Ferndale What LP SmartSide Actually Is
LP SmartSide is an engineered wood siding product. At its core it's strand-based wood — wood fibers and strands bonded with resin under heat and pressure, similar in concept to OSB (oriented strand board) sheathing, then treated with a zinc borate preservative to resist fungal decay and insects. It comes primed from the factory in lap, panel, and trim profiles, and it needs to be field-painted after installation. It's a legitimate, code-approved product that plenty of contractors install well, and homeowners across Whatcom County have it on their homes right now without major issues. We're not here to tell you it's a bad product. We're here to explain why we made a different call for the homes we build and re-side.
What LP SmartSide Gets Right
Credit where it's due. LP SmartSide is lighter than fiber cement, which makes it faster and less physically demanding to install. It holds paint reasonably well when the paint job is done correctly and maintained. It's less prone to cracking on impact than some siding types, and it's generally less expensive per square foot than premium fiber cement. LP backs it with a warranty, and the company has been in the engineered wood business a long time. For a contractor working on a tight budget project, or a homeowner who wants a wood-look siding without the maintenance of true solid wood, it's a reasonable middle-ground product.
Why We Don't Install It: The Core Issue
Every engineered wood product, including LP SmartSide, shares one structural reality: the core is wood. Wood-based cores perform well as long as the factory coating, caulking, and field-applied paint stay intact and water is kept off the cut edges and seams. The moment that protective layer is compromised — a missed caulk joint, a nail popped loose, paint that's worn thin at a butt joint, siding installed too close to grade — moisture has a path into a wood-fiber core that can swell, delaminate at the edges, or invite decay from the inside out. This isn't a defect in the product; it's the nature of building a siding board out of wood strands instead of cement. The product's own installation instructions are strict about edge sealing, fastener placement, and clearance from the ground and roof lines for exactly this reason. In practice, on real job sites, over years of Pacific Northwest weather, that level of discipline is hard to guarantee from every crew on every seam, every time.
Why That Matters More in Ferndale Than in Drier Climates
Whatcom County isn't a marginal case for moisture-sensitive siding — it's close to a worst case. Ferndale sits near the Strait of Georgia and Puget Sound, so homes here regularly deal with salt-laden air on top of standard Pacific Northwest rainfall. Salt air accelerates the breakdown of caulking and paint films faster than inland air does, which shortens the window before a wood-based siding's protective layer needs attention. Add in driving, wind-blown rain off the water, which pushes moisture sideways into lap joints and seams rather than letting it simply run down the face of the wall, and you've got conditions that actively test every weak point in a moisture-sensitive product. Then there's the region's long moss season — many Whatcom County lots are shaded by conifers, and north- and west-facing walls can stay damp for weeks at a stretch during fall, winter, and spring. Moss and algae don't just look bad; they hold moisture against the siding surface and joints far longer than a sunny wall would ever see. None of that is a problem you can paint your way out of forever. It's a problem you solve by choosing a material whose core doesn't care about occasional moisture exposure in the first place.
What This Looks Like in Practice
We're not describing a hypothetical. Wood-based siding failures in this region tend to show up in predictable places: butt joints that weren't fully sealed, siding installed too low to the ground where splashback keeps it wet, areas under gutters that overflow during heavy rain events, and shaded north walls where moss holds moisture year-round. These are the exact conditions Ferndale homes deal with every winter. A siding material that depends on flawless, ongoing maintenance to keep water out of a wood core is asking a lot of a climate that gives you very little dry season to catch up on that maintenance.
