Beginner : Nailing up T-111 siding

You'll be glad you did. I've got one (New Orleans style) going up now that's spec'ed for Hardi-Plank siding ... I've also got it on my current home. Brick, stucco and Hardi-Plank are all you see anymore around here in Houston.

Hardi-Plank is hard to trim with, and, depending upon the sheathing, often hard to blind nail without waving a bit, but those are minor issues, easily overcome with experience. Hardi also makes a backer board that's much better for wet areas, behind showers, etc ... an excellent replacement for greenboard which, being a cellulose base, will often grow the dreaded (gasp) mmmooouullddd.

Reply to
Swingman
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I'll do that.

Reply to
Leon

I have replaced probably 1/3 of the siding on my house that was built 20 years ago with Hardiplank. It is doing very well. I replaced it 4 or 5 years ago. I am also finishing up on a storage shed that is 99% Hardi. I was able to get Masonite to pay for a lot of the cost.

Reply to
Leon

Well for about 15% more, you can buy a superior product that will probably not ever have to be replaced.

Or any house in any town or city near a large body of water that has this type siding.

OTOH, I wouldn't live in Houston if the house was

Good, Houston is crowded enough.

Reply to
Leon

If you're in the area, give me a holler and come by ... I'll be in the shop most every day this week. There may even be a walnut board or two you can walk off with. ;.)

You've got my e-mail, right?

Reply to
Swingman

I've already laid down the law to Carol that the next house we get after fleeing this city is going to be of concrete or brick - and single story instead of three. I'm getting too old to be climbing 40' ladders... (Although the first floor is real brick.)

I actually bought one HardiPlank a year before this project began - soaked it in water, and generally abused it to determine of it

*really* held up as advertised. I'm only doing this ONCE!

That GP stuff is covered with mold on the backside, and on top of that, the idiots that sheathed this thing left big holes, breaks and hammer holes in the sheathing - you can see pink insulation through the many gaps and holes.... Of course, there is no building wrap either. They also laid the unprimed GP hardboard siding right up to and touching the roof shingles - and of course it soaked up water every time it rained. Heck, the corners weren't even nailed together, the plates didn't overlap, and the plywood corner sheathing wasn't even nailed to the opposing wall. I'm surprised the back wall didn't just fall off... ;-o

The doors were nailed into place through the brickmold with concrete nails, the windows affixed in the same manner, everything was crooked with gaping gaps around their periphery, and nothing was flashed AT ALL and rotted. What a mess... 15 years old...

Not to mention digging up the yard and totally redoing the Quest water main when it broke last fall for the third time - right after beginning this "project from hell". They built new subdivisions up hill from where we are, and the water pressure suddenly jumped from ~90PSI to 160PSI. Really played havoc with all the plumbing. Had to install new pressure regulators, etc.

All of this is being corrected - new roof, new flashing, new sheathing where appropriate, building wrap, new siding, new flashing, new windows and doors... My fear is that we'll never get our money out of this monstrosity... And my biggest gripe - I don't have time to play in the woodshop!

Blind nails - pffah! This stuff is getting face nailed with hot dip galvanized ring shanks! Helps to mask the wavering wall line! Compared to the phantom air nails in the middle of the planks that "held" the GP stuff in place, it looks fabulous! No swelling, bubbles or rot! Paint can cover the nail heads. As for cutting and fitting - it hasn't been a problem, but I built a jig to make cutting it easier and more accurate.

Removal of the old siding consisted of grabbing one side and pulling hard - most of the nails never hit a stud and simply pulled out of the cellulose sheathing and the strip fell to the ground. It's good we never got a hard wind here, because most of this would have simply blown away... They never would have allowed something like this be built in Florida... Or would they?!

Well, it's back to the roof for me...

Greg G.

Reply to
Greg G.

We missed the window of opportunity on the GP law suit, and they probably wouldn't have covered it anyway due to the "builder's" improper installation technique. It's all out of pocket for us! Ugghh...

Greg G.

Reply to
Greg G.

Yep.

Upside: Comes already primed, and providing it's painted within 30 days, the warrantee on Hardi-Plank is 50 years. It's what I did my shop-ette in. Looks good, weighs a ton and-- given that it's cement board-- should hold up pretty darned well. (Hell, 50 years is a longer warrantee than _I_ have right now so all's good.) ;>

Downside: It's cement. Be prepared to destroy a couple of circular saw blades. Cutting it creates cement dust. Be prepared to breathe a lot of cement dust. :)

Michael (Geez, am I really turning 50 this month?) Baglio

Reply to
Michael Baglio

IIRC you should paint within 6 moonths.

It's what I did my shop-ette

While you can cut it with a carbide blade I found that the diamond coated blades with no teeth work very very well compared to carbide blade with teeth. When I first sided my house with Hardi I used the common carbide circle saw blade. When doing repairs on other houses and when doing my shed I used the cheap, $15 diamond coated blade from HD. This blade works like a dream, stirs up less dust, and makes a cleaner, smoother cut. You have to look for this blade as the sales people point to the $50 blade. So the $15 blade only lasts 75% as long as the $50 blade. It has already outlasted the carbide blades and in this instance, the cheaper blade is cheaper in the long run.

Reply to
Leon

One other hint. I ALWAYS take a fan to the job site and have it blow the dust away from me. I am always between the fan and the material being cut.

