Burlington Two Fiber Cement Brands, One Choice
If you've been shopping for fiber cement siding, you've probably run into Cemplank alongside James Hardie. Both are fiber cement products — a blend of cement, sand, and cellulose fibers that's genuinely a good category of siding: non-combustible, resistant to rot, and far more durable than vinyl or wood in a wet coastal climate like ours. We're not going to tell you fiber cement is the wrong choice. We just don't install Cemplank, and we think Burlington homeowners deserve to know why.
What Cemplank Gets Right
Cemplank is manufactured by Plycem/Allura and sold largely through Menards and similar big-box channels. It's real fiber cement, and it does what fiber cement is supposed to do: it doesn't burn, it stands up to rain far better than wood or LP SmartSide, and it holds paint reasonably well compared to non-cementitious siding. For a budget-conscious fiber cement option, it's not a scam product. It's a legitimate lower-cost alternative in the category.
Where Our Standard Draws the Line
Here's why we don't put it on Skagit County homes:
- No regional engineering. James Hardie makes climate-specific HZ5 product for our Pacific Northwest weather — different moisture and freeze-thaw behavior than a HZ10 line built for the Southeast. Cemplank is sold as a more generic national product without that same regional tailoring, and in a county that sees salt air off Padilla Bay, near-constant driving rain off and on from October through May, and a moss season that doesn't really end, that regional engineering matters more than it looks like on a spec sheet.
- Factory finish quality and consistency. Hardie's ColorPlus finish is a baked-on, multi-coat factory process backed by a dedicated finish warranty, and it's been refined over decades specifically to hold color and resist fading, chipping, and moisture intrusion at cut edges. Cemplank's factory-primed and prefinished options exist, but the finish system and the length of track record behind it aren't in the same league — and in a marine climate, finish integrity at seams and butt joints is where siding actually fails first.
- Warranty structure and transferability. Hardie backs its siding with a strong, clearly documented limited warranty that's transferable if you sell the house — something buyers and their inspectors in this market increasingly ask about by name. Cemplank's warranty coverage is real but thinner and less consistently honored in our experience across the industry, which matters a lot when a claim actually needs to get paid fifteen years from now, not just written down today.
- Availability and lot consistency. Because Cemplank moves heavily through big-box retail, we've seen more variability in batch consistency and color lot matching than with Hardie's dedicated distribution network. On a repair or an addition five years down the road, matching an existing wall is harder when the supply chain isn't built for it.
Why This Isn't Just Brand Preference
We get asked whether this is just us pushing a "premium" brand for margin. It's not — installation labor is nearly identical between the two products, and the cost difference on materials is modest, usually a few dollars per square foot. What we're not willing to do is put our crew's labor and our own warranty behind a product where the finish, the warranty backing, and the climate engineering are all a step below what's available for a relatively small price difference. When a homeowner in Burlington is paying for the siding to last twenty-five-plus years through Skagit County winters, that gap compounds.
What Our Climate Actually Does to Siding
It's worth being specific about what we're protecting against. Burlington sits close enough to the water that homes pick up salt-laden air, which accelerates corrosion at fasteners and finish breakdown at exposed edges. Add driving, wind-blown rain that gets pushed sideways into laps and joints, and a wet, shaded moss season that can run eight months a year on north- and west-facing walls, and you've got a climate that punishes any weak point in a siding system — the finish, the caulking behavior, the way the product handles moisture at cut ends. This is exactly the environment James Hardie's HZ5 line and ColorPlus finish were engineered around, and it's exactly the environment where we've seen lesser fiber cement products show their age faster.
What We Install Instead
We standardized on James Hardie across every job we do — the HZ5 product line built for our climate zone, factory-finished in ColorPlus so the color and finish are backed by the manufacturer rather than a field-applied coat, and covered by a warranty that transfers to the next owner. It costs a little more upfront than Cemplank. It doesn't cost more over the life of the siding, and it's the only fiber cement product we're willing to put our own installation warranty behind.
Get an Honest Look at Your Options
If you're comparing siding products for a home in Burlington or anywhere else in Skagit County, we're happy to walk through what we install, why, and what it should cost — no pressure, no sales script. Reach out for a free estimate and we'll give you a straight answer about what your home actually needs.