This is the first time I've posted to this newsgroup although I've searched the archives on a regular basis. We are in the middle of an addition/remodel on our 1938 home. The house currently has stucco on a small part of the house and wood lap siding on the rest of the house. We have a contractor doing the foundations/framing/sheathing but in order to save money I am taking on a lot of the other work- siding, insulation, floors, cabinets, sheetrock, etc. I would consider myself an advanced DIYer. We are subbing out the rough plumbing, electrical and roofing. The problem I have is that I would like to use fiber cement siding on the addition and any parts of the original house in which the siding has been removed to accomodate new doors and windows. The old wood lap siding is 7 1/2" wide with a 7" exposure. The websites I have checked out for fiber cement lap siding (James Hardie and Certainteed) both show installation instructions with a 1 1/4" minimum overlap with their lap siding products, thus to get a 7" exposure I would use 8 1/4" siding and there would be no way to weave in the fiber cement with the old wood. So the only solution I have come up with is to tear off 30-40 linear feet + two stories high of wood siding until I get to a corner of the house and re-side with the fiber cement. Or I could have any ugly butt joint that runs from the ground to the roof line where the fiber cement meets the wood on the side of my house. Any one out there have a solution to this problem? Thanks.
Dale