Fiber Cement Siding?

[Mark Kelly]

Anyone ever use Fiber-Cement Siding? Is it easy to install (hand nail?) Anything I should look out for when installing it?

[Tyler Howell]

Helped a friend. Had a tough time with the scribe and break method. Very dusty to power cut.
They have special saws to DC the mess. Kinda like the Festool. No history on wear and tear.

[Mark Kelly]

Yeah, I plan on cutting this stuff outside. Also, planning on calling the FAA when they get reports of a dust cloud shutting down the local airport!

[Dennis Peacock]

Yeah, I plan on cutting this stuff outside. Also, planning on calling the FAA when they get reports of a dust cloud shutting down the local airport!

Don't breathe the dust....not even if you are outside cutting it can you avoid being in the dust at time. The fine fibers in the saw dust can lodge in the lung(s) and could cause an infection or worse......Please take care when cutting this stuff. Your lungs and health will appreciate it.

[Dan Mages]

Fiber cement is good stuff. I plan on using it on my shed. The advantages of it is that it won't warp, it will not rot, it takes paint wonderfully, and the price is comparable to cedar. It is tough on your carbide blades, so you might want to get a few cheap ones.

Dan

[Perry Schmidt]

I installed it on my house and it's wonderful stuff! Durable, resists just about everything Paints easily and looks nice.

Installing it:
1) Use a dull blade w/ as few teeth as possible. If it's not dull, it will be after you make one cut. You can buy a special blade for it - they are like 6 tooth blades. I've not used them so can't say how they work relative to normal blades. But the fewer teeth the better it cuts. VERY VERY dusty...wear a mask! But besides these problems, it cuts like plywood. A recip. saw works well for holes for outlets, etc.

2) Nailing: We were told by a contractor that it's hard to nail along the edge - you'd blow out the edge a lot. We never had that problem. Didn't blow out a single edge. But we also hammered it up, didn't use a nail gun. I can't say for sure that it was the nail gun, but can't think of anything else it could be. We really had no problems w/ edges blowing out. Nailing in the field were no problems at all.

3) It's HEAVY! Get a strong back to help you put it in place. Granted I was installing 4x8 sheets of vertical siding. The Horizontal strips may be easier to handle.

I really like it - I took off a lot of rotted wooden siding and this stuff just doesn't rot. It's been 5 years and it looks just like the day it was installed. At the time I had a hard time finding things like the H channel to put between the sheets. I think they are a lot more available now. But I recommend using these (or whatever the equivalent for the horizontal siding).

I give it a thumbs up.

Perry

[Mark Kelly]

would it be best to wear a respirator or is a simple $1 white dust mask ok?

[Jamie Buxton]

A different tool for cutting that stuff is a power shear. It is made for this purpose. It has cutting blades on the front of a drill motor. It cuts a kerf by scissor action, not by saw blade, so it doesn't generate saw dust. Its advantage over the saw-plus-vacuum combo is that you don't have to drag the vacuum and hose around.

[Mark Kelly]

The installation instructions say that it needs to be installed over weather-resistive barrier. What exactly are they talking about?

And, what is a lath strip?

[Mark Kelly]

What is "H Channel?" Thanks for the other info, it really helped.

[Steve Knowlton]

I Installed It On My House. To Cut I Used A Shear Or Skilsaw With The Blade In Backwards. We Put 30lb Felt On For Our Vapor Barrier. Simple Dust Mask Works Ok.

[Robert Ducharme]

I put it on my shop.

Used a 4" grinder with a masonary blade - worked fine Painted nicely. The brand name I used was hardiboard - already primed.

I would screw this in instead of nailing it in. Use large head screws and they have two spirals (on higher than the other) on the shank. Forget what they are called now. If really interested, can find out. However, call a drywall place and ask what to use to place in concrete board (durrock?) in bathrooms. This would be the same type of screw.

[Perry Schmidt]

Mark -

Dust mask: Depends on how much you are cutting. I just used a cheap-o $1 mask, but I didn't have to cut a lot either. Plus I'm not overly sensative to this stuff. If you are cutting a lot and/or sensative to this, then something more heavy duty would be recommended.

The weather resistive barrier is something like tar paper. You pretty much install it like normal siding - a layer of felt then the siding.

An "H" channel is a plastic strip which looks like an H - two channels back to back. For the vertical siding you put it in between the two sheets. This prevents water, etc. from getting between the gap. Unlike real wood sheets it doesn't have an overlapping joint. We were told you could use this or caulk each seam. The caulking option sounded like a lot of work. This worked well. If you're using horizontal siding then I don't think there's anything like that you need, but not 100% sure.

And finally not sure what the lath strip is - don't know if it's the same thing as the H channel, the first row/strip that you'd put on for horizontal siding or that little plastic strip that's on the bottom/back of 'normal' wood siding which sort of locks it into place w/ the lower piece. I'd bet it's one of these though (Sorry - someone else will have to field this one...)

Hope that helps -

Perry

[Bill Patterson]

Mark,

I installed it on my shed a couple of months ago. Not bad stuff. Adhere to the warnings about the dust and the fibers. I would definitely cut it outside. I went to Home Depot and they sold a special blade for my circular saw which cut the fiber board pretty well. I did use a straight edge but if you are good with a CS, you probably can free hand it. The stuff is brittle but you should be ok as long as you support the piece you are cutting. I would just use 2 x 4s to create a cutting and support surface.

Once the board is cut, grab a bit designed for fiber board or masonry to create a pilot hole and match it up with the size screw you plan to use. I used high quality decking screws from HD to fasten the sheet to the framing.

One last piece of advice. I used the fiber board on the door of the shed and I did not allow for much clearance. A rock got wedged and broke off a small chunk of the fiber board. No biggie. I have not installed the wood that I was going to use to trim out the door.

Bill

[Mark Kelly]

how thin is the H-channel? I would imagine it spaces the panels between 1/8" to 1/4". Hopefully it isn't much bigger than that.

My only concern is how to cut out a window in a 4x8 sheet. I have decided to go with the vertical siding. I guess I could lower the circular saw into the sheet slowly.