james hardie

careful how you detail that JH stuff though - i would do a full scale mock-up first.
if you want a more high-end product, try Swiss Pearl panels

indeed, especially with the 3/8" reveals

what i did once was use 2 layers of hardipanel and lap them such that we could create (1/4") reveals

have your client deconstruct and recycle the cedar siding. it's such a waste to tear off a perfectly viable siding only to replace it with something less resilient. somebody else will want those boards. here in portland, we have the rebuilding center that takes used but still usable building materials like that. hopefully your local has something similar.

habitat for humanity could use the boards as well -- they have a salvage center here in austin, maybe in other places too -- they're kinda like the goodwill for building supplies -- they sell the stuff to make extra money

but 1x is, as might be expected, somewhat easy to destroy in demo -- the sub probably will want to just rip the stuff off the exterior and trash it -- be very specific in drawings/specs that "the contractor MUST remove, retain and protect existing siding for salvage/donation"

else the standard of care won't be reflected in the bid and you/your client could end up with a fait accompli in the form of a pile of splintered broken cedar boards

hell, even IF you put it in the dwgs they may rip it off anyway

ochana, good call about HFH. in our specs we've used the definition of "DECONSTRUCT" for those items we want to salvage. we also have a construction waste management plan in our specs (01732). and you're right about he conctractor just ripping it off anyway. with spec information, at least you have an expectation and a leg to stand on when they fight you on it.

is it cement or concrete? Last I checked...cement was more of an adhesive than a building material...it is a component used to make concrete.

i would highly recommend NOT using james hardie. just finishing up a job w/ it. the stuff is a nightmare.

As far as I know, James Hardie is about it for readily available cement board (that will be reasonably priced). We're researched other panel options & they're much more expensive & European - not really worth exploring unless it's a very large project.
I can't believe your client wants to remove cedar and replace it with cement board - here in LA everyone wants wood and we only end up using cement board when they realize how expensive the wood is. We're probably going to use it to re-side our house - currently we have horizontal redwood but it's been painted a million times and is patched all over the place. If you use the thicker panels, it's not too bad. The siding is thin and kind of shitty, but used a lot these days.
Silverlake - curious, what were the problems you had specifically with hardie panel?
The options I've seen for horizontal reveals are a metal reveal a la fry reglet, or just leaving a space & siliconing the joint. In either case, I'd be a little worried if you're in a cold weather zone - maybe you could convince them to go with a horizontal batten or flashing that overlaps the panel below instead.

I say cedar but I have only the drawings from 1986 to confirm that. There's a chance it is something less appropirate like yellow pine or white pine. There seems to be alot of rot and it's in really bad shape.
Whoever installed it did a real sh#*y job.It is failing It's lost it crispness due to the buckling and end cuts that should run prefectly straight but do not.This siding job reakes of a low bid at the original date of construction. Probably a unskilled crew to install. There is a huge amount of siding on this house. And I am beside myself about what to do. Believe me I wince at the amount of waste I see in my area. Over the years I collected too much of what I deemed reusable only to stockpile the stuff until I had no room left to safely store it. Unfortunately, we do have a salvage operation that could take it. Or recycle somehow

Sorry I meant we do not have a salvage operation

R.A. Rudolph, it was thin and shitty, like you said... No matter how careful the guys were putting it up, it would always end up being very wavy. When they tried to lap it or mitre corners, it just shred. It took them three times as long w/ all sorts of shimming and it still looked like shit in the end.

By the way, the JH people are assholes! Shitty people, shitty product....

silverlake - what problems have you run into?

We've also found Hardie to be the only inexpensive solution and are looking to use it soon.

have used eternit and swisspearl, both are great.
have always used it as a rain-screen system though.

http://fibercementpanel.com/ArchitecturalFacades_SWISSPEARL.htm

http://www.eternit.co.uk/Cladding/cladding.html

yeah, there's something to be said for pressed board siding. at least they make it with decent profiles that allow for proper installation. but that's another thread..

my former firm used hardipanel as a rain-screen system here in texas -- actually put it up OVER the existing (wood) siding of the house -- the major problem was getting the reveals to be uniform -- from the street the house looks like it has black tarpaper under the cement -- but that was a function of the contractor since my ex-boss would never deign to follow something so prosaic as a standard panel size and the contractor had to cut each sheet to fit

oh and the dirt-daubers and hornets love the system

Perhaps the problems with Hardie board products are because of the detailing, not the product. The product is really designed to have battens, not reveals. We just finished 100 houses with the stuff, and they look very nice. Of course, this was an upgrade in the budget- we never could have afforded wood. The other option was vinyl, and this was an improvement over that. In areas with heavy termite damage, it is nice to have a product that will resist termite damage and dry rot. Less frequent painting that wood, too.

