Siding for ocean front home in wet windy climate
My house is 20 feet above sea level and fifty feet from the ocean at high tide in Alaske maritine climate. Based party on information in this Forum and advise from local builders I installed pre primed and pre painted fibercement siding with stainless nails. A few years later I noticed small spots where the paint came off taking with it chunks of fibercement. My neighbor has identical fibercemt siding he painted after installing after five years the paint peeled off. My neighbor completely resided his house with prepainted osb a few years ago. I have sealed the holes in the fibercement and repainted twice in the last 12 years but its falling apart..
I need to replace the siding. I am looking for recomendations. it is an extremly damp climate driving rain renders conventional vinyl siding almost useless.
Replies
It sounds like the problem is the paint, not the siding. Though there may be a problem with water getting trapped just behind the paint and then freezing and causing the damage.
Where is vapor barrier in your construction?
I've never used pre-painted fibercement siding but have installed a lot of the pre-primed stuff. We always wash before we paint, touch up the primed areas where needed, make sure the flashing is done right, use PVC trim everywhere and caulk with polyurethane sealant. Near the beach we also caulk the bottom edge of each piece of siding to stop windblown rain and sand from penetrating. It does void the warranty but we feel is worth the risk to keep everything dry.
Did you get in touch with the manufacturer when the paint came off the first time?
Makes perfect sense.
The paint fails so replace the siding, that makes perfect sense. OSB siding, no need to worry about the paint failing before the siding.
The key on ocen frontage is to provide a way for siding to dry out beacause no matter what it's going to get wet on both sides. Google rainscreen construction- you need to leave an air gap behind the siding.
I'd suggest cedar shingles, installed over an air gap. That's what we have done on our beach house in Oregon (about 100" rain a year where we are located). We had some on the back of the house that are 50 years old and still in good shape. The plywood siding we had on the front was rotted away in a lot of spots.
Attached a couple of photo's.