Mobile Fiber Cement Composite Siding

Fiber Siding

Fiber siding is a mouthful for something pretty simple: wood pulp, portland cement and sand pressed into a plank that doesn't much care what August in Mobile does to it. And that matters here. Salt air off the Bay, humidity sitting at ninety percent by nine in the morning, and Formosan termites that treat old masonite siding like a buffet on Dauphin Street. Fiber cement composite siding doesn't feed them, doesn't swell like the pressboard I keep pulling off Midtown houses, and holds a coat of paint for years instead of a season.

It's heavy, though. That's the trade. A board weighs several times what vinyl does, so our siding installation company hangs it two people to a plank, with proper blades and dust control, because a chipped edge is a chipped edge forever.

Fiber Cement Siding Installation

Installation is where fiber cement earns its keep or fails early. We blind nail into studs, snug and not crushed, because an overdriven nail dimples the plank and lets Mobile's summer downpours wick in. Butt joints get flashing behind them, not a bead of caulk and a prayer. We hold six inches off grade, an inch off the roofline, and paint every field cut edge. On a typical Midtown home, our siding installation company is off your walls in about a week, longer if we're pulling old masonite siding and repairing sheathing underneath.

Fiber Cement Home Siding

If your place still wears the masonite siding somebody nailed up in the eighties, you know how that story ends: swollen bottom edges, paint that won't hold past two summers, a soft spot under the hose bib. Fiber cement composite siding is a different animal. At 5/16 of an inch it doesn't wick water, doesn't feed termites, and doesn't ripple in August heat the way thin panels do. Most homes our siding installation company re-clads around Midtown and West Mobile run about a week. Want the cottage look people chase with vinyl shake siding? Hardie plank siding and shingle panels both give you it, minus the warping.

Fiber Cement Siding Panels

Panels are the big sheets, 4 by 8 or 4 by 10, and they give you that vertical board-and-batten look that's been all over new builds from West Mobile to Fairhope. Hardie panel siding has to land on a stud at every vertical joint, with flashing behind it and a gap left open. Caulk that joint shut and our humidity has nowhere to go, so the edges swell by the second summer. Our siding installation company scores and shears panels outside rather than cutting dry with a blade, because silica dust is not something you want in your yard.

Fiber Cement Lap Siding

Lap siding is the horizontal plank look most of Mobile asks for by name, and hardie plank goes up board by board, blind nailed into framing so no fastener heads show. Butt joints land on a stud with flashing behind them, never on a bead of caulk and a prayer. That's the step that gets skipped, and after two Gulf summers the plank ends swell, cup and grin at you from the street.

We keep the clearances the manufacturer asks for: a gap above roof lines and step flashing, clearance off grade, and a gap at trim and corners filled with sealant instead of hammered tight. On a one story Midtown cottage, our siding installation company usually has hardie plank siding on and trimmed inside a week, weather permitting.

Cement Board Siding

Cement board is just what most folks around here call it, and it's the same material: portland cement, sand and cellulose fiber pressed into planks about 5/16 of an inch thick. It's heavy. A 12 foot run of hardie board siding is a two person lift all day long, which is why our siding installation company doesn't send one guy up a ladder with a nail gun and a prayer.

That weight earns its keep on the Gulf Coast. Termites won't touch it, humidity won't swell it, and it doesn't ripple the way old masonite siding does after ten Augusts.

Cutting is where crews get sloppy. Dry cut with the wrong blade and you get silica dust over the whole yard and chewed edges that wick water. We use a fiber cement blade with dust collection, and every field cut gets primed before it touches the wall.

Board Batten Fiber Cement Siding

Battens are where this one lives or dies. We hang hardie panel siding vertically over the sheathing with the seams landing on framing, then run the trim boards over those joints at 12 or 16 inches on center, snapped to a chalk line so they read straight from the curb instead of wandering like a Mardi Gras parade route.

Two things sink a bad board and batten job. Battens nailed into the panel face only, not the studs behind it, which start popping loose the first time a squall comes off the Bay. And vertical seams sealed with caulk where a joint flashing belongs. Caulk is a maintenance item. Flashing isn't.

Most folks bring our siding installation company in for a gable end, a front elevation or a porch skirt, and that's usually a day or two of work.

Hardie Siding Installation

Hardie is the name most folks around here say when they mean fiber cement composite siding, the way everybody says Coke when they mean any soda. We hang the HZ10 boards made for humid coastal walls, because Mobile Bay air eats shortcuts for breakfast.

