Blaine Two Products Homeowners Ask About Most
If you've gotten a few siding quotes in Blaine, chances are two brand names keep coming up: James Hardie fiber cement and LP SmartSide engineered wood. Both are legitimate step-ups from vinyl, both are widely available in Whatcom County, and both get marketed as "the smart choice." They are not the same material, though, and they don't age the same way once they're facing a Pacific Northwest winter off Semiahmoo Bay.
This page walks through what each product actually is, how they perform under the specific conditions Blaine throws at a house — salt-laden air, sideways rain off the Strait, and a moss season that can run eight months — and why we made the decision to install James Hardie exclusively. We're not going to tell you LP SmartSide is junk, because it isn't. We're going to tell you where the trade-offs are and let you weigh them against what you want out of your siding for the next 30 years.
What LP SmartSide Actually Is
LP SmartSide is an engineered wood product. The core is strand board — wood fibers and strands bonded with resin under heat and pressure, similar in concept to OSB sheathing but manufactured to a denser, exterior-rated spec. LP treats the strands with zinc borate (marketed as SmartGuard) to resist fungal decay and termites, then applies a resin-saturated overlay and a factory primer coat before the boards ship.
It comes in lap siding, panels, and trim, and it installs with standard carpentry tools, which is one reason it's popular with builders working on a schedule. It's lighter than fiber cement, cuts without silica dust, and holds a nail well. Priced installed, it typically runs somewhat below James Hardie in this market.
What James Hardie Actually Is
James Hardie fiber cement is a different chemistry entirely — Portland cement, sand, and cellulose fiber, cured into a rigid board. There's no wood fiber in the exposed product to feed rot or insects, and no resin bond that can fail under sustained moisture. It's manufactured in climate-specific formulations (HardieZone HZ5 and HZ10), and the Pacific Northwest falls under HZ10, engineered specifically for high-moisture, freeze-thaw-light coastal conditions like Blaine's.
Most of what we install carries Hardie's ColorPlus finish — a factory-applied, baked-on coating rather than a field-primed surface waiting on a housepainter. That's a meaningful difference in a place where wet weeks stack up and finish work gets delayed.
Side-by-Side: Core Properties
| Property | James Hardie Fiber Cement | LP SmartSide |
|---|---|---|
| Core material | Cement, sand, cellulose | Engineered wood strand |
| Combustibility | Non-combustible | Combustible (treated) |
| Moisture response | Does not swell, rot, or delaminate | Can swell at cut edges/joints if unsealed |
| Factory finish | ColorPlus baked-on finish (most lines) | Primed; typically field-painted |
| Insect resistance | Not a food source — inherent | Zinc borate treatment |
| Typical warranty | 30-year limited, transferable | 5-year finish / longer product warranty, terms vary |
| Relative installed cost | Higher | Lower to moderate |
How Whatcom County's Climate Tests Both Products
Blaine sits right on the water, and that matters more for siding than most people realize. Salt air off Semiahmoo Bay and Drayton Harbor accelerates corrosion on fasteners and finishes, and it interacts differently with organic materials than with mineral-based ones. Add driving rain that comes in at an angle during winter storms, and every seam, joint, and cut edge on a house becomes a spot where water either sheds or soaks in.
Then there's moss. Whatcom County's damp, mild winters and heavy tree cover give moss and algae a long growing season on north-facing walls and anywhere siding stays shaded and damp. Moss holds moisture against the surface it's growing on. On an engineered wood product, that sustained dampness at a joint or a scuffed edge is exactly the condition that lets water reach the wood-fiber core.
None of that is a defect in LP SmartSide — the product is designed with those risks in mind and performs fine when it's detailed correctly and maintained on schedule. But "detailed correctly and maintained on schedule" is doing a lot of work in that sentence, and it's where the two products diverge.
The Moisture Question, Specifically
Every engineered wood siding lives or dies by its cut edges and seams. LP SmartSide ships with a treated core, but any field cut — around a window, at a corner, at a butt joint — exposes untreated material unless it's sealed with the manufacturer-specified caulk or edge sealer, every time, on every cut, by every installer on the crew. Miss one edge, and that's the spot where a wet Blaine winter finds its way in. Once moisture gets into a wood-based product and stays there, swelling and softening follow, and by the time it shows on the paint surface, it's already been happening underneath for a while.
