Flawless Siding Secrets - Matt Geeks out on the James Hardie Details at His House

oh man exciting day this is my house under construction and we just started installing the siding today on today's video we're going to get into all the nerdy details about this but this is a james hardy fiber cement we're installing here this is actually their keller plus and we're going to talk about install best practices we're going to talk about nailing patterns and butt joints and cocking and all kinds of very specific details today's video is sponsored by james hardy let's get going [Music] guys i've been so excited to see this happen if you watched my last video we spent a lot of time prepping for this install so there's been a lot of thought long before we started installing but what you're seeing right here chewy's got in his hands this board that has some plastic film on it this isn't the typical james hardy that i've installed in the past or that you've probably seen i've been installing that for 20 plus years it has that kind of yellowish green primer on there no this is pre-painted this comes from the factory like this this is called color plus and that means that i've got a factory finish on this house and i don't have the painters coming to the job a week or two or six months later when these carpenters are done my house is finished beautiful beautiful end product now let's talk for a minute about why you might want this pre-painted hardy and in a minute we'll get into all the details of the install as well but a big reason is for maybe some of the northern builders watching this where when i was in northern builder i used to build a house in washington dc we'd complete houses in february that would have this huge winter punch list and in fact the if the customer closed on their mortgage in february we'd have to escrow money to pay for the things that were being done in the spring there'd be like ten thousand dollars fifteen thousand dollars that we'd have to wait to get paid on until those items were done exterior paint landscape all kinds of things that couldn't be done in the cold winter time so if you're a northern builder you can you can basically install this in just about any weather any temperature you're just nailing you might have to wait until a slightly warmer day to do the caulking but with that quad max we're using it guns out to like zero degrees or something crazy low so really we could be doing this in minnesota in january the thing i like about this though as a texas builder is that when these guys are done i don't have to worry about painting and in texas there's a lot of days that are not real conducive to getting a good paint job it's over 100 degrees out or it's raining or it's super high humidity plus we've got that issue of the painter up on the ladder he's reaching out with his spray gun he's spraying over there well this right in front of them is going to be great we're going to get good mill coverage good thickness here but over there it's going to be not as good which means i might see streaks in my paint i might have to go back and touch up all those things when this is done at the factory they're baking it on under perfect conditions it's kind of like would you rather have bmw paint your car in the factory or would you rather pay a painter to paint your car in the driveway of course you're going to get a better finish from the factory 15-year warranty on the paint job and then your siding all your james hardy products actually have a 30-year non-prorated warranty now let's talk about the actual products i'm using here this is a six and a quarter inch hearty and then when i'm done it's going to yield a five inch profile i much prefer the smooth of course that's going to be everybody's preference but i don't mind the smooth i'm not trying to look like wood i'm okay with people knowing this is a you know a non-wood product i just prefer the smooth much better than the cedar mill or the stamped grain pattern but of course that's totally up to the individual now when we pre-paint this or if we don't pre-paint it a couple things i want to mention butt joints we never want to these butt joints these butt joints are critical to just have moderate contact meaning light contact not jammed together or friction fitted in and when they install those they're going to do what they call moderate contact that means they're going to bump together they're not going to shove them together and they're certainly not going to leave a gap on there when we do that we've got a factory painted edge on the side and you'll also notice the carpenter slipped one of these in there this is a flashing from tamlin and this happens to be pre-painted as well to match that white color so if you could see it or if there was a gap it would be white behind there although frankly there's really not much of one this is kind of a neat product this is actually their pf6 it's sized to my exact siding size that's at six and a quarter inch total siding it's painted the arctic white so it's going to match and when they slip that in it's got a little hanger on the top there that's where it's going to hang on the one side then they're going to slip the other one in the circle that's on here is so the carpenters could actually take a big bundle of these and have them hanging from their tool belt and they could grab one as needed but these are awesome because now if there's any water that gets back there it's going to kick it onto that next lap remember this is six and a quarter but only five inch exposure so that means i've got the one and a quarter of this top is concealed back here with this five inch exposure and this is shingling on to the next layer that also allows you then to hide your nails you saw the guys nailing this off the next layer is going to cover those nails now nail placement is critical i'll get into that in a little bit but let's finish talking about these butt joints we don't want to these if we them number one we'd have to always re-cock them and number two you'd probably also pretty quickly notice the color difference between the caulking and the siding so james hardy does not require that in fact they tell you do not do it don't those joints now where are we gonna on this install though we're going to do that right here where our siding is butting our trim that's we're going to do it now this is a corner of my house and i didn't do the traditional corner board a lot of times you'll see two one by fours coming together on the corner what i did was i had the guys installed on one face this is the side of my house and we overhung by about an inch on this back side so then when i butt that siding on there we still have room to it and we still have a little bit of a face showing and again they left that eighth inch gap on this uh or actually no i guess i haven't talked about that where our siding is budding trim we're going to leave an eighth