Is it Hardi or Hardly Planked?

September 2, 2008 4:17 PM

HardiPlank Installation: The installation instructions (pdf) for the brand of siding the house I live in has installed says that it needs to be caulked at the edges and that trim should be installed first, and then the siding should butt up against it. This was done at the corners, but at the windows, the trim was installed over top of the hardiplank. The instructions don't say anything about windows. Is it installed correctly?
posted by SpecialK to home & garden (11 comments total)

Did the windows have a flange that you could run the siding up to, or did it have a nailing flange that went behind the siding?

I don't know your exact situation, but it sounds like in your case the trim is more of a cosmetic thing (to protect the gap between siding and window from view) and the actual weather seal is behind the trim where the siding meets the window frame, if it's there at all.
posted by LionIndex at 5:08 PM on September 2, 2008

Lion, let me go take and post a picture in a few minutes.

My concern is that the back of the Hardiplank trim will have water build up in it, causing the weather seal (wherever it is) to fail.
posted by SpecialK at 5:44 PM on September 2, 2008

Pictures:

Properly Edged

Mind the gap now, sire!
posted by SpecialK at 6:02 PM on September 2, 2008

And I should point out that this homebuilder is less "Street of Dreams" and more along the lines of "The American Dream Presented by Wal-Mart! We sell for less!"
posted by SpecialK at 6:05 PM on September 2, 2008

that doesn't look right

the trim goes on first, then the plankies, then it gets caulked.

who did this job? don't hire them again!
posted by KenManiac at 8:43 PM on September 2, 2008

who did this job? don't hire them again!

Stylecraft Builders in Texas. Apparently there's another builder in the Woodlands that installs it like that too.
posted by SpecialK at 8:45 PM on September 2, 2008

That's actually kind of hard to tell -- they might have installed adequate waterproofing behind the window trim, but you'd just never know it. At the very least, the water will have a very complicated (although not impregnable) path to follow to intrude, and even if it's not caulked, there's flashing between the window and the wall (or at least, there should be). In any case, I can at least see where there would be an aesthetic desire for the look of the windows that you've got, and it seems like the installation could be totally kosher. Windows require their own kind of flashing deal to keep things waterproof, and that's probably interacting with the building paper (or tyvek or whatever - it's labelled as "water resistive barrier" on the drawings) to actually keep water out. I don't think the planks are supposed to be doing the real work.

Unless the Hardiplanks themselves can be damaged by water intrusion at their rear, there really shouldn't be a problem with water getting behind them, because the building paper forms the actual weather barrier. Many building finish options are not waterproof in the least, and it seems to me that your situation is no different. Stucco and masonry are porous and will allow water to seep through. In stucco's case, the building paper is also what actually keeps water out of the building. The stucco just keeps *most* of the water out, which your siding will do as well. Unless the bottoms of the planks are also sealed against each other, you'll get wind-driven rain blowing up in the horizontal gaps between them, which is a problem, but not a big one. Any water getting behind the planks should be able to escape at the bottom of the wall.
posted by LionIndex at 10:07 PM on September 2, 2008

It would actually be more waterproof to do the trim at the corners similar to what's at the windows, as long as you have the planks caulked up to a board. If an additional trim piece were installed that overlapped the caulk joint, that would prevent most water from hitting it. Do you really want to bet that every bead of caulk on your house is perfect?
posted by LionIndex at 10:10 PM on September 2, 2008

The instructions don't say anything about windows.

The instructions don't say anything about corners, either. They say something about trim, and don't distinguish between corner trim, window trim, door trim or any other sort of trim. Your installation doesn't follow the directions. It''s debatable whether this will cause a problem, but I would call that installation incorrect.
posted by jon1270 at 5:45 AM on September 3, 2008

Well, it can look like that in cases where you have a small strip of siding and very wide trim. Here's an example on my house.
posted by mattbucher at 8:57 AM on September 3, 2008

They say something about trim, and don't distinguish between corner trim, window trim, door trim or any other sort of trim.

The text might not, but the illustration clearly shows a corner, so it's reasonable (although likely an error) to assume it's talking about corner trim. It'd be hard to get that to hold up in court if you wanted to sue HardiPlank, though.

Your installation doesn't follow the directions.

My point was that it might, but you can't tell because they put another board over the caulk joint. It may have been necessary to install the window project from the wall a bit for the nailing flanges to be on the exterior side of the wall, which projected the frame beyond the siding, so they made it look nice by adding that trim.
posted by LionIndex at 9:29 AM on September 3, 2008