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Engineered Wood vs Fibre Cement Siding: LP SmartSide Against James Hardie on Weight, Cuts, Finish, Fire, Moisture, Warranty and Installed Cost in Ontario
Exterior Finishes
LP or Hardie? A Dollar a Foot Apart, One Is Wood That Thinks It Is Cement and the Other Is Cement That Thinks It Is Wood
Engineered wood and fibre cement are the two sidings that look like painted wood from the road and cost in the same neighbourhood: $17 a square foot installed for LP SmartSide at mid grade, $18 for James Hardie. The difference is not the money. It is that one of them is wood strands and resin, light and easy to cut and install, and it will take on water if you let it; and the other is cement and sand, heavy, dusty and brittle on the edges, and it will not burn or rot no matter what the installer forgets. Pick the installer first and the product second, because each of these punishes a different kind of mistake.
Side by side
| Engineered wood (LP SmartSide or equal) | Fibre cement (James Hardie or equal) | |
|---|---|---|
| Installed, builder / mid / premium | $15 / $17 / $20 | $16 / $18 / $22 |
| Board and batten | $18 | $20 |
| What it is | Wood strands, wax and resin, pressed with a zinc borate treatment against rot and insects, a resin-saturated overlay on the face | Portland cement, sand, cellulose fibre, pressed and cured; primed or factory painted |
| Board length and weight | 16 ft boards, about 16 lb each; one person carries two | 12 ft boards, about 25 lb each; two people or a board hook |
| Cutting | Any wood blade, ordinary sawdust | Shears, or a diamond blade with dust collection; the dust is silica |
| Fastening | Nails through the face like wood siding, 16 in. on centre into framing | Blind nailed at the top edge or face nailed, into framing, nail flush not sunk |
| Fire | Burns; it is wood | Non-combustible |
| Water | Swells at the edges if cut ends are not sealed and clearances are ignored; the treatment slows rot, it does not stop it | Does not rot; can absorb water at an unprimed cut and spall in freeze-thaw |
| Impact, hail, hockey | Dents a little, does not crack | Chips and cracks at the edges |
| Movement in weather | A little; the joints want a gap and caulk or a joint mould | Almost none; the joints want flashing behind them and no caulk |
| Factory finish | Prefinished colours, 15-year finish warranty on most lines | Baked-on colour, 15-year finish warranty |
| Substrate warranty | Prorated over 50 years, full for the first 5 on most lines | 30 years, non-prorated, on the board |
| Ground and roof clearance | 6 in. from grade, 1 in. from a roof, plus the manufacturer’s sheet | 6 in. from grade, 1 in. from a roof, 2 in. over a deck or hard surface |
Both rates include the sheathing membrane and the normal flashing allowance. Tearoff, rot, wrap on an old wall and scaffolding are the same for both and live on the siding cost page. The warranty terms are what the two companies publish; read the one that comes in the box, not this table, before you rely on it.
Why the crews like engineered wood
It goes up like wood. A 16 ft board weighs about what a 2×6 does, one person carries a pair, the saw at the cut station is the same saw they used on the deck, and the dust is sawdust. Nails go through the face with a siding gun and the board does not crack at the edge if the gun is a little hot. A crew that is good with wood siding is good with LP the first day, and that shows up in the rate: a dollar a foot less than fibre cement at every grade, most of it labour. On a 2,400 sq ft house at mid grade that is $40,800 in engineered wood against $43,200 in fibre cement, $2,400 apart.
The thing it asks for is respect for the fact that it is wood. Every cut end sealed, with the manufacturer’s edge paint, not left raw because it was the last board before lunch. Six inches off grade, 1 in. off a roof, kept out of the splash zone at a deck. The joints gapped the 3/16 in. the sheet says and caulked, or covered with a joint mould. Where I have seen it fail, it was at the bottom course beside a walkway where the snow sat against it all winter and the cut end wicked, or at a butt joint that was never sealed. The zinc borate in the board slows that down a long time; it does not make the board a brick.
Why I put fibre cement on a lot of houses anyway
Because it is not wood. It does not burn, which matters on a lot in the bush or 10 ft from a neighbour, and on the ICF houses I build it keeps a wall that already will not burn from having a skin that does. It does not swell. A cut end left unprimed is still a mistake, because water in the cut can freeze and spall the edge, but the board itself is cement and sand and it will be there in 50 years either way. The factory paint is baked on, so a prefinished Hardie wall at 15 years looks like a wall that was painted last spring.
