Bellingham An Honest Answer to a Question We Get Often
Homeowners in Bellingham and across Whatcom County ask us regularly why we don't quote LP SmartSide siding. It's a fair question — LP SmartSide is a well-known national product, it's often priced competitively, and plenty of homes around the country wear it without issue. This page explains our actual reasoning, not a sales pitch against a competitor's product. We install exclusively James Hardie fiber cement siding, and we want you to understand the trade-offs that led us there, so you can make an informed decision whether you hire us or someone else.
What LP SmartSide Actually Is
LP SmartSide is an engineered wood product. It's made from wood strands and fibers bonded with resins under heat and pressure, then coated with a resin-saturated overlay and factory primer or finish. It is not a solid wood product like old-growth cedar, and it is not fiber cement like James Hardie. It sits in its own category: engineered wood, designed to resemble traditional wood lap siding, panels, or trim at a lower installed cost than genuine wood.
To LP's credit, the product has come a long way since engineered wood siding's rocky reputation in the 1990s. Modern SmartSide uses better resin treatments and a zinc borate additive intended to resist fungal decay and insect damage. It holds paint well, cuts and nails like wood, and many installers find it easier to work with than fiber cement. Those are real advantages, and we don't pretend otherwise.
Where It Performs Reasonably Well
In drier climates, or on homes with generous roof overhangs and good gutter systems that keep water away from the wall assembly, LP SmartSide has a solid track record. It's a legitimate mid-tier product, and we're not suggesting every installation of it is a problem. Our concern is specific to what happens when this product meets our regional weather patterns over a 15-to-30-year ownership window.
The Bellingham and Whatcom County Climate Problem
This is the core of our decision, and it's worth being specific rather than vague about it. Three things define our exterior building envelope challenges here:
- Driving rain: Storms coming off the Salish Sea and Puget Sound frequently arrive with wind-driven rain, which pushes moisture sideways into joints, seams, and butt ends far more aggressively than a straight-down rain would.
- Salt air: Homes near Bellingham Bay, Lake Whatcom's shoreline, and the surrounding waterfront neighborhoods deal with airborne salt that accelerates the breakdown of coatings, fasteners, and any material with exposed wood fiber.
- A long moss and mildew season: Our extended wet season, often eight months of the year, means north-facing and shaded wall sections stay damp longer than in most of the country. Moss, algae, and mildew get a long runway to establish themselves.
Engineered wood's core vulnerability, even in its improved modern form, is still wood fiber. Wood fiber swells when it absorbs water and shrinks when it dries. Repeated wet-dry cycling — which is exactly what our climate delivers for most of the year — stresses the bond lines and the factory coating over time. Fiber cement, by contrast, is made from cement, sand, and cellulose fibers. It does not swell the same way, and it has no organic wood sugars for moss, mold, or insects to feed on.
Where the Trouble Actually Starts: Butt Joints and Cut Ends
Every siding product has weak points at joints and cut ends, but the consequence of water intrusion at those points differs by material. With LP SmartSide, factory edges are treated, but every field cut made on a job site exposes untreated wood strand core. If that cut edge isn't caulked and back-primed correctly, at every single joint, on every wall, it becomes an entry point for moisture. Once water gets into that core, the material can swell, and swelling shows up as bubbling paint, soft spots, or edge flare — small at first, but progressive.
This isn't a hypothetical manufacturing defect; it's a function of correct installation being mandatory rather than optional. Fiber cement has the same joint-treatment requirement in theory, but because the material itself doesn't swell from moisture the way wood fiber does, a missed caulk line is far less consequential over the long run.
Installation Sensitivity Is the Real Divide
We've trained our crews around one installation system for a reason: consistency. Every product on the market performs differently depending on how well it's installed, but some products have a much wider gap between "installed correctly" and "installed adequately." LP SmartSide sits toward the sensitive end of that spectrum. Manufacturer specifications call for specific fastener types, exact clearances from grade and roofing, careful attention to caulking at every seam, and prompt field-priming of any factory cut. Skip a step, and the failure doesn't show up in month one — it shows up in year five or seven, usually as bubbling finish, soft trim corners, or moss creeping into a swollen seam.
