Ferndale A Straight Answer to a Question We Get Often
Homeowners in Ferndale and around Whatcom County ask us this a lot: "Do you install LP SmartSide?" The honest answer is no, and we think you deserve a real explanation rather than a brush-off. We install James Hardie fiber cement siding exclusively, and that decision came from years of watching how different siding materials actually perform once they're on a house near the water, under a marine layer, and through a wet Pacific Northwest winter. This page walks through what LP SmartSide is, what it does well, and why we made the call to leave it off our install list.
What LP SmartSide Actually Is
LP SmartSide is an engineered wood siding product. It's made from wood strands bonded with resins and waxes under heat and pressure, then coated with a resin-saturated overlay and factory primer. It comes in lap siding, panels, and trim, and it's a real step up from old-style OSB siding products that gave engineered wood a bad name in the 1990s. LP has put serious engineering into moisture resistance at the strand level, and for a lot of markets across the country it holds up fine.
To be fair to the product: it's lighter than fiber cement, it's easier on saw blades and installer backs, it takes a nail well, and it's generally less expensive per square foot installed. Homeowners on a tighter budget are not wrong to ask about it. If we thought it performed as well as fiber cement in this specific climate, we'd have no reason to turn it away.
Where It's Genuinely a Reasonable Choice
In drier inland climates with less sustained moisture exposure, LP SmartSide has a solid track record when installed correctly and maintained on schedule. The issue for us isn't that the product is poorly made — it's that Ferndale sits in one of the more demanding moisture environments in the Lower 48, and engineered wood's core vulnerability is exactly the thing our climate delivers in abundance: sustained water contact at cut edges, seams, and fastener penetrations.
The Core Material Difference: Wood Fiber vs. Fiber Cement
This is the crux of it. LP SmartSide is a wood-based product. Fiber cement — what James Hardie makes — is a cement, sand, and cellulose fiber composite with no wood strands to swell, delaminate, or rot. Wood, no matter how well it's engineered, treated, or overlaid, still has an organic core that reacts to moisture. Fiber cement doesn't have that core to react in the first place.
That single difference cascades into almost every trade-off on this page: how the product handles cut edges, how forgiving it is of installation mistakes, how it ages in a wet climate, and what happens if water does get behind it or into it.
| Factor | LP SmartSide (Engineered Wood) | James Hardie (Fiber Cement) |
|---|---|---|
| Core material | Wood strands + resin | Cement, sand, cellulose fiber |
| Combustibility | Combustible | Non-combustible |
| Moisture behavior at cut edges | Vulnerable if not fully sealed | Not prone to swelling or rot |
| Insect/rot resistance | Treated but organic-based | Naturally resistant, no organic core |
| Factory finish option | Primed, field paint typical | ColorPlus factory-baked finish available |
| Typical manufacturer warranty | Prorated, 5-year finish coverage common | Longer non-prorated coverage, transferable |
Why Whatcom County's Climate Raises the Stakes
Ferndale isn't just "rainy Pacific Northwest" — it's coastal Whatcom County, which stacks several moisture stressors on top of each other. We get salt air drifting in off Bellingham Bay and the Strait of Georgia, driving rain that comes in sideways during winter storms rather than falling straight down, and a moss season that stretches for much of the year thanks to shade, humidity, and mild temperatures that never really dry things out. Any siding material installed here has to survive all three at once, year after year.
Salt Air
Airborne salt accelerates the breakdown of exposed wood fibers and can work into any gap in a coating or sealant. Fiber cement's mineral composition simply isn't food for that kind of degradation the way wood fiber can be over decades of exposure.
Driving Rain
Wind-driven rain finds its way into laps, seams, and butt joints that would stay dry in a calmer climate. Every cut edge, nail penetration, and seam on a wood-based product is a potential entry point unless it's field-sealed exactly to spec, every time, on every board. Fiber cement is far less sensitive to a missed or thin bead of sealant because there's no wood core underneath waiting to absorb what gets through.
Moss and Sustained Dampness
North-facing walls, shaded lots under conifers, and homes tucked near tree lines hold moisture longer here than almost anywhere else in the country. Moss and algae thrive on that dampness. Constant contact moisture is exactly the condition that stresses an organic substrate over time, while a cement-based substrate simply doesn't provide the same food source or degrade the same way under sustained damp conditions.
