Also, we'd liek to add stone to the porch and go across to the garage doors mid way. We are not sure whether to go halfway up the porch or do the whole porch wall..These pics give you an idea of 1. halfway stone and 2. whole porch stone.

We just put hardie plank on our house and we love it! It is very strong so I can't see that it would ever crack. It is also fire resistant and maintenance free. You can use insulation behind it. We are happy that we chose it.

Where are you located? Maybe you can refer your contractor... We are in jersey. I've heard you need to caulk every 3 years or so. Do you have pics of your hardie job?

We are in PA. I haven't heard about caulking every 3 years...I will have to look into that. I will try to get some pics to you...we went with the color "cobblestone"

Hardie siding is great, I have it in my house and we use new insulation designed specifically for it. You can visit their website www.newlineinsulation.com Good luck

We have Hardie Board on our home and we love it! Cracking not an issue.

If I were you I'd extend the porch across the front of the house. Where the door is add a gable to the porch. I wouldn;t add a gable to the roof line, if that's what you are considering.


You could biuld out one of the rooms over the porch and put a gabel detail on it.

Thank you for all your feedback. We will go with fiber cement and add the new line insulation.Thank you supertank, avs13, and rhonda for your feedback. I have a quick question for you houssaon, it may not be clear in the picture but where our porch ends there is a wall there and will be hard to expand our porch. Do you have anoy other suggestions for our porch?

on our flickr page we have stone and siding combinations. Might see some ideas there.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/buechelstone/sets/72157626635322735/

http://buechelstone.com

I would like to suggest you consider Fullback and/or Linebacker as your insulation behind your fiber cement choice. Both these products have proven thermal bridge reduction results, impact testing, as well as very good moisture management capabilities. Check out their website at www.progressivefoam.com for excellent information about the products and itKs lifetime warranty. They have installed siding insulation on many homes in the New Jersey area and have an excellent reputation for quality and customer support.