We chose to build our company around fiber cement installation specifically so we could guarantee one consistent, climate-appropriate system on every home, rather than juggling multiple products with different sensitivity profiles and different failure modes.
The Warranty Picture
LP SmartSide's warranty is prorated and has specific maintenance requirements — including recoating intervals — that homeowners need to stay on top of to keep coverage intact. That's not unusual for engineered wood products, but it does put ongoing maintenance responsibility squarely on the homeowner in a climate that is harder on coatings than most of the country. James Hardie's ColorPlus factory finish carries a longer non-prorated finish warranty precisely because the finish is baked on in a factory-controlled process rather than relying on field priming and homeowner-driven recoating schedules.
Side-by-Side: What the Two Materials Actually Are
| Factor | LP SmartSide (Engineered Wood) | James Hardie (Fiber Cement) |
|---|---|---|
| Core material | Wood strands + resin, zinc borate treated | Cement, sand, cellulose fiber |
| Moisture response | Can swell at exposed/cut edges if not sealed | Dimensionally stable, does not swell |
| Combustibility | Combustible (wood-based) | Non-combustible |
| Finish | Factory primed or coated; field paint common | ColorPlus factory-baked finish or field paint |
| Moss/mildew resistance | Treated but organic material | Inorganic, nothing for moss to feed on |
| Install sensitivity | High — cut-edge sealing critical | Moderate — still spec-driven, less swelling risk |
| Typical installed cost | Lower to mid range | Mid to upper range |
| Warranty structure | Prorated, maintenance-dependent | Longer non-prorated coverage |
Why We Standardized on James Hardie Instead
We made a deliberate choice years ago to install one siding system rather than offer a menu of products at different price points. James Hardie's HZ5 product line is engineered specifically for climates like ours — high moisture exposure, freeze-thaw cycling in the foothills, and long wet seasons along the coast. It's non-combustible, which matters given how many Whatcom County properties border trees and brush. The ColorPlus factory finish removes the recoating burden that engineered wood and primed wood products both carry. And because it's cellulose-reinforced cement rather than wood fiber, it simply doesn't have the same moisture-swelling failure mode that drives most of the callbacks we see on engineered wood siding after a decade or more of Pacific Northwest weather.
None of this means every LP SmartSide installation fails, or that homeowners who chose it made a mistake. It means we looked at our specific climate, the failure patterns we've seen firsthand on re-siding jobs, and the maintenance burden we're comfortable standing behind — and settled on one product system we can install to spec, every time, and back with confidence.
What to Ask Before You Choose a Siding Material
Whatever material you're considering, these are the questions that actually matter for a home in this climate:
- How does this material behave when a cut edge or joint isn't perfectly sealed?
- What ongoing maintenance — recoating, caulk inspection, moss treatment — does the warranty require to stay valid?
- Is the finish factory-applied or field-applied, and how does that affect long-term fade and moisture resistance?
- How sensitive is this product to installation errors, and how experienced is the crew with this specific system?
- Is the material combustible, and does that matter for your property's setting?
- What does the warranty actually cover after year 10, year 20, and beyond?
Our Take
We're not going to tell you LP SmartSide is a bad product everywhere — it isn't. But for homes exposed to Bellingham Bay's salt air, the driving rain that comes with our storm systems, and a moss season that stretches most of the year, we don't think it's the right long-term bet, and we're not willing to install something we can't fully stand behind for the next few decades. That's why every home we side gets the same fiber cement system, installed the same careful way, every time.
If you're weighing siding options for a home in Bellingham or anywhere in Whatcom County, we're happy to walk your property, look at your specific exposure, and give you a straight answer — including whether Hardie makes sense for your situation. Reach out for a free, no-pressure estimate using the form below.