Is anyone else getting alot of calls to repair this junk?
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Replies
nope
What's your experience-improper install?
No - no callbacks
Used a lot of it too. What are the problems? Even my own house is all fiber cement.
fibre cement
I never had a problem with my work but I'm talking about paint flaking in the centre of the wall or rows of siding delaminating
also I hate working with the stuff we are now using alot of goodstyle engineered wood siding.
What engineeered wood siding do you prefer?
goodstyle siding is hard as a rock better to work with than FC less airbourn particles to breath in but still needs the same attention to detail as FB.
Got it on my house...no complaints at all.
Some was installed by a crew, some by me. In general, it's easy to cut and hang, but requires some specialized tools and techniques.
I'd rank FC siding as one of the more important advances in home construction in the last 20 years.
I'm not buying it...
The premise of this thread that is….
RE, >> I'd rank FC siding as one of the more important advances in home construction in the last 20 years. << Hasn’t fiber cement been around a lot longer than that? My sis owns a summer house (inherited) in southern Maryland that is of unknown vintage (40s? 50s? 30s?) that has a fiber cement like siding. I think it probably has asbestos in it and I believe is original to the house. The siding panels are not similar to anything we have today…. IIRC they are about 18” wide, have maybe a 8” exposure and are maybe 5/16” thick. The bottom edge of the siding panels has a wavy edge as a design feature. More brittle than today’s material, but definitely appears to be a cementous product. I’d call it fiber cement. BTW – in case it helps to date the house a little, the interior walls are all real knotty pine paneling – 1x8 I think.
Knotty pine doesn't date it very well, I'm afraid. I remember a house from my youth that was built ca 1955 and had knotty pine in the kitchen & dining nook. (Brick exterior.)
But the stuff you describe goes back a few years before that, I believe -- late 40s, at least, and likely pre-war. And yes, it was technically "fiber-cement".
One of the things I wonder about the current FC is that the asbestos has supposedly been replaced with wood fibers. What happens when the wood fibers rot? (Keeping in mind that wood in contact with masonry almost always rots rapidly.)
What you say makes sense....
That is probably why we think of it as a cement product but it still needs clearance above grade and above roof surfaces. As we know it cannot be installed in a location where it will be constantly wet and it has to be painted. As far as what you said about wood fibers rotting when in contact with cementous product, it makes sense, and again, obviously it has to do with moisture but I'm talking in the context of real world expience - not the hypothetical.
Yeah, the old asbestos-cement siding was pretty much rot-proof -- though certainly brittle, and I suspect snow/ice could do a number on it.
The jury's still out on "modern" FC -- it's only been around for 20 years or so. Lots of moisture can seep through the paint (especially latex paint weathered thin) in 20 years, plus the usual small leaks around windows, etc.
Isn't FC siding similar to backerboard for showers? I've seen that stuff sit submerged in water for a long time without 'delaminating'.
To delaminate, you have to have layers (laminations) and there is no such thing in FC.
I think fiber cement is a little different than backer board.
Hardie does make a "Hardie Backer" which I believe is different than their siding and cement backer board like Durarock is still different than that.. So, I'd say "similar" is the key word.
The "fiber" in FC is wood
The "fiber" in FC is wood fiber, as I understand it. This is different from cement backer board that generally uses fiberglass.
And there are lots of ways for siding to fail besides "delaminating".
There are layers
in the FC siding on my house, installed about 7 years ago. It may not be separate plys like in sheet stock (i.e. plywood) but it does breakdown and come apart in layers.
When it breaks, it breaks just like a laminated FRP element does. I have not witnessed the manufacture, but the failres I have seen indicate layers.
I suspect that the "layers"
I suspect that the "layers" result from the pressing/extrusion process that tends to orient the fiber strands with the length of the plank, with few crossing the depth. Plus they probably attempt a non-uniform distribution of the materials, so that a smoother surface will result. Once it develops a crack the crack will propagate in the easiest direction, which is along the length, and the outermost 1/8" or so will tend to separate from the rest.
I've noticed this past week that whenever cutting the hardieplank with electric shears, the "chad" or "goldfish poop" that comes out of the shears is inevitably "delaminated" into a minimum 2, and many times 3, layers. The board itself seems fine, but I'm treating it with respect as a handle it. I just hope the flexing that occured with the forklift didn't contribute to further delamination.
You ever
pick apart a chunk of mica? Though tougher, it delaminates like that.
But mica has a crystal structure that is weak in one plane. (Though I suppose FC is kinda sorta the same -- weak in one plane due to the orientation of fibers.)
If it isn't installed by contractors that know what they are doing, all sort of evil can happen.
I had one client who despite my advise, went ahead and hired the cheapest GC for his addition. My client took all precautions to even make sure the printed installation instructions for the fibercement siding were in the same language the carpenters spoke. Unfortunately, the GC only showed up on the job when he needed a progress payment. The homeowner found the printed instructions in the dumpster under the case of Okocim empties. I still can't figure out how they couldn't distinguish that the textured side was to be the exposed side.
Another one of those you get what you pay for stories.