Reply to
Leon

I often use what is called "vent skin" construction down here. It is not recommended for all parts of the country, but works well on the Gulf Coast There was an article in FHB some years back and they called it something like "rain screen"??, but it was for a different part of the country.

Basically, instead of nailing the siding to the sheathing, it is nailed to vertical 3/8 thick furring strips on top of the sheathing ... the resultant cavity runs from the bottom of the sheathing, all the way up past the soffit, and into the attic cavity.

This will a allow a roof with ridge vents to pull/circulate air through the resulting space behind the siding, and any moisture trapped there will have a chance to dry out. You need to put an insect screen at the bottom of the cavity behind the siding, but that is easy with a new plastic product on the market.

I did my current house this way and happy with the results.

Reply to
Swingman

I hope so, 'cause it's been 3 months for my siding... I can't get SWMBO to decide what color she wants... :-\

I'll second that emotion - I'm using a Dewalt diamond siding blade, and it has thousands of cuts on it - no sign of wear yet. FAR better than any wood cutting blade, carbide or not. Heck, the time saved changing out blades is worth what it costs - $45 as I recall. I couldn't find the Hardy recommended Hitachi blade locally.

FWIW,

Greg G.

Reply to
Greg G.

Yes, being upwind is definitely a good thing. I hold my breath when the wind shifts... ;-) Silicosis is not in my itinerary.

Greg G.

Reply to
Greg G.

The lower floor with brick masonry work is done in a similar fashion, as is standard practice, but I wasn't about to do it on the rest of the house. Maybe when we build our dream home in the woods. With the

98% humidity levels here in the summer, it would be a good thing.

IMHO, if they had properly wrapped this house, and made sure the sheathing was contiguous, it would have stopped most of the mold that was present. Much of the moisture was migrating through the walls from the inside of the house.

Greg G.

Reply to
Greg G.

Greg G. wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

I suggest you put on a first coat, and wait for her to tell you that you're wrong. It won't matter what the first color is. You will be wrong anyway. Even if SHE picks out the color.

This should buy you time until next spring.

Talk to your respected local professional paint retailer, and get the right product.

Patriarch, who has maybe 12 gallons of paint that turned out not to be quite the right color...

Reply to
patriarch

Hey Swingman - what is the new plastic product you're refering to?

Reply to
Mike Marlow

Sorry, Mike ... I am having a devil of a time remembering the name of the stuff. It looks like plastic 1X2 with holes drilled through the width. You cut and install beween the furring strips, at the bottom of the first course of siding so insects can't get in the cavity.

I first used it a couple of years ago and will try to find an old invoice with the name on it ... might take a day or so. I ordered from a place here in Houston that caters to builders and specializes in moldings, wood and building materials you can't generally find at lumber yards or the BORGS

ITMT, until I locate that invoice, maybe the following will lead you to the product:

Fine Homebuilding - February/March 2001 - #137

RAIN-SCREEN WALLS: A BETTER WAY TO INSTALL SIDING by Mark Averill Snyder "Spacing siding away from housewrap promotes ventilation and drainage for long-lasting siding and paint."

Reply to
Swingman

I try to use sample blocks, but it still probably won't work. :-\

Hey, I hate painting - this is going to be done ONCE. Regardless of the outcome...

Pure Acrylic of an undetermined color. :-o

This spring, you should have a "not quite right" yard sale...

SWMBO wanted to paint her office as I was painting the hallways and such - insisted she would finish the job. That was a year ago and the trim still isn't finished. And we ended up with an extra can of paint that will never be used because when she bought an additional can - you guessed it - different manufacturer, different color. I didn't find it until 3 months later - another paint can goes into the collection of 17 paint cans and other crap stacked up in the basement that I have to trip over to get the the breaker box. :-\

Ahhh, well....

Greg G.

Reply to
Greg G.

"Swingman" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com...

Thanks Swingman. What I'm doing is a bit different...

We had perpetual ice buildup problem on our house because the entire front roof was not vented at all, and the rear roof was poorly vented. Now, 20 some years later, we decided to fix that problem since we had to put new shingles on anyway. We could not just cut in soffet vents in front because the contractor that built the house cut the roof rafters to miter down onto the top course of logs (log home) instead of birds mouthing them and running them out. (You'd really have to see it to understand the problem). Instead of tearing off all of the roof decking and figuring a way to vent it better, we decided to tear off the shingles and leave the roof deck on. I got 200 sheets of 1.5in rigid insulation board for free that was being taken off a commercial roof by the company that my brother in law works for. All I had to do was pick up the insulation. This stuff is about R1.5 to the inch so, it adds to our existing R30 nicely. We laid that down on the existing roof decking and then ran 2x4's laid on their side up the insulation and screwed it through the insulation into the old roof deck. Think of this as purloins run the wrong way. Then we decked over that with a new roof deck. This left us with a 1.5in air channel between each of the 2x4's for air flow up to the ridge vent. The key is that we had aluminum bent for new fascia that runs about an inch wild of the original fascia and steps to the original fascia. It does not step to be in contact with the original fascia, but it steps to overhang the top of the original fascia a bit, but still about an inch wild of the face of the original fascia. This makes for a nice look of the fascia, instead of a massive hunk of 1x8 for a fascia and the 1in wild leaves an air gap of 1in for the air to flow completely along the edge of the roof.

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Reply to
Mike Marlow

Greg, Greg, Greg. Paint cans near the breaker box. Ouch ! Sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.

Greg G. wrote: [snip]

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Reply to
JAW

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