Spongy Siding

[Mr Rex]

True Masonite is not the same as the other crap. I was appraising a house about a mile from the plant last year. The HO was a former employee and had snagged four or five dozen sheets of Masonite with a pressed in wood grain pattern on the outside face. It's good stuff and nothing like "compressed cardboard." People keep trying to buy sheets off him but he won't sell.

Masonite did make a hardboard product that was part of the lawsuits and was the same crap as the others. Google it for yourself. Most folks call all hardboard masonite, becuase they were either the first or the biggest. Kinda like Drywall being called Sheetrock, when Sheetrock is a brandname.

 

[CANative]

The "good" Masonite siding was about 3/8ths of an inch thick and very hard. The other crap is soft, about 1/2" thick and probably 3/4" thick when it starts to swell and fall apart. It sounds hollow or like it's low density when you tap on it.

But let's not argue about siding. lol

 

[Rich Heyn]

Free canned comment of the day

From a seminar on appraiser liability I developed about 10 years ago, when the hardboard siding class action was still an item.

"The subject is sided with a type of wood siding that may be one of several types of what is commonly referred to as “hardboard” siding. Hardboard siding is different from siding cut from solid wood or manufactured from laminated wood (plywood). Hardboard siding is manufactured by using a resin to bond thin wood chips or wafers into planks. This results in a somewhat porous edge finish, which may have a potential for water absorption.

Published reports and several class action lawsuits claim that some types of hardboard siding absorb water along the bottom edge, butt joints and nail holes. The claims state that as the water is absorbed the siding expands and the wafers separate, encouraging more water absorption and ultimately leading to decay.

The appraiser is not an expert in the field of evaluating problems associated with hardboard siding. The client is invited and encouraged to employ qualified experts to inspect and address any area of concern."

 

[Mike Boyd]

Learn something new everday around here. I remember back in the mid 1950s when drywall was just then replacing lath and plaster. Dry wall was just that: it was gypsum board with a kind of vinyl covering. It was tongue in grove and was glued to the studs. That was really cheap stuff and limited to the lowest end of housing. Then, along came sheet rock which was nailed on walls with about a 2" wide non sticking tape over the joints and nails then a skip-trowelled finish applied to the entire surface. This is the product we know today but it took several years for it to be accepted. I remember writing ads for homes that had "real lath and plaster walls and ceilings." It's probably been 100 years since "lath" was really wooden "LATH". Now it is gypsum board with holes throughout the sheet that was nailed to the walls and then plastered over.