What it asks for is an installer who has done it before and owns the tools: shears or a dust-collecting saw, because silica dust is a real lung problem and a crew cutting it dry with a chop saw in your driveway is telling you something about the rest of their habits. A flashing strip behind every butt joint and no caulk in the joint, because fibre cement joints are meant to drain, not seal. The nails flush, not sunk, because an overdriven nail in fibre cement has no holding power. Two people on every board, because a 12 ft board carried flat by one person snaps in the middle. The full set of rules is in the vinyl vs fibre cement comparison; the short version is that the cheap fibre cement quote is the one to be afraid of, and the cheap engineered wood quote is usually just a cheaper board.
A 2,400 sq ft house in each, with the trim
New build, 2,400 sq ft net wall, 20 openings, lap siding over the whole house with PVC trim at the corners and windows, which is how both products are meant to be finished. Trim is the same for both: corner posts on four corners of a two-storey, 72 lf at $12, is $864; window and door trim boards, 20 openings at about 14 lf each, 280 lf at $14, is $3,920. Trim $4,784.
Engineered wood, mid, prefinished: 2,400 at $17 is $40,800. With trim, $45,584 before HST, $51,510 with.
Fibre cement, mid, prefinished: 2,400 at $18 is $43,200. With trim, $47,984 before HST, $54,222 with.
$2,712 apart with the HST, on a $50,000 job. That is 5%, which is less than the spread between two quotes for either product from two different crews. The decision is not the money. It is fire, the weight of the board on a three-storey wall where every pound goes up a scaffold, the crew you can get, and whether you would rather have a wall that can rot slowly if neglected or one that can chip if mishandled.
If the house is a mix, say batten in the gables and lap below, the board and batten page prices the vertical version of each.
How I would decide
- Any fire exposure, or an ICF house: fibre cement. There is no point building a wall that will not burn and hanging wood on it. The whole list of ICF finishes and their costs is in the best exterior finishes for ICF walls.
- A storey-and-a-half or three-storey with a lot of wall above 20 ft: engineered wood. Sixteen-foot boards at 16 lb on a scaffold is a different week than 12 ft boards at 25 lb.
- Hail country, a hockey net, a lot of ladders: engineered wood dents and shrugs; fibre cement chips. Minor, but real.
- The crew has done 50 fibre cement houses: fibre cement. The crew has done 50 wood houses and never a fibre cement one: engineered wood, this time.
- Deep colours, south wall: check the light-reflectance limit on the engineered wood finish; dark boards in full sun are harder on wood than on cement.
- A wall that will be wet a lot: north side under trees, beside a walkway where the snow piles: fibre cement, and keep both of them 6 in. up and off the splash.
Questions people ask
Is LP SmartSide cheaper than Hardie?
By about $1 a square foot installed at every grade: $17 against $18 at mid. On a 2,400 sq ft house that is $2,400 before HST, most of it labour, because the wood board is lighter and cuts with an ordinary saw.
Which lasts longer, engineered wood or fibre cement?
Fibre cement, if both are installed to the sheet and left alone: it cannot rot or burn. Engineered wood installed well, with sealed cuts and the clearances kept, is a 30- to 50-year wall in Ontario and the warranty runs that long, prorated.
Does engineered wood siding rot?
It can, slowly, where it stays wet: an unsealed cut end, a bottom course in the snow, a joint with no gap. The zinc borate treatment and the resin overlay hold it off for a long time. It is not the old hardboard of the 1980s that swelled at every nail; that product is gone and this one is not it.
Is fibre cement harder to install than engineered wood?
Yes. It is heavier, brittle at the edges, needs shears or a diamond blade with dust control, and its warranty depends on clearances, primed cuts, a flashing strip behind every joint and no caulk in the joints. Engineered wood goes up like wood siding.
Which one holds paint better?
Both come prefinished with a 15-year finish warranty, and both repaint at about $3.50 a square foot when the time comes. Fibre cement does not move, so its paint lasts a little longer at the joints; engineered wood takes paint well because the face is a resin overlay, not raw wood.
Price both, with the trim
The exterior cladding cost calculator runs your walls in engineered wood and in fibre cement with the corner posts, trim boards and flashing kits that both need, so the comparison is the whole wall and not just the boards. If you have quotes for either, the $99 review checks that the clearances, the primed cuts and the joint flashing are in the scope and not just in the brochure.
Sources and further reading
- LP SmartSide: engineered wood siding and trim: the application instructions, clearances and the finish warranty.
- James Hardie installation instructions: the clearances, fastening, flashing and primed-cut rules a fibre-cement warranty depends on; the installer is held to this sheet.
- Ontario’s Building Code, Section 9.27 Cladding: the first and second planes of protection, sheathing membrane, flashing at openings and transitions, and the clearances from grade and roofs that every siding and stucco job has to meet.
