Fibercement is considered a high end product. It is made from wood fibers impregnated with cement. We're using Hardiplank brand. It lasts a long time, offers some fire protection, is rot resistant, can be painted unlike vinyl but paint lasts a long time unlike wood. We chose it because of this, and installation does not require much special skill. However, it's a pain to work with! It can bend when not carried carefully, it's very heavy (think cement), and it creates dangerous silica dust when sawn.
This summer we're building a garage next to the house and we want the buildings to match, but I'm tired of fiber cement! Lucky for us, there's another product that looks the same, called LP smartside lap. It is a treated OSB product covered with resin saturated, primed paper. It cuts like wood, is longer for fewer seams, weighs half as much, and costs less. I don't trust it as much for moisture resistance and longevity, but the garage is shorter, with longer roof overhangs, and no moisture producing showers inside to permeate under the siding.Despite all my complaining, we realized recently that that at $4 a square foot, all this siding would cost us around $7000 to have installed. It's probably 7 good weekends of work, so we're not making a bad wage!
We want your comments on colors
Speaking of siding, we need to choose color soon! Any suggestions to go with our blue roof? The primer gray, which is slightly warm actually looks pretty good. I'm leaning towards something similar but darker, or maybe more brown-gray. The window frames can not be painted.
