Need to find lowest maintenance siding

We’re adding a bulkhead to the roof of our brownstone, and one side will be right up against the party wall. That neighbor won’t grant us access to maintain our property without charging us fees — that’s why the bulkhead will be next to the party wall, not on top of it — so we need to do everything we can to limit the need for us to do anything to that side of the bulkhead.

What siding will require the least amount of maintenance and inspection?

Would welcome any general advice about how to deal with this kind of situation, too.

Thank you in advance!

Guest User | 6 years and 1 month ago

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Guest User | 6 years ago

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Huge thank you to everyone! This is all very helpful.

And a trip to the department of buildings might be worth a try.

brucef | 6 years ago

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Hardie Board absolutely. We use it in the Florida Keys and it held up fine against Hurricane Irma. It comes in 1/4 and 5/16ths inch, I would use the thicker. It comes in 4X8 and 4X12 panels, certain colors prepainted, so definitely choose the 12’s if you need more than 8′ in height. They are heavy (made of cement), but they are the best.
I would use plain unpainted gray, the painted is for cosmetic reasons only, why bother if you are not going to see it? Also there will be ordering delays for painted, plain is probably a stock item.

I would fasten the panels with stainless screws, sometimes I predrill the holes with a small masonry bit. I would rip a sheet into battens to cover the seams, silicone on and screwed also. You’ll need the special Hardie blade for your circular saw. Cut it outside, the dust is bad. Flash patch the screw heads, I forget the product name, I do recall the can is red and black. The Miami Dade code says screws every 6″, studs no greater th an 16″, but that may be overkill for Brooklyn.
On second thought, the green Hardie screws may be OK, you aren’t surrounded by salt.

daveinbedstuy | 6 years ago

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I would use aluminum siding before I used vinyl.

cate | 6 years ago

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You could use sheet metal, fiber cement siding, PVC panels, roofing materials, and perhaps other things I’ve never heard of. Vinyl siding probably wouldn’t be ideal for the situation you describe, and animals, insects, birds, etc., can penetrate it.

stevecym | 6 years ago

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not to knock anything that any one is saying here as I do not know anything about most new products but for something you are doing, where not only will access be an issue but mere inspection might be, you will want to use something that has been tried and true. i hate to say it but i have seen vinyl we installed in 1980 still on houses.

GreenThinker | 6 years ago

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Look up aluminum composite panels, it’s a plastic core sandwiched between two aluminum sheets with an anodized finish. You can get them at R. King Window. They’ll cut them to what ever size and bend them into angles if need be as well. They come in 4 x 12 panels, so you’ll really able to limit joints.

As for your neighbor, i heard of situations where developers have just gone down to the department of buildings, explained the situation, and got a letter requiring the neighbor to grant access.

stevecym | 6 years ago

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i just read about the hardi board. i had earlier referenced something by that name as being made in Australia and said something similar about the product some years back and now, out of curiosity just read about the company. it seems the company i had formerly spoken about was in fact the hardi board company as it is made in Australia. back about 1990 my bosses chose to use this product on a condo project in North Carolina. at the time we were made to feel as though this was a newer product to the US market and we did not have google then to check things out and read reviews. i was not part of the selection process for this product, the board chose it on the advice of the contractor who installed it. my understanding was that some years after i left, there was some breakdown with some of the board where is was unable to dry out and where it was not exposed to the sun. i suspect this happen within 5 years of the install. after looking at the hardi board website, i am pretty certain this is the same product. i said something about this on here some years back and someone came on and asked, “really?” at first i was not sure if these were one and the same, but now i think yes, really (i was kind of surprised a lawsuit did not follow that as it was a big job and the contractor may have misrepresented it). quite possible the product has changed since then, i mean look at all the finish and adhesive reformulations and with the exception of paint, i think everything else is improving.

consider the vinyl. i still see houses around with vinyl on them that we installed in say 1980 though that stuff is at the end of its life (i recall the boss saying it was a “lifetime warranty” and being a smart ass 16 yr old, i had to ask “what is a lifetime” and he told me “50 yrs”. i later read that that company (alside) had no business claiming 50 years, but plenty of it has lasted 40.

steve

stevecym | 6 years ago

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gwan,, the siding I refused to name is vinyl. I am loath to hear anyone in brooklyn is installing the stuff, but the guy I worked for swore by it and stuff has come a long way since then. the OP needs to contact Riverhead Building Supply siding division in Hauppage and talk to a rep there. these folks deliver all over the city.

gwan | 6 years ago

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if appearance is not an issue, doesn’t vinyl siding require the least maintenance? https://www.thisoldhouse.com/ideas/love-vinyl-siding

Guest User | 6 years ago

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Thank you for all of these thoughtful responses!

