The exterior of your house is looking pretty shabby, but you’re not sure exactly what or how you want to refurbish it to make it look new again.  No doubt there are several ways to go about this.  So you decide that you will just go for the cheapest route and get out the old pressure washer or paint scrapper and remove all the old loose paint and give it a new coat of paint.   Well, what you thought was going to be an easy job turns out to be something you were not expecting.  You discover that underneath all that old paint the original wood  is in really bad shape  due to the atmosphere, termites and other bugs that were living in your wood.

Now you have to decide whether you want to replace the original wood siding with more wood or perhaps even go with maintenance free vinyl siding.  After thinking about it a while you decided that by putting on vinyl siding you would be losing most of the original detail and character of your old home, so vinyl was out of the question.  Then you had the realization that if you went back with wood siding you would eventually have the same problem as you do now with your paint chipping off  and your wood eventually rotting again.

So after some research you find that there is a  material available that can reproduce all the details found on your old house and even drastically reduce the amount of maintenance.  It’s been on the market for about 25 years.  Needless to say this  material is more expensive than either the paint job or the vinyl siding,  but in the long run you feel the cost is lower than having to frequently repaint your house whether it be vinyl or wood.  This  siding that you discovered is called fiber cement board siding.

Fiber cement board siding is made from a fiber material, cement, sand and other additional mixtures of products.  Moisture can’t penetrate through it,  nor do you have to worry about termites  or other bugs.  Cement siding is  a wonderful choice if you live in an area where there are high winds and fire prone areas because of its high resistance to these conditions.  It is almost fire resistant!   Another plus for deciding on cement siding  is that it weighs half as much as composite siding that is the same size,  therefore making it much easier to install, especially if you are doing this on your own.

Although fiber cement siding can be installed in several different ways similar to how normal wood siding is installed, a popular method is that of fastening it onto a wood frame with either wood screws or nails.  A big difference in installing your fiber cement is when it comes down to the actual cutting because the cement siding is harder to cut and so therefore takes a little longer to work with,  yet it can be made into complex shapes often found on older homes and can be installed using a roofing nail gun.

You will find that fiber cement siding holds paint very well so the paint will last up to 4 times longer than when painting wood or vinyl siding.   Also,  unlike vinyl siding which is usually only available in lighter shades of color,  fiber cement siding can be painted in darker colors if you like.