Siding is the layer that takes the weather for everything behind it, and in El Dorado County that is a lot to ask. Sun on the south wall most of the year, rain driven sideways through the winter, and a fire season that has changed what people want on the outside of their house. We install James Hardie fiber cement siding and trim in Placerville, Camino, Cameron Park and the surrounding foothills, on new builds and on houses that are due a re-side.
A re-side is also the moment the rest of the exterior gets sorted out. Trim, fascia, corners, soffit and the flashing around every window and door are all part of the same job, and doing them together is the only way the wall ends up genuinely watertight. It is also the one time the sheathing and the housewrap are open, so anything that has been quietly getting wet finally shows itself.
Hardie comes two ways, prefinished in their own color range or primed and ready to be painted on site. Prefinished holds its color longer and costs more up front. Painted gives you any color you want and is easier to change in ten years when you have had enough of it. We put both against your house before you decide, along with the trim, because the trim is what people notice from the road. Color also reads differently up here than it does on a sample card under store lighting, since everything is filtered through pines and afternoon glare. It is worth twenty minutes on site to get that right, and it costs nothing to look.
Fitted to the Hardie Spec
James Hardie publishes a spec for fastening, clearances, joints and flashing, and the difference between siding that lasts thirty years and siding that fails in five usually comes down to whether the installer followed it. We are a James Hardie Pro certified installer and we install to that spec, wall by wall. Fiber cement also stands up to sun and ember better than wood, which counts for something in the foothills. The details that get skipped are always the same ones, the clearance at the roofline, the gap above a deck, the flashing over a window, and every one of them is invisible until the wall starts telling you about it. None of them take long to do properly the first time.
Full Re-Sides and Repairs
We take whole house re-sides as well as single walls where a leak or weather has done damage. If a wall only needs a repair, we will tell you that instead of selling you the whole house. And if we find something behind the old siding, you get a photo and a price before we go any further. A re-side is also the cheapest time you will ever have to fix anything on that wall, since the scaffolding is up, the sheathing is open and nothing has been closed back in. Doing it now costs a fraction of doing the same repair in three years.
The Whole Wall, Not Just the Siding
Siding quotes look alike on the front page and differ a great deal in what they quietly leave out. Trim and flashing are usually where the gap is, and they are also the two places a wall fails first. Comparing two numbers without comparing what is behind them is how people end up paying for the same wall twice. Everything below is part of the job when we do it.
- Removing the old siding and hauling it away
- Checking the sheathing and housewrap underneath
- Repairing rot or damage before anything goes back on
- House wrap and flashing at every opening
- James Hardie fiber cement siding installed to spec
- Corners, fascia, soffit and window trim
- Caulking and sealing, prefinished or paint ready
- A site cleared of offcuts, nails and cement dust
The one thing nobody can price with the old siding still on is what has been going on behind it. Most houses are fine. Where they are not, you get a photo and a number the same day, the wall is put right before anything new goes over it, and it shows on the invoice as its own line rather than folded quietly into the total.