Thanks again for the info niff. I guess what I am ultimately after is something that come pre-finished, hence the Hardi choice for the siding. We are only doing a small amount of shake in the peaks of our gables, so not a big cost savings on one product over another. I have seen the Hardi trim on their website, but have not heard of anybody using it. Our architect/builder called out Koma on the plans for the trim, but I am not thrilled with paying more for the painting of it.

We are using hardi-plank siding. We really like it. IMO experience, I would not go with the pre-painted stuff. Ours is pre-primed and it has gotten scratched up pretty good in spots. I have not seen the nichiha and i am sure it is good, but I am not positive thicker is better. Hardi is plenty thick and weighs a ton as is. Thicker will weigh more.

We used cedar for all of our trim. We will paint it. I know painting cedar is almost a sin, but we are staining the hardi and have a stained deck. I guess we need color somewhere (=

We also used Azek as trim with our pre-painted HardiShingles and are glad we did. Our builder really liked working with Azek since it's light-weight and so consistent (no knot-holes, etc.). He even did some bending of it, although that was quite a challenge! Although it technically doesn't require painting, we painted it with a 50-year BM exterior white paint so it would match the white of some of our decorative trim pieces (brackets, crossheads, etc.). We also caulked the nailholes, although they weren't as obvious as we expected because our builder used smaller nails. We're hoping the Azek will never need to be repainted!

By the way, we were very glad we got our HardiShingles pre-painted and we didn't have any problems. They were painted by a company called Weiss who gives a 25-year warranty. Weiss has a nice range of colors or will paint a custom color. They're a good company that stands behind their product.

Here's a photo showing some of our Azek trim next to HardiShingles. Even the flower box is made from Azek!

I should mention that the paladian crosshead in the photo is not Azek. It's by a company called "Custom Decorative Moulding" ("CDM"). We really like CDM products and found their company to be extremely helpful. Their products can be made to custom sizes (as this crosshead was) and they come pre-painted in white - - although not the same shade of white as Azek.

P.S. If you decide to paint Azek, our painter learned that it takes special prep first. Not hard, just different.

For our project, the cost differential wasn't that much difference between pre-primed and paying for a painter vs. pre-finished. The upcharge in labor and materials for pre-finshed was almost enough to cover the cost of a painter.

Also, one note to add on the thickness of materials.... and I'm only mentioning because I didn't consider it until seeing it.... the thicker materials produce more 'beefy' shadow lines. Thicker siding can also mean thicker trim... not bad... just something to consider in your design process.

I would guess that nichiha is heavier, but as we opted to install the siding ourselves, I can honestly say that I actually prefer the additional weight in this case. The extra weight takes away some of the brittleness so I don't have to worry about it snapping.

Our house is hardie with miratec trim. The trim material was up to our sider and that's what he uses. We picked a hardie color, however. I don't know if the trim was painted onsite or factory painted. I suspect it came painted.

Our trim is Miratec, too. After 3.5 years it is not holding paint as well as I expected. This fall I will be repainting the trim. The Hardiplank is holding paint well.