Common Problems with Fiberboard Siding
Fiberboard Siding (often referred to as Hardboard Planking) was manufactured by several companies including Louisiana-Pacific®, Masonite®, Weyerhaeuser® and Georgia Pacific®.
While this type of siding was made by numerous manufacturers, each company’s fiberboard siding is made in roughly the same manner and tends to have the same issues.
After this siding has been installed for some length of time, it tends to expand slightly. This causes the area around the nail heads to become damaged. This in turn allows moisture to penetrate into the siding and deteriorate it.
As the moisture level increases, the siding’s edges tend to expand. This expansion breaks the paint, which, in turn, allows rainwater to be absorbed by the siding causing a breakdown of the glue holding the wood fibers together. Deterioration of the siding increases as the moisture content of the siding rises.
Fiberboard siding also tends to expand and contract along its length, thus breaking the seal where the boards are joined together. This contraction breaks down the caulk that was applied during installation (hopefully), again leaving the siding vulnerable to water penetration.
It is critical that the caulking on this type siding be maintained in good condition. Also, regular repainting of the siding is an absolute must. Hand painting of the bottom of each course of the siding with a brush is the only way to ensure that the exposed fibers of the siding get sealed.
It may be possible to slow down the deterioration of fiberboard siding by regular painting and caulking; however, home owners should be aware that there will be problems with their siding in the future.
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February 23rd, 2009 at 7:55 am
Can you tell me where you can still get Fiberboard siding. We leave in DE and bought
an older home, can’t afford to do vinyl this year and have one side of the house that
has several places that siding needs to be redone. We want to patch it for now and
repaint the house until we can redo the entire outside. Any info would be appreciated.
Thanks.
February 23rd, 2009 at 6:16 pm
It has probably been around 4-5 years since I had to do some repair work on the soffit & fascia of my own home at the time & it had been done with masonite siding. One of the local lumber yards still had it in stock & I would recommend that you check with one of your local lumber yards as well, not one of the “big box” stores, but a local lumber yard.