Contractor's Corner: Texas Home Exteriors in Houston, Texas

Over the years, home siding has gone through many changes as products and technology have shifted from wood to products produced from asbestos, shingles, aluminum, vinyl, fiber cement and engineered wood . Below I will share a brief description and information about the evolution of these products. I will also share my opinion of what is the best siding material for today's home, based on my experience as a contractor.

A Siding Timeline

Asbestos siding, introduced in 1907, consisted of water, cement and asbestos pressed between metal plates with intense pressure to produce thin sheets of siding. It was used until the early 1980s and popular due to its ability to protect homes from heat, fire and moisture. Asbestos siding did well until the 1960s, when heavy media reporting revealed health concerns over the dust that easily became airborne during manufacturing, installation and removal. It was banned in 1973 by the EPA and is nearly non-existent today.

Aluminum siding came onto the scene in 1938 to solve water leakage problems. It was manufactured from aluminum coil, chemically coated and painted, then baked to hold the color, brightness and durability. The product was popular with installers because of its long horizontal lengths and the ease of being pre-painted for quick installation. However, a good hail storm, hits with baseballs, and impacts from car doors and lawnmowers would leave behind dents. There were other issues too, like paint peeling off due to adhesion issues, chalking and fading paint, as well as the siding expanding at a different rate than the paint with temperature changes, especially when in direct sunlight. These factors became a huge turn-off for many.

Vinyl siding, introduced in the 1950s, rivaled aluminum with the marketed promise of never having to paint your home since the color ran through the entire thickness of the siding. The love of vinyl siding started in the mid-1960s with the promise of choosing a color with no worry of flaking or chalking, and an end-all to dents. The problems were that vinyl siding did not hold its color. It often faded and yellowed; it could buckle in intense heat; and moisture formed on the surface in humid climates, causing mold and mildew. There were also water intrusion issues which caused mold and wood rot behind the siding, and incidents of the product cracking with only moderate impact. Vinyl has begun to lose market share to competing products such as fiber cement and engineered wood siding.

Fiber cement siding was introduced to the U.S. market in the early 1990s by James Hardie at a time when homeowners were looking for an alternative to the usual vinyl and aluminum options. This fire-resistant, rot-resistant and insect-resistant product enjoys continued popularity with a respectable share of the U.S. market.

Fiber cement's reputation has waned somewhat as word spread of its brittleness and a variety of installation issues, including hammer marks, broken pieces, shrinkage gaps and the dreaded broken and chipped edges on the bottom row. Fiber cement's strong hold on the market loosened even more as northern homeowners began noticing cracking and premature failures of their siding due to freeze/thaw stress.

LP^® SmartSide^® Trim & Siding

LP SmartSide Trim & Siding by Louisiana Pacific (LP) is an engineered wood siding product which has been around since the late 1990s. To make SmartSide precision series products, wood strands are treated with a formula including resins, waxes and zinc borate to protect them from damage caused by termites, moisture and rot, and formed into a wood mat. The wood mat is then compressed into siding, coated with a water-resistant overlay and embossed with a cedar grain pattern, resulting in a strong, impact-resistant siding product. SmartSide siding and trim has been extensively tested and shown to resist heat, sun exposure and impacts, as well as rot, fungal decay and termites.

LP siding and trim continues to enjoy a good reputation and growth in popularity with homeowners and builders. This trend has occurred for a variety of reasons: SmartSide products are light in weight; the siding pieces are 16 feet long; the product is durable with few breakage issues; there is less dust; installation is very easy for the crews (with no special tools needed); and crews that experience the ease of installation often do not want to install anything else.

Conclusion

With the factual research and considering the evolution of siding products, I find it appropriate to use a legal term for my personal conclusion: “case closed!” LP SmartSide is my siding recommendation when talking with homeowners. See how we used LP SmartSide to repair a home ravaged by a wasp infestation.