Hardie Board seems to be the only one of those three that can come factory painted, which suggests it will be longer before it needs to be repainted again? If that is the case, are there other considerations that might make Boral or Azek a better choice?

Also, if installation is key, how difficult is Hardie Board to install? Could our GC install it or should I be grilling them on their prior experience installing it?

Lastly, Hardie Board comes in several different configurations (panel, plank, shingle, soffit). Is one variety less prone to problems than the others?

Thank you again!

stevecym | 6 years ago

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you know, back to the suburbs. really the suburbs teach you what not to do. when i was a child we first lived in a place called “islandia” and the house had these horrible looking fake “shingles” on them with this repeating vertical line pattern. i suspect they may have been an asbestos composition product. no one uses them now. they simple remind people of tract housing and places like Levittown. but when someone talks about hardi board and says it is a cement fiber as mozzeatupu does, it reminds me of those fake shingles and the thing about them was, they lasted forever. they were the kind of things you wish decayed like we wish radioactive waste would decay, especially if you did not like the suburbs; the half life of these shingles must be 250 years. if hardi board is anything like these and you use them, they will be your great, great grandchildren’s problem. and we know all siding product have come a long way in style.

i have one reservation about saying all this as my one-time bosses had something with a similar name and composition install ed on some ocean front condos and there had been a problem. The product i speak of was made in Australia and may not be Hardi Board and even if it was, there may have been an installation issue.

mozeeatupu | 6 years ago

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Hardie board is cement fiber. I highly recommend it but it’ll be as good as the installer.

stevecym | 6 years ago

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i can tell you something else about products in this industry. Look at where it is being used and who is recommending it. when the people who want to spend money to do things right begin recommending it, pay attention. this is why i held back recommendations on my first reply here; i learned what i learned from a boss and customers whose relationship was guided by price, not quality. step out of that mindset and into an area where people want things to last and will pay for that, and another level of products appears, such as those dibs mentions. that does not mean i would not call riverhead building supply either as they probably have the range of products from what i used to install in places like Levittown all the way up to what goes on houses in Oyster Bay.

stevecym | 6 years ago

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plastics used to eventually break down in the sun or get hard in the cold and sometimes break. installation was key so things were not so tight they could not expand and contract and fail. these products have come a long way.

stevecym | 6 years ago

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I am not sure what the composition is of the product dibs mentions. I used to think the hardi board was a composite of natural materials and I may be wrong. my sense is that the most durable products will have plastics in them and in the past these looked cheap, like they belonged in the suburbs. some of the other products mentioned, boral or azek are probably plastic composites. I have opinions on these products as I used to work with their predecessors it in the early 1980s and back then my boss used Alside. the world has come a long way since then. Azek is a name I see a lot.

daveinbedstuy | 6 years and 1 month ago

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Or Boral or Azek.

daveinbedstuy | 6 years and 1 month ago

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Hardie board.

stevecym | 6 years and 1 month ago

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I used to work, many years ago, for a home improvement contractor and his thing was windows and siding. things have changed (more selection) and I am looking at siding for my dad’s house now (riverhead building supply, which I go to for certain woods (mineola branch) has a window and siding branch in Hauppauge and they have great telephone support, really top notch phone support which is why I use them; call them). I have some thoughts on this as of now but am not sure what I have to say is right for your situation. so I will wait and see what others say as there maybe someone who has been through what your are going through. as I think of siding, I think of stuff people put on suburban homes and maybe someone will come on here with something else. I have deliberately held back product types until I see what they say.

and by the way, for anything that Dykes does not carry, I use Riverhead Building Supply now. I no longer bother with Metropolitan a nd when you contact the call center at Riverhead and begin asking them questions, you will see why. the race to the bottom in NYC has really led to poor customer service at places like Metropolitan.