Why Hire Us for Hardie

Why James Hardie Siding?

Check Out This Time-lapse of a Hardie Home

Why Is Hardie The Superior Siding Choice?

Before we give you answers, let’s start off with a question: When it comes to the siding, what is most important to you? Most homeowners would answer with some versions of the following:

“I want my siding to last a long time and perform well.”
“I don’t want to spend a lot of time, energy, and money maintaining my siding.”
“I want my home to look beautiful again.” Or “I want to be proud of how my home looks.”
“I want a warranty that protects my investment provided by a manufacturer who stands behind their product.”
“I want to make an investment that raises the value of my home.”

We agree. Generally speaking, there are five things that homeowners care about when it comes to siding.

1. Durability
2. Low maintenance
3. Design
4. Warranty
5. Return on investment

James Hardie offers the best siding in the industry because they continually improve their materials. This enables Hardie to deliver the best product possible to homeowners. They spend $22 million a year on research and development to optimize their existing materials, create new products, and to continue to test every siding on the market.

Check out the below product comparison of the most popular siding options in the Carolinas today:

Why Hardie – Durability

Siding durability refers to the lifetime of a product and how it will perform during that lifetime. The biggest challenge that your home’s exterior faces is harsh weather and environmental forces. If a siding is to be durable, then it needs to ward off the many perils of Mother Nature. James Hardie siding is scientifically formulated to do just that. This provides homeowners with a siding that is able to provide enduring beauty for decades.

Engineered for Climate

Hardiplank is the only siding in the world that is engineered for climate. What does that mean? It means that the manufacturer customizes their material for the environment in which it is being installed. In other words, the Hardie that you get in North Dakota is not the Hardie that you get in North Carolina. Why? Because the climatic conditions are completely different.

James Hardie segmented the country into 10 unique climatic zones. These regional zones face similar weather patterns and temperature swings. The Carolinas receive Hardie’s ‘HZ5’ product line.

HZ5 is scientifically engineered to withstand what Carolinians experience throughout the year. Humidity, blistering heat, and sometimes freezing temperatures are no match for the superior strength of James Hardie.

Resistant to the Elements

•  Sun/UV Exposure – Did you know that UV exposure can literally melt vinyl siding? Also, sunlight causes the paint finish of all other siding types to fade significantly faster than Hardie. Use the slider to see for yourself.
•  Water – Water is the arch-nemesis of siding. It’s a powerful element. After all, it created the Grand Canyon. Hardie does not expand, contract, or deteriorate as a result of prolonged exposure to moisture.
•  Pests – Hardie is resistant to pests of any kind. Bugs & termites won’t eat it and woodpeckers won’t peck it. They don’t call them Cement Peckers for a reason!
• Fire – Unlike wood or vinyl, Hardie is non-combustible. Whether it’s protecting your family from the spread of fire or protecting yourself from leaving the grill too close to the house, Hardie offers superior performance.
•  Time – No siding on the market maintains its dimensional stability or aesthetic character longer than Hardie. Choose a siding that offers maintains enduring beauty for years to come.
•  Freeze/Thaw – As they say, Winter is Coming. Freeze/Thaw cycles cause other fiber cements to crack, split, and disintegrate. Unlike the others, Hardie is 100% Portland Cement and uses proprietary ingredients that withstand the harsh winter weather.

Why Hardie – Low Maintanence

Get The Beauty of Cedar Without The Maintenance of Wood

The problem:

Let’s dream for a minute.

You hire a contractor to replace your current siding with a generic fiber cement. Because their material is not prefinished, the contractor pays a painter to paint the siding after it’s installed.

Fast forward five years.

You walk outside to get your mail and you realize that your siding does not look as good as it did the day it was installed. Who do you call? Most likely, the contractor. The contractor comes to your house and agrees with you. Who does the contractor tell you to call? Most likely, the siding manufacturer. The siding manufacturer comes to your home (good luck) and says “No, no, no. It’s not the siding. The siding is great. The paint is failing. Call the paint manufacturer.” The paint manufacturer stops by your house and tells you “No, no, no. It’s not the paint. The paint is great. It’s the way the paint was applied. Call the contractor.” You call the contractor again to get the phone number for the painter. Guess what you find out after you call the painter? They are no longer in business!

While this sounds eerily similar to the plot of your favorite horror film, we have seen this story play out with homeowners entirely too often during our years in the industry. You may be thinking to yourself, “There must be a better way.” There is!

The solution: Hardie’s Color Plus Technology

James Hardie offers factory finished materials that provides homeowners with two primary benefits.

Single source warranty – If anything were to happen to your siding, there is one neck to strangle. Hardie offers a streamline warranty process designed to protect the investment of homeowners.

Superior paint finish – You would not want to paint your car in the driveway. Why would you paint your siding once it’s already on the wall?

Here’s how it works:

1. Hardie’s factories set the perfect conditions for paint adhesion. No dust, no dirt, no wind and ideal humidity levels.

2. After the environment is perfect, they manufacture the fiber cement.

3. Time to paint! Two coats of primer are applied to the siding. The primer is specifically formulated for fiber cement adhesion. You can’t buy this primer on the market.

4. Next, three coats of paint are applied. The paint is specifically formulated for both adhesion to the primer and to fiber cement. You can’t buy this paint on the market.

5. Now we have painted siding. Time to supercharge the finish! They subject the material to a poly-annealing process, in which the siding is heated to 250°. The color is literally baked into the board!

