Have a question about siding… We have a cottage that my wife and I are considering re-siding. Current siding is a rather old and weathered plywood/textured siding material. We’re considering using the cement board/sidingproduct from the James Hardi company. Looks like a great product. Question is, can we simply add the new siding over the old siding without having to suffer removing and disposing of all that old siding? We’d remove all the old trim and replace with new hardiboard trim material. If we could do so this would appear to save us a ton of time and money. What do you think? Thank you, Kirk
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Maybe:
Whether the existing plywood is suitable as a substrate for new Hardi siding depends on what condition your plywood is in.
Is it structurally sound enough to hold the fasteners?
Do you want to add more insulation?
Is there plumbing or electrical hidden in the exterior walls that could be more easily replaced from the outside, than from the inside. We just resided a 100-year old house. It was farily easy to upgrade most of the electrical and the plumbing runs, when the walls were open, and lots easier than dealing with repairing the old plaster interior walls.
Is the Vapor barrior existing under it in good enough shape to leave in place, or should it be upgraded. If you want to upgrade, it may be possible to just install new house wrap over the existing plywood. This depends on: how much temperature differential there is between outside, and the interior; the normal humidity levels. Things that would work just fine in a arid environment like Las Vegas, could have terrible issues in more humid areas.