Installation Sensitivity: Where Problems Actually Start
Almost every siding failure we've been called out to inspect over the years traces back to installation, not the product sitting in the warehouse. But some products are far less forgiving of small installation misses than others, and that matters when you're hiring a crew.
LP SmartSide's manufacturer installation instructions are detailed and specific for good reason: field-cut edges need factory-matched sealant or primer treatment, minimum ground clearances have to be respected, flashing details at every penetration have to be exact, and caulking schedules need to be followed and maintained over the life of the siding. Skip a step, and you've created a moisture entry point directly into the product's vulnerable core. Because our region already delivers more wind-driven moisture than most, that margin for error shrinks even further here than it would in a dry-summer climate.
Fiber cement has its own correct-installation requirements too — proper fastening, clearances, and joint treatment still matter. But the consequence of a small miss is different: you're not exposing a wood core, you're exposing a mineral-based board that isn't going to swell, delaminate, or rot the way a wood-strand product can if moisture gets behind an imperfect seal.
Maintenance Burden Over the Life of the Siding
This is the part homeowners often don't see until year eight or ten. Engineered wood siding needs an ongoing maintenance relationship: repainting on a schedule, resealing cut edges and joints as caulking ages and shrinks, and prompt attention any time a scuff or impact exposes raw material. In a climate with our rain volume and moss pressure, that maintenance schedule tends to compress rather than stretch out.
James Hardie's factory ColorPlus finish is baked on and warranted separately from the substrate, which means the paint isn't fighting the same battle a field-applied coat on wood fiber is fighting. That doesn't mean Hardie siding is maintenance-free — gutters, caulking at penetrations, and periodic washing to keep moss and mildew from taking hold are still part of home ownership here — but the baseline burden and the cost of a missed year are both lower.
The Warranty Structure Difference
Warranties tell you a lot about how a manufacturer expects a product to age. It's worth reading the fine print on any siding warranty, not just the headline number.
| Warranty Feature | Typical Engineered Wood | James Hardie |
|---|---|---|
| Substrate coverage | Often prorated after initial years | Longer non-prorated period |
| Finish coverage | Shorter, separate from substrate | ColorPlus finish warranted alongside product |
| Transferability | Varies by product line | Transferable to new owner, typically with simple registration |
| Fire rating consideration | Combustible material | Non-combustible, relevant to insurance and wildfire-adjacent risk |
A stronger, less-prorated, transferable warranty matters most exactly in the climate we work in, where the material is under more sustained stress than average. It's also worth noting for resale: buyers and their inspectors increasingly ask what siding is on a home, and a transferable warranty on a non-combustible product is a straightforward point in a home's favor.
Why We Standardized on James Hardie
We didn't start out refusing to install anything other than fiber cement. That standard came from a pattern: fewer callbacks, fewer moisture-related repairs, and homeowners who weren't stuck on a repainting treadmill a few years after installation. James Hardie's HZ5 product line is engineered specifically for climates like ours — freeze-thaw cycling combined with high moisture exposure — and the combination of a non-combustible mineral substrate, a factory-applied finish, and a strong transferable warranty lines up with what actually holds up on homes here in Ferndale, Bellingham, Lynden, and the rest of Whatcom County.
Standardizing on one product also means our crews are installing the same system on every job, to the same flashing and fastening details, with no guesswork switching between different manufacturers' spec sheets. That consistency is part of what keeps installation-related failures rare in the first place.
What to Ask Before You Choose a Siding Material
Whatever contractor you hire and whatever product you're considering, these are the questions worth asking before you sign anything:
- What is the substrate made of, and how does it behave when it stays wet for days at a time?
- Is the warranty prorated, and at what year does coverage start declining?
- Is the warranty transferable if you sell the home?
- What maintenance schedule does the manufacturer actually recommend, in writing?
- How is the product rated for combustibility, and does that affect your homeowner's insurance?
- Does the installer follow the manufacturer's flashing and clearance details exactly, or improvise around them?
- What does a cut edge or exposed seam look like after five years of local rain and salt air exposure?
Our Recommendation for Whatcom County Homes
If you're weighing LP SmartSide against James Hardie for a home in Ferndale or anywhere else along this stretch of the Whatcom County coastline, we think the climate math favors fiber cement plainly enough that it's not a close call for us professionally — which is why we don't install the alternative. That said, this is your home and your budget, and you should feel informed rather than pressured either way.
If you'd like to talk through your specific home, its exposure, and what a James Hardie installation would actually look like and cost, we're happy to come take a look and put together a free, no-pressure estimate.