Installation Sensitivity: A Side-by-Side Look
The table below isn't meant to declare a winner on every line — it's meant to show where the two products genuinely differ in what they demand from the installer and the homeowner over time.
| Factor | LP SmartSide | James Hardie Fiber Cement (HZ5) |
|---|---|---|
| Core material | Resin-bonded wood strand | Cement, sand, and cellulose fiber |
| Moisture response of core | Can swell or degrade if water reaches it | Does not swell, rot, or support fungal decay |
| Combustibility | Combustible (wood-based) | Non-combustible |
| Factory finish | Primed only; field paint required | ColorPlus baked-on finish available, factory warranted |
| Edge/seam sealing requirement | Strict, ongoing caulk maintenance needed | Less sensitive to occasional seam exposure |
| Repaint interval (if not factory-finished) | Typically every 5-10 years depending on exposure | ColorPlus finish rated for 15 years before repaint is typically needed |
| Engineered for PNW moisture exposure | General-purpose product | HZ5 zone specifically engineered for cold, wet climates |
The Maintenance Burden Over the Life of the Siding
Cost comparisons that stop at the installation invoice miss the real picture. LP SmartSide's lower upfront cost has to be weighed against what it asks of the homeowner afterward: routine inspection of caulk joints, repainting on a schedule that's often shorter than what a factory-finished fiber cement product needs, and prompt attention any time paint gets scuffed, chipped, or worn at a seam. Skip a maintenance cycle in a climate like this one — where the dry, easy-to-work window is genuinely short — and the wood core is the part that pays for it. James Hardie's ColorPlus finish is baked on at the factory under controlled conditions, which is a more consistent process than field painting on a ladder in variable weather, and it comes with its own finish warranty separate from the product warranty. That doesn't mean Hardie siding is maintenance-free forever, but the maintenance clock runs noticeably slower.
Why We Standardized on James Hardie Instead
We made the decision to install James Hardie fiber cement exclusively — not LP SmartSide, not vinyl, not Cemplank, not Allura, not primed spruce or cedar — because it's the product we're willing to stand behind on Whatcom County homes without hedging. Fiber cement doesn't have a wood core to protect, so it isn't fighting the same battle against rot at every seam. James Hardie's HZ5 product line is specifically formulated for cold, wet climate zones like ours, not a general-purpose product applied everywhere. It's non-combustible, which matters more every fire season. The ColorPlus factory finish reduces how much the siding's appearance depends on a perfect field paint job, and Hardie backs the product with a strong, transferable limited warranty. When it's installed to manufacturer spec — correct clearances, proper fastening, flashing detailed correctly around windows and doors — it's a system built to handle exactly the salt air, driving rain, and moss-season dampness that define a Ferndale winter.
Questions Worth Asking Before You Choose a Siding Product
Whatever contractor you end up hiring, and whatever product they recommend, these are worth asking directly:
- Does this siding have a wood-based, cement-based, or vinyl core, and how does that material handle the moisture in our specific climate?
- Is the finish factory-applied and warranted, or will it need to be painted and repainted on-site?
- What's the realistic maintenance schedule — caulk inspection, repainting, ground clearance checks — and who's responsible for it?
- Is this product rated or engineered for a wet, coastal Pacific Northwest climate, or is it a general nationwide product?
- What does the warranty actually cover, and is it transferable if you sell the home?
- How is the installer detailing seams, butt joints, and flashing around windows and doors — the places moisture problems actually start?
Our Bottom Line
LP SmartSide isn't a scam product or a bad choice everywhere. It's a reasonable engineered wood siding that performs adequately in the right conditions with disciplined maintenance. But "adequate with disciplined maintenance" is a harder standard to guarantee than "engineered not to have that vulnerability in the first place," especially on a home exposed to salt air off the water, wind-driven rain, and a long, shaded moss season the way homes around Ferndale often are. We'd rather install one product we trust completely on every home we touch than offer a menu of options with different risk profiles attached. That's why every siding job we take on uses James Hardie fiber cement, and why we're upfront about the reasoning instead of just saying "it's what we use."
If you're weighing siding options for a home in Ferndale or elsewhere in Whatcom County, we're happy to walk your property, look at your specific exposure — sun, shade, wind direction, proximity to the water — and give you a straight answer about what makes sense. Reach out for a free, no-pressure estimate using the form below.