It's not that I think JH product is good or bad. I wasn't going to suggest it to the client since JH doesn't even show the product applied the way we are interested in using it. It's seeems to been meant to be installed a lap siding and to replace the T-111 style siding. If it is applied as a rainscreen and the reveals are closed like in a reverse batten system bugs will be a problem. There's got to be a system to provide closure at the base of the siding and at horizontel gaps.

hardie australia has some details here. my experience was; using 4' x 4' smooth boards cut from 4' x 8' sheets and applying over building paper leaving 1/4" reveals and filling it with hardie sealant, using 1" screws with small washers. main problem is with corners, window/door edges. all in all asimple idea becomes a big project babying it all the way. looks good. maybe. but at the and it eats a lot of labor and micky mousing, if you have a problem solving dude working on it. we leaved it in its gray cementous color with a sealer. so far it has been six-seven years. gimme stucco. king of exterior land, i am in cali. or wood siding, if you have the redwood money.
pdf

o+ - do you recall how much the eternit and swisspearl were per sheet?

We just had someone recommend eternit, but they hadn't used it.

Thanks

trace,
i don't know what the cost was per panel, it was a $/s.f. calc, but on a smaller job it was just over 12$/s.f., and a larger job was just under
8$/s.f. installed.

call these guys, http://www.panelguys.com/cementpanels.htm they helped price out a project that died in portland, they should be able to give you a $/panel.

or these guys, http://fibercementpanel.com/ArchitecturalFacades_SWISSPEARL.htm

(oh yeah, swisspearl is still made by eternit, just another 'type')

hope this helps,

Hardie supplies a preformed miter corner molding for the arts and crafts look. The less you fuck with it on site the better. It is really three products: lap siding; Shingle panel siding; and flat sheet panels with an etruded aluminum joint bead. The stuff really want's to be used with its Trim product (chintzy 1x4 rectangle stock).

It really is all about the substrate. Out in SF you typically see it over lt. gage mtl studs with DensGlas and it doesn't look so bad. They sell it now with a pre-applied enamel paint to save just that much more $ on site. It is sold as a replacement/alternative to vinyl/aluminum siding for suburban style buildings and performs on that level. As long as you use it that way with the supplied detialing and don't get fancy it works OK. It is a basic material for a basic application.

If you want something that doesn't look cheap as hell then, yeah you're looking at a Parklex/Trespa/Swisspearl type material. and that means $$$.

That parklex stuff is pretty nice. But at $350+ per sheet, it's crazy expensive!
Sounds like the eternit is close to that price. Last I checked, Hardie was about $55 per sheet.

Sound right?

yep, that sounds about right based on our research. also, with anything other than hardie you're likely to pay hefty shipping fees and have long lead times... any detail you come up with that requires precise installation will involve waste - from some to quite a bit depending on the installer, so you'd have to add that into the overall cost as well.
Only details I've seen for swisspearl are for a rainscreen type system (from the company). The beauty of the hardie panel is that it's cheap and practically indestructable from a weathering point of view, not that it looks particularly nice, esp. up close. But I've seen it installed where it looks great, and also shitty - I'd say it depends on the installer & detailing.

R.A. and o+ - thanks for the info.

I am guessing there is nothing in between that anyone knows of?
I've seen marine grade plywood used, but that was in LA, I can't imagine it'd last long elsewhere.

Perhaps a bit off topic here, but I'm currently doing a reno of a small studio apartment. The client showed me swipe from a mag in which the homeowner had finished her floors by gluing Hardie Panel to a plywood sub. This is appealing as an alternative to tile for a number of reasons, the greatest of which is cost, but I have almost no experience with the material. I've done a small exterior job using smooth Hardie plank clapboard and it was fairly straightforward and workable, but I have no experience with the panels.

If anyone can think of any cons to this approach I'd love to hear them. I should 1mention that she has 2 dogs - I imagine the panels would stand up to their nails etc, but that IS a consideration as well.

Thanks-