the house and paintable silicone outside.

[capncarl]

Granger sells a Siding Removal Tool, mfg Malco, # 2ETK1, $9.91. that you can slide under the siding and worry the nail out or pull it through the siding. Ive replace siding from the bottom up and nailed the last course through both pieces of siding as there is no ther way to fasten it. A couple of dabs of caulking in the nail holes and it is done. Hardiplank is suppose to be installed with a large headed nail like a roofing nail rather than a finishing nail so it will not pull through.

[atgcpaul]

Granger sells a Siding Removal Tool, mfg Malco, # 2ETK1, $9.91. that you can slide under the siding and worry the nail out or pull it through the siding.

Is that just for vinyl siding, though? It doesn't look beefy enough to handle stiffer material like masonite or Hardie.

Bottom up seems to be the way to go.

My current siding has "H" joint covers. I don't know if they used caulk under that. Anyway, a google search turned this up this technical report regarding caulking and Hardie. I guess if maintenance isn't an issue, then caulking is OK, however, not needed since flashing the joint is required.

http://www.jameshardie.com/pdf/technical-bulletins/9-joint-flashing.pdf

[capncarl]

I'd just poke a hole in the bad siding and push in a flat crow bar to get the nails out. The last course of siding you leave will pull out some but can be nailed back down. Roofers do simular work every day to repair small areas.

[atgcpaul]

I haven't even started this project yet and I hit a snag. I was about to order the siding on Lowes.com (turns out it's not a stock item) when I was confronted with the choice of widths. They have 5 1/2" and 6 1/4". Turns out my existing siding is 5 7/8" wide with a 4 7/8" reveal.

I'm thinking I should buy the 6 1/4" siding (the advantage here, too, is that this is the only width that comes primed in white) and slide it in a little deeper to get the same reveal. The alternative would be to just have 5/8" overlap from board to board instead of the existing 1".

Sound reasonable?

[capncarl]

That much overlap should not make any difference. The Harde Board seems to hold up very well. I have several large pieces buried as bottom courses of my raised bed boxes that have been underground for 7 years. The upper courses have been destroyed by termites and rot several times and the Harde is stll untouched.
You are going to use the factory suggested large head fastners rather than a finishing nail?
capncarl

[atgcpaul]

You are going to use the factory suggested large head fastners rather than a finishing nail?

I copied this from their installation datasheet. If that's what you mean, then yes.

OSB minimum 7/16"
• 11ga. roofing nail (0.121" shank x 0.371" HD x 1.75" long)
• Ribbed Wafer-head or equivalent (No. 8 x 1 5/8" long x 0.375" HD).


I also saw on their datasheet that I should have a min. 1 1/4" overlap between rows so 6 1/4" it is.

[Stytooner]

I just use my full head PC framing nailer. Works great. I agree, more material to nail to, the better off you are.

[atgcpaul]

The siding will be delivered this Saturday morning. It should be pre-primed front and back. Do you put a coat of paint on the back before installation or is that overkill? Do you paint the boards before nailing them up (I'm guessing this would be best) or do you just paint after they're installed?

[capncarl]

There is a lot of Hardiplank in this area, and all that I have seen is painted after installation. I caulked the planking on my shop, finger tooled it in the joints real good and then painted. Some of the drops from the shop were used as the underground bottom board of the gardens raised beds, installed 7 years ago, and still show no sign of deteration, rot or moisture damage. Good stuff.

[jking]

There is no need to paint the back of Hardiplank.

[atgcpaul]

For better or for worse Lowe's delivered the siding at 8:45am this morning (instead of between 4-6pm like they told me). Good thing I took the day off.

Anyway, my dad came over at noon. After almost 4 hours we had replaced 4 rows of siding, 18' long. I had planned to do 5 rows but after seeing that this side was actually in pretty good shape, settled on 4. There were tons of ants, though. It took so long because we were learning as we went along. I was wiped by the time we were finished. This side of the garage gets full sun after noon and the temps were up to 90 today.

We went bottom up as suggested here. I didn't need any special clamps since I had my dad and I marked the bottom of each row on the adjacent trim so we knew where to place the plank.

The last top row needed to be ripped down a little because this siding was wider, but it all blends in nicely. I had to face nail those boards.

2 sides to go.

[atgcpaul]

We are having some awesome weather this weekend.

My dad came over this morning and we finished off the other two sides today. I originally planned to do 6 rows on each side but we did just 4 on the first side, 3 on the back, and 8 on the far side--up to the bottom of the window. The far side was overkill but that should last forever. The bottom 4 rows were pretty bad and I replaced about 2 sqft of OSB sheathing in the near corner. I still need to replace a piec of rotten corner trim, too.

That far side measured 24' 1". The siding was exactly 12' long. I had some 3/4" PVC trim I ripped to 1 1/2" (depth of trim board), doubled it up to make a 1 1/2" square stick and glued/screwed it to the far corner hidden by a tree. I reduced the length to 23 1/2" so two boards fit perfectly with just a little cutting. 12-12 and 6-12-6.

Now ive got to caulk over the nails where I had to face nail and then paint. All in all a pretty easy project.