Ferndale Exterior Two Different Materials, One Big Decision
If you're comparing siding options for a home in Ferndale or elsewhere in Whatcom County, you've probably run into both James Hardie fiber cement and LP SmartSide engineered wood. Both are respected products with a long track record in the Pacific Northwest. We install only James Hardie, and we think homeowners deserve a straight explanation of why — not a sales pitch, but an honest look at what each product is made of and how that plays out over years of driving rain, salt-laden air off Bellingham Bay, and the long moss season that Whatcom County winters bring.
What LP SmartSide Actually Is
LP SmartSide is an engineered wood product: strands of wood fiber bonded with resin, treated with zinc borate for insect and fungal resistance, and finished with a factory primer or coating. It's genuinely a step up from old-style hardboard siding that gave engineered wood a bad name decades ago. It's lighter than fiber cement, easier to cut and nail without special blades, and it holds up well to impact — a dropped ladder or a wind-blown branch is less likely to crack it.
Where the Trade-Offs Show Up
The core material is still wood fiber, and wood fiber's relationship with moisture is the whole story here. LP has improved its resin treatments over the years, but the product still depends heavily on intact factory coating and correctly caulked and painted field cuts, joints, and fastener heads to keep water out. In a climate like ours — where rain isn't occasional, it's a season that lasts most of the year, and where morning dampness and shade encourage moss and algae to take hold on north-facing walls — any gap in that protective layer is an invitation for the wood fibers underneath to swell, soften, or begin to decay from the inside out. Once that starts, it's often not visible until the damage is well established.
That puts real weight on two things: installation precision and ongoing maintenance. Every cut edge has to be sealed. Caulk joints need to be inspected and refreshed on a schedule, not just when they look obviously bad. Paint film needs to be maintained rather than left to wear thin. For a homeowner who wants to stay ahead of that maintenance calendar, LP SmartSide can perform reasonably well. For a home that gets the normal amount of deferred maintenance most houses get, the moisture risk compounds quietly over time — and by the time swelling or soft spots show up, the fix is often a section of siding replacement, not a touch-up.
Why We Standardized on James Hardie
James Hardie siding is fiber cement — sand, cement, and cellulose fiber, with no wood pulp to feed rot or absorb water the way engineered wood can. It doesn't support combustion, and it isn't a food source for the fungal decay that damp, shaded siding is prone to. For Whatcom County specifically, we install Hardie's HZ5 product line, which is engineered for climates that see sustained moisture and freeze-thaw cycling — exactly the conditions Ferndale gets between fall and spring.
The ColorPlus factory finish is baked on under controlled conditions and backed by its own finish warranty, so the color layer isn't dependent on field painting technique or weather conditions on installation day. That matters here, where a narrow dry-weather install window is common. Hardie also carries a strong, transferable material warranty — a real consideration if you plan to sell the home down the road.
A Side-by-Side Summary
| Factor | LP SmartSide | James Hardie |
|---|---|---|
| Base material | Engineered wood strand, resin-bonded | Fiber cement (sand, cement, cellulose) |
| Moisture behavior | Resists moisture when coating/caulk stay intact; wood fiber can swell/decay if breached | Does not rot or feed fungal decay; engineered for wet climates (HZ5) |
| Combustibility | Wood-based, combustible | Non-combustible |
| Finish | Factory primer or coating; often field-painted | Factory-baked ColorPlus finish with its own warranty |
| Maintenance | Regular caulk and paint inspection is important | Lower maintenance; periodic washing to manage moss/algae |
What This Means for Your Home
Neither product is a bad product. LP SmartSide has a legitimate place in the market and works acceptably for owners committed to staying on top of caulk and paint maintenance. But given what Ferndale's climate does to siding over a 20- or 30-year window — the salt air, the driving rain off the Sound, the months of moss-friendly damp shade — we chose to build our business around a material that doesn't put that much weight on moisture management to avoid decay. That's why every job we install uses James Hardie fiber cement, sized and specified to the HZ5 standard for this region, installed to the manufacturer's spec rather than shortcuts that void the warranty.
If you're weighing siding options for a home in Ferndale or anywhere in Whatcom County, we're happy to walk your property, look at your exposure to weather and shade, and give you a straightforward, no-pressure estimate for what a correctly installed Hardie system would look like on your house.