Burlington What LP SmartSide Actually Is
LP SmartSide is an engineered wood siding product. The core is strand board, similar in concept to OSB, that's treated with zinc borate and saturated with resin to resist fungal decay and insects, then finished with a primed or pre-painted surface. It's a legitimate product with real advantages: it's lighter than fiber cement, easier to cut and nail without special blades, and it holds paint well when it's properly sealed and maintained. Homeowners in Burlington and around Skagit County ask about it because it's often priced a step below fiber cement, and contractors who install it will tell you it goes up fast.
We don't install it. Not because it's a bad product when it's done right, but because "done right" requires a level of ongoing maintenance and installation precision that doesn't match what we're willing to put our name behind, especially in this climate.
The Core Issue: It's Still Wood
Underneath the resin treatment and factory coating, LP SmartSide's substrate is wood fiber. That's not a defect, it's the whole point of the product, and the manufacturing process does a genuinely good job of protecting that wood under normal conditions. But every cut edge, every nail penetration, and every seam is a point where that engineered protection has to be re-established in the field, with caulk and touch-up paint, and kept up over the life of the siding.
That's a manageable job in a dry climate. It's a much bigger job in Skagit County. Burlington sits close enough to the Salish Sea that homes here deal with salt-laden air on top of the Pacific Northwest's long wet season. Add in a moss season that can stretch from fall through spring on shaded and north-facing walls, and you've got siding that stays damp for extended stretches every year. Any gap in caulking or coating on a wood-based product is an invitation for moisture to work its way into the substrate, and once that happens, the damage is happening from the inside, where it's hard to catch until the siding is already swelling, delaminating, or losing paint adhesion.
Installation Sensitivity
Engineered wood siding is also less forgiving of installation shortcuts than a lot of homeowners realize. Manufacturer specs typically call for specific clearances above rooflines, decks, and grade, careful flashing at every penetration, and factory-cut or field-cut edges to be primed and sealed before they're closed up. Skip any of those steps, or install in a hurry, and you've created a moisture entry point that won't show itself for a year or two, by which time it's a repair job instead of a five-minute fix. We see this as a real risk on a product where the wood substrate has zero tolerance for a missed caulk line, and it's a big part of why we stepped away from installing it.
What We Compare It Against
| Factor | LP SmartSide | James Hardie Fiber Cement |
|---|---|---|
| Substrate | Engineered wood (strand-based) | Cement, sand, and cellulose fiber |
| Moisture vulnerability | Wood core exposed if seals fail | Non-organic core doesn't rot or swell |
| Fire behavior | Wood-based, combustible | Non-combustible |
| Finish | Primed or pre-painted, needs field touch-up | Factory ColorPlus finish, baked-on |
| Maintenance | Regular caulk and paint inspection | Periodic cleaning, minimal repainting |
None of this means LP SmartSide fails in every application. Plenty of it is out there performing fine on homes where owners stay on top of caulking and repainting schedules. But we build our business on installing siding once and having it hold up with minimal owner intervention, and in a climate that gives wood-based products a genuine workout every winter, that's a standard engineered wood siding struggles to meet without diligent, ongoing upkeep.
Why We Standardized on James Hardie
James Hardie fiber cement doesn't have a wood substrate to protect. The core material is cement, sand, and cellulose fiber, so it doesn't absorb water the way engineered wood can, it won't feed rot or insects, and it's non-combustible, which matters given how many wildfire-smoke summers this region has seen in recent years. Hardie's ColorPlus finish is baked on at the factory under controlled conditions, not applied in the field or touched up on a ladder, and it carries a strong finish warranty on top of the product warranty. Hardie also builds its HZ product lines to be climate-engineered, and for the wet, coastal-influenced conditions we see in Skagit County, that's a meaningful match rather than a marketing line.
We're not going to tell you LP SmartSide is junk, because that's not honest. What we will tell you is that after weighing installation sensitivity, long-term moisture exposure, and what a Burlington winter actually does to a wall over twenty years, we decided fiber cement was the product we're comfortable standing behind without an asterisk. It's the only siding we install.
If you're weighing siding options for a home in Burlington or anywhere else in Skagit County, we're happy to walk through what we see on real houses in this climate and give you a straight answer. Reach out for a free, no-pressure estimate and we'll take a look at your home in person.