Both are products that try to replicate the look of wood siding. I personally think that Hardie board does a better job at accomplishing this.

I thought I would like the hardie more but I liked many of the samples of shake in vinyl more. I am still researching and also trying to persuade my husband that refinishing our original cedar shake is the best way to go.

We love our HardiBoard for our garage and the small area under the porch at the entrance (house is brick). No issues in 15 years. We chose the smooth because I don't like siding that is made with a fake wood grain-real wood clapboard is smooth, so the other just looks cheesy to me.

ETA: DLM, you garage looks beautiful! Now, THAT I would love!

We removed all exterior wood siding and replaced with HardiBoard lap siding during a 2005 remodel. We used vinyl on the soffit and fascia. We had some friends mention needing to repaint their wood sided garage which had last been painted in 2008. Our HardiBoard still looks fine 12 years later..

We just had a big hail storm. Our Hardiplank is unscathed even though we have broken windows. The vinyl siding in the neighborhood is completely torn up and destroyed. Not that hail is a common occurrence but it made me wonder if you get a beak on homeowners' insurance rates if you have it. We live in a townhome and HOA has the insurance so I don't know if that's the case.

Re-applying caulk to HardiePlank is part of their "cleaning and maintenance" guidelines rather than "re-painting/repair." Not that that's necessarily a deal breaker . . . just throwing it out there. In part because I'll have to make the same decision and want to follow this thread.

HardiBoard doesn't burn. I made it a point to let my insurance agent know this when upping my policy coverage after our remodel. Most of the house is brick but our new garage had been constructed using HardiBoard.

I remember your other post about painting, so is this instead of painting? Can I ask if you got quotes for the painting?

I have a "colonial" style house and thinking the wide board horizontal siding will look best. I really like the shake look on peaks or homes that have nice lines but my house is more of a box on top.

I ended up pursuing siding vs painting so didn't get quotes for painting. All the help in choosing a color for painting is being used on the siding selection so wanted to say thanks again for all the help!

Oh I was asking because it's a project on our to do list too so I was curious about cost vs durability. We have aluminum siding and with the amount of hardy we'd need it's kind of out of our range, but I'm also not a fan of vinyl. I'm glad the color fun we had is helping, that's the goal after all!

The horizontal boards will look good on your house, whatever you end up with. You just need to look at the materials and see which looks the best in person. (I mean of course maintenance is a consideration, but we're all after looks here!)

Can't help with specifics, though. We used a rough redwood siding on our addition to match the 60 year-old stuff. It's probably not a good choice for your area. :)

Hardi here. Most of the house is stone but after the flood we replaced everything that isn't with Hardi. It looks great.

About the comment about reapply caulk to the planks, I will ask about that when interviewing contractors. One who came out said that they use some type of metal to connect the boards when they join together vertically to minimize caulk joints.

I drove around some of the nice areas in the Detroit suburban area near us and most of the higher end homes that looked really good used Hardie board. I did see some vinyl but thought the hardie board looked better.

We put on Hardi 10 years ago, no problems. as above the plain looks very much like wood.

Hey Dave, I live in metro detroit myself. What did you end up using?

Hi Diana,

I had a vinyl product from Certainteed - Cedarboard insulated siding in a 7" height, installed on my shed and have lived with if for a year to see how I like it. After some time with it, I like it but not enough to want to have it installed on my home. It has a bit of a plastic look to it like all vinyl. After seeing some well done paint jobs on aluminum siding in the area, have decided to have my aluminum siding painted. I have seen to many homes in the area with vinyl siding where the vinyl shows buckling or warping. My aluminum siding lays very flat and so think painting will be a good choice.

Dave