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You could have also pruned or removed the trees that are too close to the house.
Not these trees you couldn't. I also didn't want to take down trees that are 200 years old. Our home was built in 93 and back then the whole neighborhood had Masonite. There were over 1000 homes in the development and I don't know anyone who didn't have rot issues. Some weren't major but there is a reason why the company who sold it went bankrupt and is out of business.
Wow, people sided houses with Masonite? That's hard to believe.
My previous house had good old cedar shingles and they still look good after 90 years. Of course it had the advantage of many years of lead paint.
As far as vinyl goes, it's strictly an industrial product that will never look good, ever, but it'll never look worse than the first day. You'll need to own a power washer, though.
Wow, people sided houses with Masonite? That's hard to believe.
My previous house had good old cedar shingles and they still look good after 90 years. Of course it had the advantage of many years of lead paint.
As far as vinyl goes, it's strictly an industrial product that will never look good, ever, but it'll never look worse than the first day. You'll need to own a power washer, though.
Vinyl often looks worse than the 1st day. It warps, fades, cracks and sometimes gets chalky looking. In some cases it doesn't stay on the house!
Masonite (hardboard) was by far the most popular material in the late 70's through the early to mid 90's.
Come to think of it, I once saw a condo whose multistory side was bathed in sheets of vinyl lamely simulated vinyl siding. As if the world hadn't deteriorated enough.
The sheets were warping and curling in the sun like vinyl LPs.
Vinyl can hold up well in certain climates or situations, for example if a home is well-shaded. I think it's the wrong thing to do in higher-end homes or in neighborhoods where other homes are replacing with fiber cement.
Cosmetics aside, one of the problems with vinyl is that its primary selling point is its biggest drawback: painting siding usually involves caulking around windows, inspecting or fixing flashing and so forth. Sometimes once someone invests in vinyl, they believe they're "done with maintenance", so sometimes other things get neglected. Painting over fiber cement or wood siding involves prep work that would bring issues to light before they get worse, if nothing else providing caulking and a paint seal over many nooks and crannies that are otherwise opportunities for water. With vinyl sometimes things go too long because of the complacency feeling that nothing needs to be looked at.
For similar reasons I'm not a big fan of piece-by-piece replacements of Masonite. If budget doesn't allow for whole-house siding replacement, it is better to do the entire side of a house at a time, because you get the opportunity to inspect the house wrap situation and potentially replace rotten sheathing underneath it, something that may not be possible replacing a board here or board there. Doing one side at a time is typically not a hugely expensive undertaking, and in the long run will be much cheaper than chasing down individual boards.
I've seen James Hardie siding that hasn't been painted in over 15 years that still looked great. However in reality a home with fiber cement should probably be painted every 10-12 years or so for the benefit of an overall caulk refresh even if the paint looks okay. Even if the condition of paint isn't perfect, primed and painted fiber cement really isn't going to ever rot/decay unless you have something like a situation where it is too close to a surface that gets a lot of splashing from rainwater and mud on it, etc.,
The last 2 neighborhoods I lived in didn't allow vinyl siding. I will say that some of the newer versions of it look really good and its hard to tell they aren't hardi.
We had masonite on our last house...not really a big deal or expense as long as you keep it clean and maintained(caulked) and replace the few bad boards when you repaint.
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