inch gap in that location my guys actually are using a bondo spatula which is about the thickness that we're looking for so we slide that in there we'll butt the siding on there and then we'll pull that out later and then we're good to go that's the correct size so then later we can come and put a joint on there now let's talk about the caulking for a minute this is osi's quad max and they're a partner with james hardy such that you can go on the osi website and order specific quad max in any one of the colors that james hardy's color plus system is made in so i went in there and inputted the white and the gray that i'm using and then i got the caulking to my job which was the exact color i was looking for and when we cocked this corner we're looking for a big fat bead of caulk we actually want a 3 8 bead of caulking that's from the main from really both manufacturers the reason being is when we have a fatter bead that gives us more material to resist the uv damage the oxidation the water penetration all those things if we had a real tiny bead we wouldn't be able to do that you'll also notice that the guys did not tool this when we ran the caulking bead we we struck that down with the tip of the caulking gun cut at a 45 degree angle and then left it there was no wipe your finger down this is a solvent-based caulk you don't want to wipe it that's number one not good for you and number two it's not gonna leave the proper joint size and the proper material on there so just plan on cutting that striking it and you're good to go okay let's pick up the details uh as the guys continue up the wall [Music] all right y'all it's the next day the guys made great progress we actually finished this entire wall in one day from that starter strip we're basically stopping at the soffit here because i need a vented soffit detail i'll show that to you when i actually have it in hand but we started in the other side of the house and i thought i'd show you a couple of details while we're in process so you can see that first off i want to mention this gecko gauge you can see the guy's using here really handy tool all that's doing is he's got that set at five inch exposure so that when he pops his next course on there that gauge is gauging it off perfectly it leaves a place to hold so that when he's about ready to nail it off he's good to go let's talk about nailing patterns for a minute this is a six and a quarter inch board five inch exposure which means the first inch and a quarter is getting um blinded back there this is blind nailing we really want to be cautious about nail placement we want that nail to go about an inch down from the top if you high nail this you're going to feel these chatter they're not going to be tight up against whereas these guys are chewie's nailing it in the perfect spot about an inch down is what you want there's a couple ways you can do it but you mind if i see your gun real quick chewie check this out our hardy rep told us about this this is just a zip tie that we've clipped off so this distance is about an inch and all it's doing is giving us a visual gauge some other people make some nose pieces you can buy that's a replacement that you could actually hang on the top of the siding and know you're an inch this works really well too good tip from dave our hearty rep that's going to give us that visual indicator of them about an inch down on everyone thanks chewie you're going to notice we've got flashings that i had custom bent over all of my penetrations this happens to be a pvc block not hardy but it's real important not to put hardy on a level surface but like on those window heads over there we've got a flashing uh over top of that five quarter trim so we don't have water sitting on them it's going to kick that water out when we get up to this window head we'll do the same thing across here oh man look how good my front porch is looking the guys actually knock this out in one day now as you can see this is not the pre-painted color plus that i used in the rest of the house this is actually a primed product and actually varied from the standard james hardy to the artisan collection this is part of the aspire and this is their artisan shiplap so this is a this is the primed porch and we'll end up painting this in a white color to match the body of the house but let me show you what this looks like here's the profile on a standard board you've got a flat face and then you've got kind of a ship lap profile and this could be run horizontally or vertically and here's what they kind of look like when they come together you can see it's got a tongue and groove here and when you install this the guys did a real nice job of putting a nice bead of quad max in there and it's hidden so you're not seeing it and because we ran it vertically that caulk is going to make sure that any water that gets in there is going to fall down and not get behind there especially in a vertical type situation but because i ran this in a porch i'm fully covered i'm not super worried about that and again i have a rain screen like i had in the rest of the house but instead of doing just the vertical rain screen i ended up running this horizontal bar on the rain screen so that we could nail it off vertically and you can see here we started in that corner working our way this direction we'll end up with almost a perfect full board here but i'm not quite done with inspections and that's why i left this off and speaking of which that soffit is also not from james hardy that's from delta millworks that's an ecoya board that has a really pretty finish on it from akoya and is pre-finished so that kind of whitish color you're seeing on there that's the final color and i do want to mention a little detail we did a venting in this porch roof as well because my attic doesn't have venting above there i have no air hocks or other things so what you can see is we ripped a piece of the corrugated plastic and that's core events product and we ripped that down to the thickness of my board and the bug screen portion is down and i've got one here and i've got one there and it reads as just a black line but what that's going to do is allow a little bit of air flow into there and a little bit of air out of there so if there's any moisture accumulation in that closed soffit area it's going to be able to get out the guys did a really nice job now i need to finish inspections then i'll put that last board on there we'll finish this up and then we'll get it all painted in my mounting blocks i had pre-made my carpenters did a real nice job on those mounting blocks i really like how those turned out so i've got sconces on either side i've got electrical outlets on the porch here and then a second one over here and then i've got my aqua hose bib that i made a video about over there and while we're on the porch one last thing i did want to mention uh we used all color plus on this trim around