Fiber cement doesn't have that failure mode. A cut edge on Hardie board is still cement and sand — it can be touched up for cosmetic finish-matching, but there's no organic core underneath waiting for standing moisture to start something. That's a big part of why installation sensitivity matters less with Hardie: a marginal detail is a cosmetic issue rather than a structural one.
Fire Performance
James Hardie fiber cement is non-combustible. LP SmartSide is a treated wood product — the zinc borate protects against decay and insects, but it does not make the product non-combustible. For most Blaine homeowners this isn't a wildfire-zone concern the way it is east of the Cascades, but it's still a real difference in fire behavior on the exterior of a home, and it's one reason insurers and some coastal building codes are paying closer attention to combustible cladding generally.
Finish and Long-Term Maintenance
This is where the ownership experience really splits. LP SmartSide ships primed, not finish-painted, so the homeowner or builder is responsible for a quality field paint job — and for repainting on a normal exterior paint cycle, which in a wet marine climate tends to run shorter than manufacturers' brochure numbers suggest. Caulking at seams and cut edges needs to be inspected and refreshed as part of that maintenance, not treated as a one-time install step.
Hardie's ColorPlus finish is baked on at the factory under controlled conditions, with a longer color-and-finish warranty than field-applied paint can realistically offer, and it's formulated to hold up under UV and moisture cycling without the touch-up schedule a field-painted product needs. It's not maintenance-free — nothing on the outside of a house in Whatcom County is — but the maintenance is lighter and less time-sensitive.
Warranty Structure
Warranty length isn't just a number — it's a signal of how the manufacturer expects the product to age. James Hardie backs most of its siding with a 30-year limited warranty that's transferable to a subsequent homeowner, plus a separate finish warranty on ColorPlus products. LP SmartSide's warranty terms vary by product line and typically separate the substrate warranty from a shorter finish/paint warranty, since the paint is field-applied rather than factory-cured. Always read the actual warranty document for the specific product line, not just the marketing summary — the fine print on prorated coverage and installation requirements is where warranties often disappoint homeowners who never expected to need them.
Cost Factors to Weigh
| Factor | What It Affects |
|---|---|
| Material cost | LP SmartSide generally costs less per square foot than Hardie |
| Installed labor | Both require skilled crews; Hardie cutting requires dust-control equipment |
| Repainting cycle | Field-painted LP typically needs repainting sooner than factory-finished Hardie |
| Caulk/seal maintenance | LP requires ongoing edge and joint inspection; Hardie less sensitive to this |
| Resale/warranty transfer | Hardie's transferable 30-year warranty can be a selling point |
Lower upfront cost on LP SmartSide is real, but it should be weighed against the repainting and caulk-maintenance cost that shows up over the ownership period, not just the installed price on day one.
Why We Only Install James Hardie
We used to install a broader range of siding products. We narrowed to James Hardie exclusively because it removes the two biggest risk factors we kept seeing on coastal Whatcom County homes: moisture reaching an organic core through an imperfect seal, and a finish that degrades faster than homeowners expect in a marine climate. Standardizing on one product also means our crews are deeply practiced on Hardie's specific installation requirements — clearances, fastening patterns, joint treatment — rather than switching methods project to project. For a house facing Drayton Harbor's salt air and a full Whatcom County rainy season, that's the trade-off we'd want if it were our own home.
Questions Worth Asking Before You Choose
- Does the warranty cover the finish separately from the substrate, and is it transferable if you sell?
- Who is responsible for repainting or refinishing, and on what schedule?
- How does the installer handle sealing at cut edges, corners, and butt joints?
- Is the product rated or formulated for your specific climate zone, not just "exterior use"?
- What does the manufacturer's installation manual require that could be skipped to save time?
- How has the product performed on other homes in your specific area after 10+ years, not just at install?
If you're weighing siding options for a home in Blaine, we're happy to walk your house, point out where moisture and moss are already doing damage, and give you a straightforward, no-pressure estimate for James Hardie siding done right.