Hardie® Plank lap siding is James Hardie's best-selling line: fibre cement, 5/16 in. thick and 12 ft. long, in 5 1/4, 6 1/4, 7 1/4 and 8 1/4 in. widths with a factory baked ColorPlus® Technology finish. Select Cedarmill® and Smooth both carry the full 19-colour Statement Collection®; Beaded Select Cedarmill® and Beaded Smooth are supplied primed in 8 1/4 in. Every board that ships to Ontario is HZ5®, with a sloped top and bullnose drip edge that drain water off the face of the lap. Noncombustible under CAN/ULC-S114 and evaluated in CCMC Evaluation Report 12678-R.
Hardie Plank is James Hardie's best-selling product line, from what the company describes as the number one brand of fibre cement siding in North America. The board is Portland cement, sand and cellulose fibre cured into a 5/16 inch plank, 12 feet long, and James Hardie's warranty states that it will not crack, split, edge check or warp from water, heat and freezing temperatures when tested to ASTM C1185, that termites and wood-boring insects will not damage it, and that it resists woodpeckers. Everything that ships into Ontario is the HZ5 formulation, engineered for climates with freeze thaw, snow and ice, and the HZ5 plank is cut differently from its southern counterpart: a sloped top that drains water to the outer face of the lap, and a bullnose drip edge at the bottom that throws it clear. The 12 inch primed plank is the exception and has no drip edge.
Select Cedarmill is the woodgrain texture and Smooth is the flat one. Both come in all 19 Statement Collection colours with the ColorPlus finish, baked on in the plant rather than painted on site, so there is no field painting on a ColorPlus wall and the finish carries a warranty of its own. On the code side the plank is noncombustible under CAN/ULC-S114, returns a Flame Spread Rating of 0 and, per James Hardie's instructions, a Smoke Developed Classification of 0 under CAN/ULC-S102, and HardiePlank HZ5 is evaluated in CCMC Evaluation Report 12678-R under the National Building Code 2015 and 2020. Two installation details catch crews new to the product: blind nailing is preferred with a 1 1/4 inch minimum overlap, although the only fastening James Hardie lists for the 12 inch plank is face nailing, and the ColorPlus laminate sheet comes off as each course goes on, not at the end of the job.
