Help with choice between stucco and Hardie board in Northern CA

2 years ago

Hello -

My community is rebuiding three houses after losing nine to wildfire in 2020. We are trying to balance fire safety with the extremely high construction costs in Sonoma County. For permitting, we need to make a choice ASAP between stucco and Hardie board and are feeling stuck.

Does anyone have experience with these materials in this climate - we are at 1500' so it gets very hot and dry in the summer, and alternates between thick fog, heavy rain, and sunshine in the winter. And obviously there are more and more fires ☹️

kudzu9

2 years ago

I have Hardie board on my home in the Pacific NW. It's not as hot as you are in the summer, but there is more rain in the winter. We re-painted for the first time after about 15 years; but that was because we wanted to change the color, not because it had deteriorated or faded badly. As someone who is also in earthquake country, I would prefer a wood frame house covered in Hardie board/plank, rather than a stucco house which I would see as prone to cracking if their was a significant earthquake. My thought is that rockwool would be a decent choice for insulating, but I don't think it is going to do a significantly better job of fire protection: if the flames are intense enough that the rockwool is a last ditch protective barrier, your house is probably pretty much destroyed anyway, and, once the exterior is breached, the rockwool would probably just spill out of the wall cavities. I'm not an expert in this, but have given some thought to it previously given the earthquake risk where I live and the increase in fires.

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Comments (7)

everdebz
2 years ago
last modified: 2 years ago
- online: "Build or remodel your walls with ignition resistant* building materials, such as stucco, fiber cement wall siding, fire retardant, treated wood, or other approved materials. This is especially important when neighboring homes are within 30-feet of the home."
everdebz
2 years ago
https://www.fire.ca.gov/
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PRO
Jeffrey R. Grenz, General Contractor
2 years ago
CA has a code for this & materials on local new housing will show you examples. Tempered windows, minimum thicknesses for exposed rafters, vent types, etc.

Hardie will work well. Expect to paint every ten years with a few extra coats on the barge rafters initially.

Don't know about rockwool effectiveness, but it is expensive. Consider a layer of gypsum.
Candace
2 years ago
I’m so sorry you lost your home - we too lost our home in CO to a wildfire in 2020, but chose to move vs re-build. I will say our builder (for the destroyed home) used rockwool as sound insulation between every wall and ceiling/floors and it made a HUGE difference - something to consider since you’re rebuilding. Good luck and let’s hope these stupid fires stop!
Emily R.
2 years ago
We actually have both -- Hardie 'cedar' plank siding in Coastal Santa Cruz-area house; and stucco on the house we just moved into on the Peninsula. The stucco seems to have held up reasonably well -- there are some cracks, but nothing too bad, and I'm sure it's not been repaired for years. It definitely gets dirty from the trees, vines that were growing on it, etc. That was unexpectedly annoying. We put the Hardie siding on about 4 years ago, and we've been really happy with it. That climate is pretty rough on houses -- close enough to the ocean for the air to be salty, lots of fog, very sunny -- and the siding is holding up really well. It *does* seem to retain a lot of heat, however! During the afternoon, it's definitely very warm to the touch; and it warms up the interior of the house. We also painted it a light grey-blue, though -- that might pull in more heat than say a white would.

Overall -- if we ever do this again, I'd go with Hardie. Good luck. These fires are terrible; we get the smoke, which is bad enough; and we watched the helicopters fly over our house on the way to fight the CZU fire in 2020. So much worse to lose your house. <3
A Fox
2 years ago
My parents went close to 15 years before needed to have their Hardie board repainted. They may have gotten by with a little longer but they were primarily seeing paint failure on their chimney and where the siding was above other rooflines (both problems with the original installation where the siding was being exposed to more water than it should have) and having had those both corrected had the entire house painted again.

Help with choice between stucco and Hardie board in Northern CA

kudzu9

Comments (7)

everdebz

everdebz

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