We have had hardie plank on our current (we built new 10 years ago) home and have had significant issues with trim pieces rotting and falling apart. our builder used the hardie material for both siding and trim. The siding pieces have functioned well and the paint on them looks just as good as when the home was built (10 years ago) The trim however has been a disaster. In several places on the roof (near flash molding on dormer windows) it has completely disintegrated and fallen apart. And trim around doors at the bottom near the ground has also fallen apart. In both cases, it appears water spashing up has damaged the material. Although this problem has been going on for years, the time it took to get our builder to deal with it and the company to respond they say we are out of warranty. We have arranged to have some reduction in costs, but still we are spending thousands of dollars to get trim replaced. In short, as a personal user of this product, I would NOT recommend using it anywhere near where water will splash up against it or snow come in contact (we are in northern climate). The planks seem to work well but the trim in our experience is not reliable over what I consider a short term (home only 10 years old). Our next home (we are moving) we are getting vinyl.

glnnj - Certainteed's stained fiber-cement products come in 6 shades: mahogany, cedar, redwood, maple, slate (which is the silver grey of deeply weathered wood) and emerald (which is a deep green). Go to the page I linked to in my post above and pick any of of the stain-finished products by clicking on its name (in blue). This will lead you to a new page with a small picture of that product on the right hand side. The small picture will have will have six tiny "color squares" beside it. Click on a square and the small picture will change to that color. Click on "view larger image" to see it in a larger size. Bear in mind that the colors you see on a computer are determined by the settings on your computer so the best you can get is a general idea of the colors. You'll want to see sample in real life to get a better idea of how the colors look. That said however, I found that Certainteed was extremely helpful. I could not find a distributor in my area and contacted Certainteed directly. I was wanting their pre-painted product and they sent me a sample board with sample of every color at no charge. Also, even tho there was no distributor in my local area, Certainteed indicated they could and would deliver any product I wanted to me. They don't restrict certain products/colors to certain areas of the country. Nichiha also comes in six standard stain colors and 2 special order stain colors. Standard colors are mahogany, maple, macadamia, charcoal gray, caramel, and emerald wheat. Special Order colors are redwood and weathered grey. Below is a link to the Nichiha site. There are two tiny triangle on the bottom left and right sides of the big picture on this page. Click on them to move thru a slide show of houses built using various nichiha siding - some painted and some stained. Hope this helps. Here is a link that might be useful: nichiha

Read through the string of emails and found them very interesting...some facts and some experiences; I own a factory finish company (www.aciprefinish.com) I also field painted for 20 years prior to factory finishing. James Hardie sure did put fiber cement on the 'map' and they really helped my business by promoting factory finished siding (They call Color plus); and the fact is there is no way when I painted in the field I could equal or even come close to the quality, uniformity and 'total' board paint coverage a factory can provide. I certainly would not get caught up on the drying process; ACI has done both and a 'baked' on finish is simply for the manufacture to dry quicker, pack quicker and sell you quicker...the saying '... I don't get paid to watch paint dry' is very true. Air dry is the best, just takes longer; air dry allows the paint to penetrate the surface much better providing a deeper first coat base. Color plus is also sprayed on...ok but not the best; flood coat brushes the coating into the pores and specific to our process we have 6 brushes moving and pushing paint into the siding pores; in addition we 'wrap' around the back side edge of the board this further insures back side pressure from your home does not 'push' or 'pop' the coating, just more quality at no extra charge that most will never see or know about. Color should never be an issue though unfortunately a National company can not have every color in stock... locals like ACI can...over 1001 colors. If you are looking for fiber cement there are 4 brands to choose from; again Hardie is very well marketed though we found quality improvements in other brands, lower costs and better warranties. Really splitting hairs if 'we' beat on any one brand...they all have issues and benefits; I recommend looking closely at the texture grain, choose one and then do your research on warranty, price etc. Lastly, someone mentioned installers liking or not liking the installation process of factory finished - red flag if they don't like; our coatings are hard, our touch up comes from the exact batch we painted all your siding with...move on to the next contractor; at the end of day your getting the best coating process when factory finished. This should cost you less and your the one that will be living in your home and YOU should enjoy a long term coating with out having any maintenance concerns for 25 years (with ACI)less with the nationals. Good luck...believe in the process! Tim C President. Here is a link that might be useful: Architectural Coatings Inc.

@ILoveRed - Did you go through the regular 50 year warranty? If so - how long did it take for them to get you compensated? I am asking because I want to ding them on the fading paint 15 year warranty for the factory baked paint on my lap siding. I was surprised how easy the settlement was for me & while I was anxious to get final word, it was pretty straightforward to get all the paper work in. I took a weekend to document my Certainteed failures - fortunately they were all first floor damages - & another weekend to sort through the hundreds of pictures I took & send it all in via their upload system; 70 pics & measurements of my house. Sent them in 1 month before the Settlement expiration set in. Geomtery - which I was horrible at in HS - came in handy. :D