When james hardie siding fails, it's almost never the board. It's butt joints with no flashing behind them, nail heads driven so hard they crush the fibers, and plank stacked straight down into the mulch instead of held six inches above grade. Give that a summer of afternoon thunderstorms and you've got soft edges and blistered paint.

So our siding installation company blind nails hardie plank siding into studs, flashes every joint and kickout, and leaves a gap at trim for caulk. On a typical house, that's five to ten working days.

Vinyl Shake Siding

Vinyl shake shows up on a lot of gable ends and dormers around Midtown, and I'm not going to pretend it's a crime. Done right, vinyl shake siding gives you that cedar shingle look without the painting, and it's the one vinyl product our siding installation company still hangs without wincing, usually as an accent over a porch gable rather than a whole-house wrap.

Here's the catch. Vinyl expands in our summers, so every nail has to float in its slot with the head standing a hair off the panel. Nail it snug and by August that wall ripples like a washboard. Color also fades on the south and west walls facing the afternoon sun, which is why a hardie plank body with vinyl shake in the gable can look mismatched in about six years.

A gable or two is a day's work. Tear-off of old masonite adds another.

Stucco Siding

Stucco looks right at home on the Spanish Revival houses around the Oakleigh Garden District, and when it's done over a proper drainage plane it holds up. When it's slapped straight onto sheathing with no weep screed and no way to drain, our humidity gets behind it and the sheathing turns to oatmeal. Hairline cracks at the corners of windows are usually the first tell.

Most stucco siding calls our siding installation company takes end one of two ways: patch and recoat, or strip it and go to hardie board, which handles wind-driven rain without the guesswork.

Fiber Cement Panel

Panel is the big sheet, four by eight or four by ten, and it's a different animal than lap. It goes on vertically, which means the seams are vertical too, and that's where a bad install shows up first. Butt joints need flashing behind them, not a bead of caulk hoping for the best. Caulk in Mobile humidity has a shelf life; a piece of flashing doesn't. We also hold the panel above grade and off the roofline so it isn't wicking water every time we get one of those August afternoons that dumps two inches in twenty minutes.

Fastener spacing matters here too, since we're in a coastal wind zone and hardie panel siding blows off pretty spectacularly when it's nailed like a Nebraska garage. Our siding installation company nails to the pattern, every time.

Fiber Cement Board

So what's actually in the board? Portland cement, sand and cellulose fiber, pressed and cured into a plank that weighs better than twice what vinyl does. That heft is the whole point on the Gulf Coast. Fiber cement composite siding doesn't feed Formosan termites, doesn't cook and warp at 98 degrees in August, and doesn't wick water up from the bottom edge the way the masonite siding on plenty of west Mobile houses did before it swelled like a stale biscuit.

Standard lap board is 5/16 inch thick, and hardie board ships primed or with a baked-on factory color that holds up longer under our sun than a field-painted plank ever will.

One thing about the material: cutting it makes silica dust. We use shears or a dust-collecting blade, every time.

What the job involves

Tear-off comes first, and that is where we find out what your old masonite siding has been hiding: soft sheathing, a rotted stud bay, a window with no flashing. We dry it in, then hang hardie plank on the correct nailing pattern with the gaps the manufacturer actually asks for. Overdriven nails and caulked butt joints are the two sins that void a warranty and buckle a wall by the second August. Most single-story homes take our siding installation company about a week, weather permitting. Mobile rain gets a vote.

What it costs

Straight answer: a full siding job in Mobile usually lands somewhere between $5,000 and $6,400, and fiber cement composite siding sits at the top of that, because the board is heavy, slow to cut and nothing like hanging vinyl at $2 to $6 a square foot. What moves your number is square footage, one story versus two, and whether we're stripping soft old masonite siding and patching sheathing behind it. Give our siding installation company a ring on 251-551-3653 for a real figure on your house. Hardie plank siding hung right outlasts two cheap re-dos.

Why choose us for this

You've got a house where the paint keeps failing, a wall that drums hollow when you knock it, and honestly you just want it handled once so you don't have to think about it again for twenty years.

So here's what I won't do.

I won't quote one number over the phone and slide a bigger one onto the invoice.

I won't start your hardie board and then vanish to a second job in Daphne for a week.

I won't lean on you to sign today.

I won't leave nails and hardie plank cutoffs in your azaleas.

I'm not the cheapest bid you'll get, and that's deliberate. Proper fiber cement siding installation means flashing every opening, holding the boards off the grade and the roofline, and blind nailing to the stud, which takes hours a hurry-up crew skips.

Running our siding installation company for the better part of nine years, I've learned the estimate itself costs you nothing and obligates you to nothing.

Frequently asked questions