I suppose you don't, but I would want to do so for the warranty.

Many housewraps have markings 16 & 24" oc.
You just have to start with it positioned correctly.

Obviously there are studs either side of openings.

 

Ah.


?? Openings in wrap?

 

An opening in the house's envelope.

Either side of a window or door..

 

I pulled my old siding off to replace some rot and to give a smooth level surface to work with. I wrapped with Tyvek, it seems to be water resistant, not waterproof. I used an air nailer with shorter, galvanized ring-shank nails. A roofing nailer would have worked too. I marked my studs, but I ended up putting nails wherever I felt like. My sheathing was 3/4" boards on a 45 angle with some OSB that was used for patches. Everything seems to be holding fine. I did employ one little trick. Wherever I had two boards meeting, butting up to each other, I cut a small piece of tar paper, maybe 4-5"x12", to go behind the butt joint and lap over the lower piece of siding. I figured every little bit helps when it comes to keeping water from behind the siding.

 

If your association does not mind, i would stucco the house , if not i would use color vinyl siding so i would never have to paint it again call me LAZY

 

Got it. I'm doing it alone (for now) and want the nailing to go smoothly.

Reg

 

By many standards I'm the neighborhood redneck (need only to look at my truck). I get away with a lot but I don't think I can get by with that one - stucco.

Vinyl has called to me. I did my shed in it. I just like the look of the other sidings. Besides every house seems to have vinyl. I'm (we're) living in a vinyl sea. There's no denying the beauty of never having to painting again.

Thanks Chellie.


Reg

 

I'm guessing you haven't done the siding yet?

You're getting good info. from the brain trust here........I'd tend towards hardi-plank myself......Vinyl a good alternative......

Masonite sux. Is it even an option anymore? My house has it (I'm replacing it soon)..... Built in 1986, but I think they stopped installing that crap oh....10 years ago anyway......

Anyone know any different?

Anyway....I know they use a lot of hardi-plank on the coast (hurricane alley) because of it's strength and weather resistance (and there's a LOT of salt floating around in the air in Carteret County....). If THEY like it......

 

No not yet. Still back and forth. The hardie plank will require tooling up. Clamps, shears, gun. $$+$$$+$$$. Plus it is the most difficult of the three to hang. But it does look good.

My house also has masonite and yes it is still stocked in the home improvement stores.

The main (and really only) attraction of the masonite is I can continue where I have left off in replacing boards. Remove a few rows and replace them. Remove and replace. Minimal exposure to the elements and fairly cheap to boot.

I have all to tools I require for vinyl and know how to hang it. Well I probably would buy a gun to speed up the process. Any reason's a good one for getting a new tool.

I've got to get moving however. For now the heat wave and siding research are my excuses.

Reg

 

I plan to use a gun for hanging the hardiplank boards if I go that route. Anyone know of a gun that has an attachment for vinyl siding?

Right now the weapons of choice are the Hitachi NV45AB2 nailer, PacTool Hardi Board Siding Gauges and PacTool Fiber Cement Cutting Shear.

Planning to call Hitachi Monday for advice on using the nailer for hardiplank. I have heard it won't set the nail requiring a final hammer blow. This may be true for all pneumatic guns.

Reg

 

I was on a tight budget for my Hardiplank job. I borrowed a Duofast framing nailer and used the smallest galvanized ring shank nails I could find. I think they were 2 1/2". I later bought an $80 framing gun from Harbor Freight. It was heavier, jammed up much more, required a final hammer blow often to set the nail, but it works. I think that the Hitachi nailer would be great for your purposes. Much better than what I use. For the guide blocks, I used a couple of pieces of 1x4 that I notched. I held them on the last board installed and the board I was working with sat on top of the block. I painted them red so that I could find them easily. They slipped into a back pocket very well. For cutting, I used the score an snap method. I would mark my board for length and hold a framing square to my mark and score about 3 times with a regular utility knife. I then would flip the board and do the same. Then I slid the board to overhang the stack and give a quick snap. It worked really well. I would then run a little hand held cheese grater plane thingy over the edge to clean it up. that took about 5 seconds. For the angled cuts, I bought a $30 dollar off-brand circular saw. A name brand pawn shop saw would have been better. I used a few cheap carbide blades in my project, maybe three. It made tons of dust doing it that way, but it was all outside with a breeze. I also priced the boards and found that our local Lowes stocked only one size. It was a bit less than $6 per board. Everywhere else averaged about $12 for the same board or other sizes as well. I decided to work with the $6 board and went to the Lowes project desk and was able to work out an even better price than listed. I got off pretty cheap!
If I were to do it again...I love my framing nailer and I often use it now, but I would have bought a name brand because there IS a difference. I would even consider using a roofing nailer even though I may never use it again. Pawn shop guns are too expensive in my are, but I found that if you talk to the guys in the parking lot they can usually find you a good nailer for about $100. They all seem to know someone with extras. I would have LOVED to had that shear, but the price is just too much for me to stomach. I think that you could sell it at the end of the project and get a good return, but I know that I would have never sold it in anticipation of using it again someday.
I extensively debated going vinyl or Hardiplank. I ran the costs and found that there would be about $300 added to my cost by using vinyl. In the end I'm very happy with the Hardiplank. I think it looks much better. I feel it will last much longer. Installation took a bit longer, but not too much. It took two to install it, but doing vinyl by yourself has its own problems.
Good luck with it!

 

I also had the Masonite siding involved in the lawsuit. We replaced it wit vinyl on our house at the time (less money). We just cut out the bad spots and replaced them with plywood before installing the vinyl siding. If we ever do this again we will go with the Hardi-Plank or some type of pre-colored cement board instead of the vinyl. We have had several issues with the vinyl; the grill was too close and warped the vinyl in one spot; we had a hail storm and had some holes, splits and other damage and we could not find an exact replacement (close but not exact); and maybe a few other problems that I can't recall at this time. If I were doing it again, I would put up some plywood then some house-wrap before doing the siding.

 

Hitachi recommends the NV45AB2H which is the NV45AB2 with what they call a "Power pack". The tech explained that the rear is replaced with a different piston arrangement that allows the piston to stroke farther driving harder. How a longer stroke results in more power is beyond me but that's what they say. Oh, and that gun cost about $200 more than the base nailer.

I think I'll try the base gun and set by hand as required.

Reg

 

I have been building high end homes for 27 years and can attest to to the quality of fiber cement siding (I use Certainteed brand because it is more environmentally friendly but is very similar to Hardi Plank)

Regardless of what type of siding you use you need to use a vapor barrier like TYVEK on the outside of the sheathing (OSB probably).
We were some of the first contractors to use it and I went back to the first home we installed it on several years later and added an addition for the owners and the paint held up so well that we didn't have to repaint the whole side to get it to match.

It would certainly be better to use 2 people to install it and have one on the ground doing the cutting. It will go much faster.

Good luck.

 

I had decided to install vinyl siding a few years back. It's supposed to not fade and be resistant to weather. So far it has held up to the harsh weather, but I question whether I should have gone with James Hardie siding because i feel like it would last over the life of the house. At the time of installation I wanted to do the work myself to save money vinyl was an easier option according to many forums i read and after contacting conservation construction of texas that is what I went with. But if I could have installed the cement siding myself I might have switched to that.