Exterior Progress...

Shingle Covered Posts

 The exterior of the house has turned out to be a bigger job than I think anyone could have predicted.  Even though the house is a modest 2000sqft. the exterior gives the impression of a larger house and has required alot of siding and trim work.   The original house that our exterior was based on was sided with shingles on the upper half of the house and planks on the lower half.  Although it had a nice look to it, in the end we decided to use shingles on the whole house. 

James Hardie concrete fiber shingles had originally been specified for the upper half of the house and vinyl plank siding for the lower half.  We didn't have a problem with vinyl as a material but we had decided early on that we wanted to use a brown and yellow color scheme that was reminiscent of an

Oval Window Installed

 early craftsman house, finding such a color in vinyl was impossible so we decided to check into using Hardie shingles on the whole house as they would need to be painted, allowing us to choose the color we wanted.  While at the building supply center in Lynden, Washington the fellow working there asked if we were sold on Hardie shingles or if we would consider another product.  I listened skeptically as he told me about another manufacturer called Nichiha and of the benefits of their product.  In the end he said he'd quote on both Hardie and Nichiha and I could decide later.  After returning home I immediately started researching Nichiha on the internet and couldn't believe the company wasn't better known.  It seemed the only area the James Hardie products had the edge was in marketing.  Nichiha is a Japanese company with an excellent history and reputation in Japan.  They've been manufacturing and marketing their products in the U.S. for over a decade and have earned a solid reputation for their products in that time (sounds like I should be doing their marketing).  Matt, the fellow at the building center had told me that Nichiha products were quite a bit less expensive than Hardie products, had a

Finished Siding

 better warranty, a better finished appearance, and were easier to install.  What really impressed me was the thickness and texture of their shingles... much closer to a wood shingle than the Hardie shingles.   I was also excited to learn that they would cost approximately 40% less than the Hardie shingles.  

Where my happiness ended, the installers misery began.  They had never seen Nichiha products before and were a bit skeptical at first...  Their skepticism grew into frustration when they started the installation.   The shingles come in a 9' length  board which is grooved to give the appearance of multiple width shingles.  The long length of the boards should have made the installation quicker than installing a bunch of three foot panels

 

Rear Corner Of The House

but the guys were having problems staggering the grooves that gave the impression of seperate shingles.  They'd install one panel but when they'd try and stagger the lines on the next row, they'd end up with a bunch of over-lapping lines.  A few times I'd go out to watch as two guys would hold up a board with two other guys telling them to move left or right until they were satisfied with it's placement.  My first thought was this house wouldn't be finished until next winter but after finishing a couple of rounds they figured out a pattern to allow them to speed up the whole process. 

Backside of House

 The next problem they ran into were the corners of the house.  We had noticed on old, shingled houses they used to miter or stagger the corners intstead of the typical vertical, corner trim boards you often see on newly constructed houses.  Mitering or Staggering takes considerable skill vs. using trim boards and because of the textured surface of the Nichiha panels the guys were having problems getting smooth cuts.  After discussing the problem with them, I ran into town to a company that specializes in saw blades and came back with a blade specially designed for cutting concrete fiber siding.  The guys had been using a similar blade but it wasn't sharp enough to get the smooth cuts they needed... the new blade quickly solved the problem and progress started to pickup. 

Rear Porch

 We ran into another glitch when the window trim was being installed.  The plans indicated that 1x4 trim be used around the windows and doors... half the window trim had been installed before I got outside and saw that it looked too narrow.  1x6 was more suited to the house and that meant tearing off half a days work and starting over with the wider boards.  In the end, it was worth the extra cost and effort.

The next area that needed attention were the elbow braces in the gables.  I have a nasty habit of getting a picture in my head of how something should appear and once I have that picture, nothing else will do.  The first brace that was installed on the house looked much to short and squat for the height of the house.  It took looking at a good number of pictures and laying out the braces on the ground before the braces matched the picture in my head.  In the end the guys did an amazing job with them and we got the look we wanted.

Overall, the guys doing the exterior did an excellent job and I believe they left with a different impression of the material than when they started.