Bellingham Exterior An Honest Answer to a Question We Get Often
Homeowners in Bellingham ask us fairly often whether we install LP SmartSide. It's a legitimate product, it's priced competitively, and plenty of contractors around Whatcom County use it. Our answer is still no, and we think you deserve the real reasoning instead of a vague "we don't work with that." This page lays out exactly why we standardized on James Hardie fiber cement siding instead, and what trade-offs led us there.
What LP SmartSide Actually Is
LP SmartSide is an engineered wood siding product. It's made from wood strands bonded with resins, then treated with a zinc-borate coating for insect and fungal resistance and finished with a primer coat. It's lighter than fiber cement, easier on saw blades, and generally less expensive to purchase. For contractors and homeowners working with a tighter budget in a drier climate, it can be a reasonable choice. We're not going to pretend otherwise.
Where It Runs Into Trouble
The issue isn't the factory product on paper — it's what happens once it's on a wall in a marine climate like ours. Bellingham sits in a stretch of Whatcom County that deals with salt air rolling in off the Salish Sea, long stretches of driving rain through fall and winter, and a moss and algae season that can run most of the year on shaded, north-facing walls. Engineered wood's core vulnerability is still wood: it's fundamentally an organic material, and organic materials swell, absorb moisture, and eventually break down when they stay wet.
- Edge and cut-end sealing is unforgiving. Every field cut, corner, and butt joint has to be properly primed and sealed on the spot. Skip one edge, and that's the spot where moisture gets in first.
- Caulk lines become maintenance items. Panel and trim joints rely on caulking staying intact. In a climate with this much year-round precipitation, that caulk has to be inspected and touched up on a schedule, not just at installation.
- Moss and algae find a foothold. Any siding exposed to Bellingham's shaded, damp microclimates needs regular cleaning to keep growth from taking hold at seams and lower courses. It's not a defect specific to the product, but it's a real ongoing task homeowners take on.
- Swelling at exposed edges is a known risk. If water does get past a seal, wood-based substrates can swell at the affected edge, and that's a repair, not something that reverses itself.
None of this means SmartSide fails on every home. It means correct, ongoing maintenance isn't optional — it's the entire game. In a drier climate, a homeowner might get away with deferring caulk touch-ups a season or two. Here, with rain most of the year and salt air working on every exposed surface, that margin shrinks.
Why We Standardized on James Hardie Instead
We made a decision as a company to install one siding system — James Hardie fiber cement — and stand behind it fully, rather than offer several products and split our expertise across all of them. Fiber cement is cement, sand, and cellulose fiber. There's no wood core to swell, and it's non-combustible, which matters more every year given regional wildfire smoke seasons and general fire-safety concerns.
What that gets a Bellingham homeowner:
- ColorPlus factory finish. The color is baked on at the factory under controlled conditions, not brushed on in the field. It resists fading and chipping far better than field-applied paint, and touch-up is simpler because the finish system is consistent.
- HZ5 climate-engineered formulation. Hardie makes region-specific product lines. The HZ5 formulation is built for the wetter, freeze-prone climates of the Pacific Northwest, which is a direct answer to the driving rain and damp winters we get in Whatcom County.
- A strong, transferable warranty. Hardie's warranty structure is one of the more robust in the industry and can transfer to a new owner if the home sells, which matters for resale.
- Proven long-term performance in wet, coastal climates when the installation follows manufacturer spec — correct fastening, flashing, and clearances.
Installation Is Still the Deciding Factor
We want to be straight with you: no siding product, including Hardie, performs well if it's installed wrong. Improper flashing, wrong fastener spacing, or siding installed too close to grade or a roofline will cause problems regardless of what material is on the wall. Our decision to install only James Hardie isn't a claim that it's magic — it's a decision to master one system deeply, install it correctly to spec every time, and give Bellingham and Whatcom County homeowners a product built for exactly the climate we live in.
Our Take, Plainly
LP SmartSide isn't a bad product — it's a product that asks a lot of a homeowner in a climate that doesn't forgive missed maintenance. Between the salt air, the rain, and the moss season here, we'd rather put our name behind a non-combustible fiber cement system with a factory finish and a climate-specific formulation than sell you something that needs more vigilance than most homeowners have time for. That's the whole reason behind our decision, and we're happy to walk through it in more detail in person.
If you're weighing siding options for a home in Bellingham or anywhere in Whatcom County, we're glad to take a look and give you a straightforward, no-pressure estimate on what a James Hardie installation would involve for your specific home.