Everett Two Different Materials, One Big Decision
If you're replacing siding in Everett, you've probably run into both James Hardie fiber cement and LP SmartSide in your research. Both are popular alternatives to vinyl, and both get marketed as long-lasting, low-maintenance options. But they're built from fundamentally different materials, and that difference matters a lot once you factor in what Snohomish County weather does to a house over twenty or thirty years.
This page lays out how each product actually performs, where they differ, and why our company made the decision to install James Hardie exclusively.
What Each Product Is Made Of
James Hardie siding is fiber cement — a mix of sand, cement, and cellulose fibers pressed and cured into dense, non-combustible boards. It doesn't have wood in it at all, which changes how it responds to moisture over time.
LP SmartSide is an engineered wood product. It's made from wood strands bonded with resins and coated with a wax-based treatment, then finished with a primer. It's a real improvement over old-school hardboard siding from decades past, and LP has worked hard to engineer out a lot of the old failure points. But at its core, it's still wood. Wood swells, wood absorbs moisture, and wood is a food source for the fungi that cause rot — no amount of engineering fully removes that biology.
How That Difference Plays Out in Everett's Climate
Everett sits close enough to Puget Sound and Port Gardner Bay that salt-laden air is a real factor on siding, on top of the driving rain that comes off the Sound in fall and winter storms. Add in a long, damp moss season that can stretch from October into May, and you've got a climate that's genuinely hard on any wood-based exterior product. Moisture sits against the wall longer here than it does in drier parts of the state, and organic growth gets more time to take hold before a good drying stretch shows up.
Fiber cement doesn't care much about any of that. It doesn't swell, it doesn't provide organic material for mold or moss to feed on, and it holds paint and factory finish far more consistently through wet-dry cycles. Engineered wood siding, even with modern resin treatments, needs its cut edges sealed correctly, its caulk joints maintained, and its lower courses kept clear of soil, mulch, and standing moisture — miss any of that upkeep in a climate like ours and moisture finds its way in.
Installation Sensitivity
Both products are installation-sensitive, but the consequences of a mistake differ. With LP SmartSide, an unsealed cut edge, a missed piece of flashing, or a caulk joint that fails a few years down the road gives moisture direct access to a wood substrate — and once that substrate is wet, it can swell, delaminate, or begin to break down before it's visibly obvious from the outside.
With James Hardie, installation still has to be done to spec — proper clearances, correct fastening, factory-cut edges primed where required — but a small lapse doesn't introduce the same rot risk, because there's no wood fiber underneath to break down. That margin for error matters on a house that's going to sit through thirty-plus Everett winters.
Finish and Warranty
James Hardie's ColorPlus finish is baked on at the factory under controlled conditions, which gives more consistent color and better fade resistance than field-applied paint, and it carries a strong transferable warranty backing that finish along with the substrate itself.
LP SmartSide is typically sold primed, requiring a field-applied topcoat, and its warranty is structured around proper installation and maintenance of that finish. That's not a knock on the product — it's just a different maintenance obligation that gets passed on to the homeowner, one that's harder to stay ahead of in a climate where the siding rarely gets a long, uninterrupted dry stretch.
Side-by-Side Summary
| Factor | James Hardie Fiber Cement | LP SmartSide |
|---|---|---|
| Core material | Cement, sand, cellulose — non-combustible | Engineered wood strand |
| Moisture/rot risk | Minimal — no wood substrate | Present if edges/joints aren't maintained |
| Finish | Factory-baked ColorPlus | Primed, field-applied topcoat |
| Maintenance burden | Lower over the long term | Higher — caulk, edges, touch-up paint |
| Fire rating | Non-combustible | Combustible (wood-based) |
Why We Standardized on Hardie
We install James Hardie exclusively because, given what Everett weather does to a house — the salt air off the Sound, the driving winter rain, the long moss season — we'd rather put a non-combustible, moisture-stable material on a home than one that depends on perfect long-term maintenance of a wood substrate to avoid rot. LP SmartSide is a legitimate, engineered product and plenty of homes wear it fine with proper upkeep. We just don't think it's the strongest match for this specific climate, and we'd rather stand behind one system we know performs here than split our expertise across products with very different failure modes.
If you're weighing siding options for a home in Everett or elsewhere in Snohomish County, we're happy to walk your specific house and talk through what makes sense. Reach out for a free, no-pressure estimate using the form below.