the beam that i had coming through and then i also used color plus in the soffit areas and the guys did a real nice job of that now i could have used a pre um a prevented hardy soffit but i like that real smooth unvented soffit and what i did was i picked up locally this aluminum piece that i've used a bunch here in texas that i ran at the edge of my soffit and in most of the house i wasn't worried about seeing any light or seeing what's back there but in this front porch area i actually had the guys use a little black spray paint on the framing member so as you look up there which is really hard on an overcast day like today to see anything but if it was a sunnier day you might be able to see into that framing just a hair we ran just a cheap black spray paint on that so that's all disappearing guys we're really close to being done let's finish up the install and we'll come back and tell you a couple last details and we'll finish up the video alright one thing i want to mention on color plus is when you order color plus you're going to get this touch up kit and it's going to match the color of either your siding or your trim or whatever you're ordering in color plus this one happens to be paper white but this is a pretty cool little kit this is the color matched paint and this happens to be night gray or asteroid gray like i used here and there's two pieces that come with it that are quite cool this one has a little roller ball in it and this is a nail touch-up kit so what we're going to do is be able to actually touch up our nail holes so for instance this nail hole right here to when he installed this piece of 1x4 here he's left the plastic on he's nailed it and then he's pulling out this dauber right here and dabbing that on that paint on right there to cover over that nail and then he's pulling the plastic so that when he's done totally complete totally finished and a beautiful job i love it there's no caulking involved we're just going to nail dob that now on the other hand if we had a piece of trim that had a cut edge that was showing there's also this this is their shoe polish dauber for lack of a better word and the paint will come out here we're going to fill this with paint and then we can dab this wherever we needed to if there was a cut edge that was going to show on a piece of trim maybe a fascia that sort of thing very cool kit from james hardy now keep in mind this is only for cut ends for things like that we're not painting big sections if you get a bigger scratch or a bigger nick that's that's larger than let's say a dime you want to cut that board off and go to a new section but this is going to handle all of your cut ends on trim nail daubers for the heads things like that man doesn't the house look fantastic i am absolutely thrilled i mean look at this back facade on my house i did a little bit of brick on the front to match the neighborhood but basically all three sides plus my second story are all the james hardy and man i love the paper white it's got a kind of a black and white theme with my black roof that just got put on my awnings all those details really really crisp big thanks to madera framing who just absolutely nailed the details for me we've got a little bit more caulking to do i'm going to actually bring my painter back to do a few of the caulking areas rather than having the framing crew do this now this is a residing job you'd have them do that caulking but one nice thing about the rain screen that i did was that caulking really is optional i always think of my cladding as my uv barrier for the house but ultimately all the waterproofing all the air barrier that's all behind that area so the caulking for me is purely aesthetics and that's the reason why i use that rain screen if you saw that previous video but man the details absolutely love it the soffits turned out great i love the asteroid gray you'll notice the white sills on the second story i still need to paint those remember those are that those are made from that versatech material so i still need to paint those gray to match everything but overall absolutely thrilled with the how with how the house came out now i do want to make a quick mention as i put several pictures of my house on instagram during construction i've had several other builders who are fans of composite siding say hey matt why didn't you do that i know there are builders who like that but in my case i've had a real affinity for james hardee's fiber cement for going on 20 years now i started using it 20 years ago when i was building in portland oregon and it's got a multiple decade track record of good success for me and my own personal house when i remodeled almost 16 years ago now i'm still on my original paint job on that james hardy it still looks fantastic down here in texas where we get blazing sun and it was -5 a couple weeks ago my siding looks fantastic and i was around for the woods composite wood siding failures in the late 90s early 2000s in the pacific northwest i saw houses that had mushrooms growing out of them so for me it's just not a smart choice to do an osb painted siding on the outside of the house on the other hand fiber cement i mean this is a really impervious house and the fact that i went with the keller plus means that i've got a paint job that's going to way far outlast the paint job with a sight painted finish guys big thanks to james hardy for sponsoring today's video i appreciate you sticking around for the details when you get these details right and nail it the house absolutely sings doesn't it i appreciate your support guys if you're not currently a subscriber hit that subscribe button below we've got new content here every tuesday and every friday follow me on twitter instagram otherwise we'll see you next time on the build show [Music] hey guys when you watch these videos it looks like i've got just a cell phone hanging out here on the job but in fact i've got a whole team of people that help me shoot and edit and organize and do all the things that it takes to get these videos out twice a week and one of my awesome team members andrew is unfortunately leaving the team and i just wanted to say a big thanks to you andrew for all of your love and care and support for me and the time that you've worked on my team i'm gonna miss the heck out of you buddy wish you the best in everything and maybe your paths our paths will cross again one day but in the meantime all the best to you my friend

Channel: Matt Risinger

Views: 416,411

Rating: 4.9259634 out of 5

Keywords: Matt Risinger, Build Show Network, The Build Show, Build, james hardie, siding installation, siding install, siding, color plus, how to install siding, hardie plank, hardieplank, gecko gauge, siding joint, siding butt joint, osi caulk, siding over rain sceen, rain screen, air gap

Id: kr2pyd8tLHI

Length: 20min 34sec (1234 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 09 2021