So the Accoya would eat up $190K of your $230k total framing budget? The materials cost for Accoya is in the right ballpark, but the installation cost seems rather high. The $3.4/sqft for installed Hardie seems low. I'm a fan of Hardie as it was installed on my house when it was built in 2001 and still looks pristine. Something does appear off with those comparative numbers. Time to sit down with the contractor and: 1) make sure there are no mistakes in the calculations, 2) make sure you are on the same page in interpreting the numbers, and 3) if nothing changes, get an explanation of why the cost to install Accoya is so high compared to the Hardie material.

"is $3.8/ sq ft for hardie board and batten, including materials and installation."

Me thinks he under bid your house to get the project. You would have an impossible time getting vinyl installed for that sq ft price. Was this specified anywhere in the contract? You said estimate, what type of build is this and what type of contract do you have?

Thank you @kudzu9 and @millworkman. We will have a detailed conversation about these quotes. The high price of the Accoya installation vs the very low price for the hardie b&b was precisely what surprised us. This is a fully custom

home, we have a single budget bucket for framing and siding of $230k. Granted, it was spec’d for board and batten, even though we’ve wanted long vertical siding from the beginning. Our contract is a cost plus, so we would have to come up with the $190k difference (not happening).

@millworkman and when I say custom I mean completely custom from scratch: not part of a subdivision, not a repeated plan from our builder, etc. We are going for the modern scandinavian style, hence the appeal of the thin vertical siding.

Would like to know what Accoya product you're looking at, and what you eventually went with. I'm using Hardie for the majority of my project but considering Accoya for accent.