Ferndale What LP SmartSide Is
LP SmartSide is an engineered wood siding — wood strands and fibers bonded with resin, treated with zinc borate for insect and decay resistance, and pressed into panels or lap boards. It comes factory-primed, it's lighter and easier to cut than fiber cement, and it costs less to install. For a lot of climates, it's a reasonable product. We just don't put it on homes here in Ferndale, and we think homeowners deserve the real reasons why, not a sales pitch.
What It Gets Right
Credit where it's due: LP SmartSide holds up to impact better than vinyl, it takes paint well, and modern versions are a real improvement over the OSB-based hardboard sidings that gave engineered wood a bad name decades ago. The zinc borate treatment does slow decay and deters insects. Installed crews like it because it's lighter to carry and easier to nail and cut on site than fiber cement.
Where It Runs Into Trouble
The core issue is what it's made of: wood. Even engineered and treated, it's still an organic material that swells, checks, and eventually breaks down if moisture gets past the finish and stays there. Fiber cement doesn't have that vulnerability — it's cement, sand, and cellulose fiber, and it doesn't rot.
That distinction matters more here than in a lot of the country. Whatcom County sits right on Puget Sound, and Ferndale gets a steady mix of salt-laden marine air off Bellingham Bay, driving rain off the water, and a long stretch of fall-through-spring where north-facing walls and shaded siding stay damp and hold moss for months at a time. That combination — persistent moisture plus salt exposure — is exactly the environment where an engineered wood product's long-term performance depends most heavily on flawless installation and disciplined upkeep.
LP SmartSide's manufacturer is specific about this in their own installation requirements: every field cut has to be primed and sealed on site, panel edges and butt joints need to be caulked and maintained, and the factory primer is not a finish coat — it requires a quality topcoat paint within a set window, and that paint has to be kept up over the life of the siding. Skip a step, let a caulk joint open up, or let paint film thin out near a downspout or a shaded corner, and moisture finds the wood strand core. Once that happens, swelling and delamination follow, and by the time it's visible from the ground the damage is usually further along than it looks.
The Maintenance Math
This is really a maintenance-burden question, not a durability myth. LP SmartSide can perform well for a long time — but only with a homeowner who repaints on schedule, re-caulks joints as they age, and catches problems early. In a marine climate with a moss season as long as ours, that's asking a lot of most households, and it's asking the installer to get every cut, joint, and clearance detail right the first time with zero margin for error. We'd rather not sell a product whose long-term success depends on conditions we can't guarantee our customers will maintain for the next 20 years.
| Factor | LP SmartSide | James Hardie Fiber Cement |
|---|---|---|
| Core material | Engineered wood strand | Cement, sand, cellulose fiber |
| Moisture behavior | Can swell/delaminate if finish fails | Non-organic, doesn't rot |
| Finish | Factory-primed, field paint required | ColorPlus factory finish, no repaint needed for years |
| Fire rating | Combustible wood-based product | Non-combustible |
| Maintenance | Regular repainting, joint caulk upkeep | Occasional cleaning, minimal recoating |
Why We Standardized on James Hardie
We install exclusively James Hardie fiber cement siding, and it's not because it's the cheapest or the fastest product to hang. It's because it's engineered for exactly the conditions Whatcom County throws at a house: their HZ5 product line is formulated for the Pacific Northwest's wet, moderate climate, the material itself doesn't absorb moisture and swell the way wood-based products do, and it's non-combustible. The ColorPlus factory finish is baked on with a 15-year finish warranty in most cases, so homeowners aren't on the hook for a repainting schedule to protect the substrate underneath. And the product carries a strong, transferable limited warranty that reflects the manufacturer's confidence in how it performs over decades, not just years.
None of this means LP SmartSide is a bad product in the abstract — it's a legitimate option that works for plenty of homes in plenty of climates. It's that after years of installing siding in Ferndale's salt air, driving rain, and long moss season, we made a call: we only put our name on a product we're confident will still be doing its job without babysitting two decades from now. Fiber cement is that product for us.
Talk to Us Before You Decide
If you're weighing siding options for a home in Ferndale or anywhere else in Whatcom County, we're glad to walk through what we've seen work and not work in this specific climate — no pressure, no hard sell. Request a free estimate below and we'll take a look at your home and give you a straight answer about what it actually needs.