I looked at every option for months and nothing made me happy like real cedar shingle siding. love the way it looks on my house. We know all of the negatives. So far so good. Cue all of the naysayers...lol.

What zone do you live in? I have heard that there are issues with Hardie in some of the colder zones.

Thank you. We live on the coast of Washington state.
The contractor is leaning us towards the Hardie shingles. I know he’s thinking about ease of maintenance with Hardie. He’s probably also thinking about the amount of time involved in the initial prep of cedar - it’s a mess. I may have to check into the idea of purchasing pre-finished shingles.

Are you in areas with increasing wildfire risk? We're south of you in Portland, and this is a concern in building right now. Our siding guy preferred cedar quite strongly, but the city recently changed regulations and we're required to do Hardie or the like because of fire risk in our forested area. Even if not required, I would think hard about it if you're in a wooded area that gets drier in the summer.

I watched very closely the footage of the fires here in LA and San Diego last year. For many it didn't matter what the roof or siding was made of. Wind and air movement pushed hot ashes into the attics, through the vents in the eaves and roofs. The ashes then started to smolder in the insulation, turned into fires and burnt the houses from the inside. Many of these houses were not next door to a burning house.

Not sure what the answer is? Sprinklers in the attic? Fireproof materials in the attic? No vents?

dacam, I live on the Hood Canal on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state. We built our home 19 years ago. We were going to go with cedar shake shingles but the thought of having to stain every few years was just to much. We went with the Hardi Board and am so glad we did. We painted it a pale yellow and have never had to repaint. Like you we live in a heavily wooded area. In the winter months during some of the wind storms ( I don’t have to tell you about them), we get sustained winds of 50 MPH with higher gusts. That wind just blows off the water on the Hood Canal and the back of our house gets coated with salt spray. Best of luck to you.

We had our cedar siding pre dipped in Cabot solid stain which gave us a 15 yr warranty On finish. We built our last house with fiber cement lap siding pre-painted in “Sand” . The pre-painted had a 25 yr warranty on the finish. We had to paint the house before we could sell it due to fading...I think 12 years. Cost was over 7k. Under warranty the company did provide a few buckets of paint, lol. The fading was mostly on the South exposure.

So basically what I’m saying is that most warranties are not worth the paper they are written on. So don’t base your decision on warranty.

Maybe the finished on site fiber cement is less likely to fade than ours did.

ILoveRed, if I remember correctly, you live in Illinois? This is the problem I have heard of with Hardie that I was referring to above...premature shedding of paint in cold zones. I live in Northern Indiana and our builder was weary of Hardie.

Yep..Illinois.

It would be foolish to install attic vents in a forest fire zone and for that matter anywhere else IMO. Consider sealing the attic and use metal roofing.

Would the shingles be red or white cedar?

I agree warranties are of little practical use. Read them carefully.

Thank you. The metal roof is already installed. No ceiling vents. But there are some vents built into the concrete foundation.