Orcas Island LP SmartSide on an Island Job Site
LP SmartSide comes up in almost every siding conversation we have on Orcas Island, and for good reason. It's a well-engineered wood-strand product, it's lighter and easier to handle than fiber cement, and a lot of contractors install it well. We get asked about it regularly, so we want to be straightforward about why we don't put it on San Juan County homes, rather than just steering the conversation elsewhere.
What LP SmartSide Gets Right
SmartSide is a real engineering improvement over the old OSB-based products that gave engineered wood siding a bad name decades ago. It's built from strand-oriented wood fiber, resin, and zinc borate treatment for insect and fungal resistance, then coated with a SmartGuard process before it leaves the plant. It's lighter than fiber cement, which can mean faster installs and less strain on a crew working scaffolding on a steep waterfront lot. For a lot of climates and budgets, it's a legitimate option.
Where Our Concerns Start: This Is a Wood Product
Underneath the treatment and coating, SmartSide is still wood fiber. Wood swells, wicks moisture, and eventually breaks down when it stays wet — that's true no matter how well it's manufactured. The whole performance case for the product rests on keeping water off the wood fiber and out of the cut edges, permanently, for the life of the siding. That's a big ask anywhere. On Orcas Island, with salt-laden air off the water, driving rain that comes in sideways during winter storms, and a moss season that can stretch from fall through spring, it's an even bigger one.
Moss and lichen hold moisture directly against a wall surface for weeks at a time. On a fiber cement product, that's a cosmetic and cleaning issue. On an engineered wood product, prolonged damp contact against the substrate is exactly the failure mode manufacturers warn installers to avoid — and it's very hard to prevent on north-facing walls and shaded elevations that never fully dry out here.
Cut Edges and Field Sealing
SmartSide's factory coating protects the face of the board well. The vulnerability is at every cut end, notch, and fastener penetration made on site — miter cuts around windows, trim returns, corner boards, the works. Manufacturer specs require field-applied sealant on every one of those cuts, with no exceptions and no skipped spots, or the warranty terms can be affected. On a typical home that's dozens of cut edges, sealed correctly the first time, and re-inspected over the years as caulking ages and shrinks. We install a lot of siding on this island, in wind-driven rain and salt exposure that doesn't forgive shortcuts, and we don't want to build a warranty position — ours or the manufacturer's — on every one of those seals staying perfect for decades.
Maintenance Burden Over Time
SmartSide needs to be repainted on a schedule, not just for looks but to keep the moisture barrier intact. That means periodic inspection of caulked joints, prompt attention to any bare or chipped spots before water gets behind them, and repainting on a cycle rather than "whenever it looks tired." For a full-time Orcas Island residence that's manageable with attention. For a second home or rental that sits unattended for stretches, or a property exposed to direct salt spray near the shoreline, the maintenance window can close faster than the paint schedule assumes — and by the time damage shows, it's often already inside the wall.
Why We Standardized on James Hardie Instead
James Hardie fiber cement is cement, sand, and cellulose fiber — there's no wood fiber for water to swell or rot. It doesn't feed moss the way a nutrient-rich wood substrate can, it's non-combustible, and it holds up to salt air and driving rain without the same edge-sealing dependency. Hardie's ColorPlus factory finish is baked on and warranted separately from the substrate, so color and material performance aren't riding on the same maintenance schedule. The HZ5 product line is engineered specifically for the kind of freeze-thaw, moisture-cycling climate San Juan County sees.
None of this makes SmartSide a bad product — it makes it a different risk profile than we're willing to install our name behind on this island. We'd rather put a material on your home that we can stand behind for the long haul than one that depends on perfect field execution holding up for thirty years in salt air.
Quick Comparison
| Factor | LP SmartSide | James Hardie Fiber Cement |
|---|---|---|
| Core material | Engineered wood strand | Fiber cement (cement, sand, cellulose) |
| Moisture vulnerability | Wood fiber swells/rots if water intrudes | Non-organic, does not rot |
| Cut-edge treatment | Field sealant required on every cut | Less edge-sensitive to moisture |
| Combustibility | Combustible wood-based product | Non-combustible |
| Finish warranty | Tied to owner-maintained paint schedule | Factory ColorPlus finish, separately warranted |
If you're weighing siding options for a home in Eastsound, Deer Harbor, or anywhere else on the island, we're happy to walk your property, talk through what our climate does to different materials over time, and give you a straightforward, no-pressure estimate for James Hardie siding done right.