James Hardie Board Inspector in Washington, PA

I have serious issues and questions on the installation of Hardie siding on my new home under construction in the Washington Pa area. Need help!

Joe called me yesterday and I asked him to post on this site to try to help him out, I also emailed Nick G to let him know a home owner was in need of assistance with the installation of the Hardie Wall cladding. I believe it is a new build and Joe is having issues with the builder, installer and hardi rep. Joe had found my information using google and a post I made in 2008. https://www.nachi.org/forum/f16/hardie-plank-lap-siding-28151/

You can try the Master Inspector Site and type in your area. http://certifiedmasterinspector.org/find-a-certified-master-inspector/

David,
Is there a little more information here? What are the issues?

Hardiplank has had very specific installation instructions by region. You mention he is having issues with builder, installer and “Hardi Rep”, I had a friend about 8 years ago in CO that had a home built. As it was being completed I was out for a visit. He took me ot the home and we did a walk through. The siding appeared poorly installed. Exposed cut edges, nails way over driven to the point of cracking the siding, improper overlaps in places, etc. Builder was uncooperative. We called Hardi directly and my friend explained the situation. Within a couple of days Hardi sent a rep out and it was resolved in less than 2 hours. Contractor pulled most of the siding and replaced. Again not knowing the specifics of this situation, hard to much assistance. If there is an issue with the rep I would call hardi’s corp office and take it higher.

I was hoping Joe would be more specific with his issues on his original post. If I remember it has to do with the installation, painting and the Hardi rep seemed to cause more problems for Joe then good.

They have pretty detailed documentation on installation practices. Here’s the Zone 5 document. https://www.jameshardie.com/d2w/best-practices/best-practice-guide-hz5-us-en.pdf

I would call the corporate office. They seemed VERY responsive to me. Get above the rep or even verify the rep is actually one of theirs and not just a distributor.

Sorry guys,
I kept looking for my post and could not find it. Had not looked for the last couple days. I did go through Hardie corporate in CA and then got a call from “Mike”, a warranty rep in the Akron, OH office. I am meeting with him and a couple others at 10 am. My wife an I documented two pages of items over the weekend. They range from putty to fill nail holes, sloppy, poor cuts, small pieces to complete a length when a single board would work. Nicks on many pieces, touch up smeared many times larger than a dime. Gaps, boards not sitting down properly such that you can look up under them. And best of all, a Hardie TECH rep told them they could paint 6 boards in the front of the house since the touch up was so poor! He then told me in a phone conversation the warrenty would remain in place! Then I read on line this is absoultely not true for the color plus warrenty! I will report on our meeting later today. Thanks very much for your comments!
Joe

Look forward to hearing how this comes out.

Yesterday I met with my builder and two Hardie reps. They were Claims Supervisor and Field Investigator. (CS or FI). The appointment was made with the CS. He brought the FI along since he has also installed the product in the past. That became obvious as he definitely was slanted toward the installer and did not know all the do’s and don’ts or even the color plus warranty. He even said the painted boards still met the warranty. CS had to jump in and say if we asked to replace boards that were painted due to warranty, we would NOT do so. I mentioned the product was uncovered and exposed to the elements! He looked down and said it’s still in the original wrapping! Well, the wrapping was all torn up and not covering over 50%. I told him the specs clearly state that if stored outside it must be in the original packaging and they covered with another water proof layer! The CA guy told me this is to ensure it doesn’t pick up moisture and then expand or contract differently after installation. He became argumentative.
So we moved on to issues I had circled in chalk or if too high recorded. On the cosmetic side both downplayed touch up larger than a dime voiding the color plus technology. But when the sun hits the house every nail hole they tried to touch up left a big smear. I asked how to touch up and they explained using a very small paint brush or some other applicator they suggested. Also, many of the nails were driven in too far.
They agreed some boards needed nailed down better. Other issues are hard to describe here by a novice such as myself. A few issues could have been done better. There is excessive caulking due to boards not being cut to the proper length. There are also issues with the flatness of the walls the board is being attached to and I get that! (I have interior bowed walls as well). At the end, I asked if there are any issues to cause the warranty to not be honored. Both said NO! So the cosmetic issues are between me and the builder! Yes. I do believe we will be replacing many boards and they said that can be done without affecting the warranty.
Thank-you to all of you who replied. I would be interested in any comments or recommendation and contact information from anyone in the Pittsburgh area who I could hire if needed.
For you information, the CA contact I went through was a “Mark” at 1-888-542-7343. He had me email my problems and issues to info@jameshardie.com. Said the email would come to him and he would distribute as necessary. He did that and I received the call from CS out of Akron office. By the way, CS was much more in support of me and I suspect will have a little different response when I talk to him one on one later today.