Re-siding your home is not the time to get cheap. Choose the highest quality material you can find, hire an experienced and professional installation crew and work with designers who have vision. You’ll end up with a solid investment that could pay dividends for 50 years to come.
Minnesota has as harsh an overall climate as can be found in the United States. Of course we’re famous for our winters, but we all know it gets plenty hot and humid in the summer. In the end, we’ve got significant temperature swings. To properly protect a Minnesota home, you need a material that’s not going to expand and contract with the shifts in temperature.
The three major categories in lap siding today are engineered wood, vinyl and fiber cement. Of those three, fiber cement is easily the most durable. And it remains dimensionally stable with temperature extremes.
And of the fiber cement siding manufacturers, only James Hardie can claim to be the inventors of the product class. Their technology and patents remain far ahead of the copycat imitators who’ve followed.
Wood Can’t Stand up To Moisture Over Time
Wood of course has a classic and comfortable aesthetic. And engineered wood has improved the overall performance of this category with additives while still retaining the look of natural wood.
But the reason wood fails is that it expands and contracts so that the paint can’t stick to it. The paint moves at a different rate than the substrate. As those two things work against each other, the paint begins to peel, flake and come off.
Wood will also swell after prolonged exposure to water. And as it swells, it can buckle if the siding is not properly gapped and caulked.
Engineered wood is also susceptible to damage from woodpeckers and other pests that infiltrate wood siding. It also needs to be gapped at the seams caused aesthetics that are less than desirable. This is due to the high rate of expansion and contraction.
Vinyl’s Not Final
Vinyl is a decent choice when your only consideration is price. In Minnesota, where we have such drastic temperature swings, vinyl siding expands and contracts too much. We have probably all seen houses with rippling vinyl siding. That is due to the siding expanding or contracting so much that it causes the material to buckle.
Vinyl siding is “maintenance free” but there is no maintenance you can do to it once it gets faded and tired looking. The only maintenance you can do at that point is tear it off and put on James Hardie Siding.
The bottom line is that vinyl is not a durable option.
The material can easily crack, it is disastrous around fire and is generally speaking a budget alternative to more attractive and longer-lasting materials.
James Hardie Fiber Cement Siding: The Real Deal
Installed correctly, Hardie siding is hands-down the most effective material to protect a Minnesota home and to look good doing it.
Hardie siding won’t expand or contract regardless of what the Minnesota weather brings. Once it’s installed, it’s not going to move around.
You also get incredible design flexibility. There are a huge array of options, including tiny lap siding, a board and batten look or all of the different types of shakes. And you’re able to do the eaves and overhangs in the same product. There’s also an awesome assortment of color choices.
Basically, anything that you can do with wood, you can do with Hardie siding. The only difference is that the Hardie is going to last so much longer and be lower maintenance along the way.
Fiber cement siding is made of cement, sand, cellulose and water. Nothing on the menu for woodpeckers or other pests.
The material is also non-combustible and will better protect a home in case of fire.
James Hardie fiber cement siding also holds paint exceptionally well and is aesthetically pleasing enough that it has the potential to revamp the look of your home.
You can definitely side your home for cheaper than with fiber cement, but is this really the project you want to get tight on? Or do you want the best-looking home on your block and to not have to worry about it for decades to come?
Craftsman’s Choice Offers the Best in Design and Installation
Craftsman’s Choice stands apart from the competition in service and in quality of product. Buy James Hardie from Craftsman’s Choice and you’re getting the very best siding material, the state’s most experienced installation crew and the area’s leading design team.
If you’re interested in having the job done right, Craftsman’s Choice can help. Give us a call at 763-276-7465 or fill out our contact form.
