Will it Burn? Fiber Cement vs. the Rest | Siding Comparison

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[MattLawrence]

Fiber cement board (Hardie) siding on my old townhouse saved me and my dog from a fire. And probably saved the entire building from burning down. The back deck (all wood) and the patio under it were on fire raging out of control for about 20 minutes from start to fire hoses on it. This raging fire was right up against the Hardie Panel fiber cement board siding and it never burned through. The foam insulation and plywood sheathing behind it were untouched. It blew out the windows eventually of course, just as the fire trucks were coming down the road. That fiber cement was literally life saving.

[hollysmith]

You should do a part 2, with brick, stucco, metal, etc.

[gnomechump-stiny]

Forget about buying a lamborginni to flex.
Matt 😌 is burning OSB just to flex

[adubbelde]

in 2002 I resided my house with James Hardie siding. it wasn't prepainted but I gave it 2 coats of Sherwinn Williams A1 paint. I sold the house 6 years ago but I drove past it this week. It's still got the original paint and looks great. I built my current home 6 years ago in the Black HIlls National Forest. This is a semi arid area and fire is a concern. My house is a Deltec and it came sided with ALLURA. My personal experience is that it doesn't compare to Hardie. I sided the 1000 SF garage as well as other portions of the house. The Allura was extremely fragile. I could only carry it on edge and just getting it to that position was delicate. I broke several pieces. I also found that it was not uniform in thickness. At times I measured with a caliper and found that it was inconsistent by about an 1/8 of an inch. It also was inconsistent in width of the planks. they varied by about an 1/8" as well. By my experience, I wouldn't recommend it. With Hardie I could snap lines for the top of the planks. That was not possible with ALLURA.

[seanpalmer]

I just watched the most recent _This Old House_ episode on their YouTube channel and was very disappointed that they were showing people installing an engineered-wood siding in Paradise, CA (where a wildfire had destroyed almost the entire town). The siding had a 1-hr fire rating, but in my mind, it should have been some other material (e.g. fiber cement, metal, stucco). I was also expecting to see some people rebuild with block walls, brick facades, etc. (materials that are inherently more resilient to fire) since wildfire is not a problem that only happens once. If you live on an urban/wilderness boundary, it's potentially a problem all the time.

They rebuilt the town, which is "noble" or "brave" or whatever, but it seemed like they didn't learn from their mistakes, which makes them seem kind of dumb IMO.

[christinasgarage]

Thank you for this. My husband are looking to have our siding redone and this is super helpful. Last week it got to 116+ so… this give a lot of food for thought

[MichaelM-tosg]

Fiber cement has become the defacto siding option for us, we build in Boulder and high Rockies of CO as well as BigSky-Gallatin Gateway, MT, all due to fire risk and insurance. We are seeing more and more steel siding the last 5 years. It’s class A fire rated, none of the silica issues and many more aesthetic options than fiber cement. We’re building home now in Nederland, CO that will be our first steel siding, along w/stone. It was a choice of architect and client but I am looking forward to seeing how well it installs. It’s about 20% higher price than JH siding in material costs

[soving]

Matt's vinyl laugh..inhaling the plastic fumes

[Richard_Storm]

I have seen vinyl siding melt from sun reflecting off a window onto the siding.

[balzacq]

The vinyl siding by my patio has a visible droop in a section where I unwittingly fired up my propane grill too close to it. Won't do that again, and as soon as I can afford it I'm going to get the house re-sided in fiber cement or Boral or something like that.

[jwristen]

I live in Northern California. Icf, Metal roof, and cement siding is the way to go. With fire insurance being what it is that's a no brainer.

[kermitefrog]

It would be interesting to see metal siding also in this test.

[magictrading]

so the sponsor for the video is the winner - never saw that coming

[chatonlaveur]

What do you think of Everlast Siding? I completely agree with your assessment of standard vinyl siding, but I have seen some very nice Everlast siding installs.

[benschebella]

Australian here, never heard of vinyl cladding before, sounds like a straight up recipe for disaster. Though we've got other alternatives that are equally as cheap & nasty

[eagleknight]

As a DIY I really like the LP smart siding. I was able to reside my whole house myself and didn’t have to worry about the dust. Much less weight moving around 16ft pieces. Very durable and looks great. Matt I followed your advice installing a rain screen. In Ohio fire isn’t a concern.

[Illisil]

I always enjoy and respect your work, Matt

[tmiklos]

Also love Hardie siding, . Never have used Alura.

[howardbain]

I live in the Midwest. Temps vary from-20 to +95. I worked for a chain of gas stations in doing maintenance. Many of the locations had builder installed fiber cement siding. The problem we had was that the product would shrink during cold weather and crack the siding at each nail location.
I put LP Smart siding on my house 5 years ago and it looks like new( my house is 50 years old)
I don't know what brand of cement siding was used of if it makes a difference but in my area, I would recommend engineered siding

[MyLilMule]

Great demonstration! When I added a work shop on to the back of my garage, I settled on Allura for the siding. I could get it in widths that matched the clapboards on the rest of my house. It wasn't cheap, but worth every penny. Found some aluminum corners that also matched the house (I wish Allura would carry these in all sizes. They were hard to find.). It's only downsides are it's heavy and it needs to be carried vertically or it will likely crack or break. But the look is amazing, and I do like the fire safety issue as we do barbecue right next to the shop..