The final product is the lowest maintenance siding in the world. Color plus comes with a 15 year warranty and it lasts around 20 years. For comparison, cedar siding needs to be repainted every 5 to 8 years, generic fiber cement needs to be repainted every 6 to 9 years, and primed Hardie needs to be repainted every 10 to 12 years.

Re-siding with Hardie allows you to spend less time maintaining your siding and more time enjoying its enduring beauty.

Why Hardie – Design

See What Design Experts Think About Hardie

Endless Design Capabilities

James Hardie produces more siding options than any other manufacturer in the world. They bolster a full complement of product lines that, when combined, provide the best complete exterior solution in the Carolinas. This means that homeowners do not need to mix and match products, leading to potential color differences and varying maintenance & product life cycles.

The picture to the right explains the potential dangers of mixing materials. This house has Hardieplank with wood trim. After years of rain and exposure to the elements, The Hardie remains unscathed. However, the wood trim shows severe signs of deterioration and mildew. It sticks out like a sore thumb! A 100% Hardie Exterior prevents what you see in the image to the right by providing complete coverage to your home’s exterior, not just the siding.

Complimentary Product Lines

 Traditional lap/clap board siding. This is the Carolina’s most popular product line.

Compliments your siding on the corners, windows and other areas of your home. Features blind-nail installation and a variety of color options.

 Mimics the look and feel of real cedar shingles without the performance drawbacks of a wood product.

Versatile 4 x 8 and 4 x 10 sheets of fiber cement. Most commonly used in Board & Batten and Panel & Channel designs.

No need to pair you beautiful siding with cheap aluminum or vinyl soffits. Hardie has a solution.

Hardie’s luxurious designer brand of siding. Enjoy striking aesthetics that will set your home apart from any other.

Why Hardie – Warranty

The #1 cause of HardiePlank failure and the voidance of Hardie’s warranty in the Carolina’s is improper installation. A home will not qualify for coverage if their contractor did not abide by EVERY install guideline set forth by the manufacturer. Hiring a skilled contractor is critical to Hardie’s success on your home.

Warranty coverage provides protection against product failure and assurance in a manufacturers belief that they provide consumers with quality products. A comprehensive warranty shields homeowners against product failure. It also ensures the homeowner that their investment is insured by the manufacturer.

We have good news! Hardie supplies our homeowners with the best siding warranty in the building products industry.

Longevity

30 Years for the material and 15 years for the Color-Plus paint finish. Hardie offers a REAL warranty, unlike the Lifetime Warranties that other manufacturers promote.

Non-Prorated

Unlike virtually every other manufacturer, Hardie’s warranty offers coverage that does not decrease over time. Read the fine print! Vinyl warranties depreciate by an average of 2% each year.

Transferable

Increase your homes resale value by transferring your Hardie warranty to the next homeowner.

No Registration Needed

It seems like a cheap trick to disqualify a homeowner from a warranty if they did not fill out a piece of paper within 30-90 days. Hardie will grant warranty coverage to any homeowner that hired a contractor who properly installed the material.

2x Coverage

Hardie’s coverage is worth up to twice the original value of the material. In other words, if your siding material cost was $10,000 then Hardie will pay up to $20,000. This will help sooth labor costs if your material prematurely fails.

Complete Coverage

Hardie warrants against Normal Weathering, hail damage, prolonged exposure to the elements and every other condition that your siding will face. Believe it or not, most siding manufacturers do not cover Normal Weathering. Normal Weathering? What else do they believe that they siding is going to be exposed to! Here are some examples:

Mastic (Vinyl Siding)

LP Smart Side (Engineered Wood Siding)

Why Hardie – Return on Investment

Elevate the Value of your Home with Hardie

Replacing your current siding with James Hardie delivers the best ‘bang for the buck’ of any remodeling project that you can invest in.

Dollar for dollar, nothing will raise your home’s value more than properly installed Hardie.

Remodeling magazine is the industry leader for assessing the Return on Investment that homeowners should anticipate upon completion of a variety of remodeling project types. Their goal is to provide consumers with data-driven estimates of how their home’s sale price or value will be effected by home improvement investments. In other words, which home improvement projects provide the best ‘bang for the buck’?

Every year the magazine releases updated figures as part of their annual ‘Cost vs. Value Report’. Calculations are provided on a national and regional scale.

For 12 consecutive years in a row, replacing your vinyl siding with Fiber Cement siding (James Hardie) was determined to be the #1 Return on Investment of ANY exterior remodeling project. From an ROI perspective, there is literally nothing that you can do to amplify your home’s value more than residing with James Hardie.

Fiber cement siding replacement is the highest percentage of cost recouped for projects in the ‘upscale’ category. 2015 Hanley Wood, LLC. Excerpted with permission. Complete data from the Remodeling 2014-2015 Cost vs. Value Report is available at www.costvsvalue.com

Here is another perspective. Who is better at accessing the risk (or failure rate) of a siding product than multi-billion dollar insurance companies? Hardie is the most durable product on the market. Insurance companies have to pay out considerably less in claims to repair siding damage when Hardie is one the home. Because of this virtually every insurance company will significantly reduce a homeowner’s monthly insurance payment as a result of replacing vinyl or wood siding with Hardie.

4P invented a (patent pending) test for determining siding quality. We call it the ‘Blind Architect’ test. If you are undecided on which siding product performs best, we encourage homeowners to grab a copy of the yellow pages, flip to the architects section, and select a random name. Call that architect and ask them what they think when it comes to siding options. There is a lot of misinformation in the market place for which siding provides the best durability, low maintenance, and design. Architects are the pros. Why not ask them?

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