Lynden An Honest Answer to a Question We Get a Lot
Homeowners in Lynden ask us about vinyl siding more than almost any other product. It's inexpensive, it's everywhere, and big box stores push it hard. So it's a fair question: why doesn't a Whatcom County siding contractor install it? The short answer is that we've made a business decision to install one product system — James Hardie fiber cement — and we'd rather explain our reasoning than pretend vinyl doesn't exist. This page is that explanation.
What Vinyl Siding Actually Gets Right
Vinyl isn't a bad product in every sense. It's genuinely inexpensive up front, it's lightweight, and for many parts of the country it holds up fine with minimal upkeep. Manufacturers have improved thickness and impact resistance over the decades. We're not going to tell you it falls apart the moment it's installed, because that's not true and it wouldn't be fair to say.
Why It's a Tougher Fit for This Corner of Washington
Our reasons for standardizing on fiber cement instead of vinyl come down to how the material behaves over years of exposure to our specific climate, not a general knock on the product.
Salt Air and Coastal Moisture
Lynden sits close enough to Puget Sound and the Strait of Georgia that salt-laden air is a real factor, especially on homes with any westward or coastal exposure. Vinyl doesn't rust, but the fasteners, trim accessories, and underlying moisture barrier behind it can suffer over time when salt air combines with driving rain. Vinyl is installed to "hang" rather than seal, which means water does get behind it by design — that's fine when the wall assembly drains and dries quickly, but it puts a lot of pressure on flashing details and house wrap that most vinyl installations don't get enough attention to.
Driving Rain and Wind-Driven Water
Whatcom County gets plenty of horizontal rain off the water, and vinyl's lap-and-lock installation method relies on gravity and small gaps to shed water. In a light, steady rain that's not an issue. In sideways rain hitting a west-facing wall for hours, water can work its way behind panels at seams, inside corners, and around window trim. It usually dries out fine if the wall is built right — but it means the assembly behind the siding is doing most of the real weatherproofing work, and vinyl gets the credit while the house wrap and flashing take the risk.
The Long Moss and Mildew Season
Anyone who's lived here through a Lynden winter knows the moss and mildew season runs long — often eight months or more of the kind of damp, shaded, low-sun conditions that let organic growth take hold on exterior surfaces. Vinyl's slightly flexible, textured surface and the small gaps at each panel overlap give algae and moss plenty of places to establish, and it shows up fastest on north-facing walls and anything shaded by trees. It can be cleaned, but it comes back, and repeated pressure washing over the years is hard on the panels and the fasteners holding them.
Heat, Cold, and Movement
Vinyl expands and contracts more than fiber cement with temperature swings, which is why it has to be installed with room to move — nailed loosely rather than tight to the wall. Done correctly by an experienced crew, that's manageable. Done even slightly wrong — over-driven nails, panels hung too tight — and you get buckling, waviness, or gaps that show up a season or two later. It's one of the more installation-sensitive products out there, and the margin for error is thin.
Impact and Appearance Over Time
Vinyl can crack in a hard freeze if it takes an impact, and its color is baked into the material rather than a separate finish — which means fading is permanent and can't be refinished without replacing the panel. Over ten or fifteen years, a vinyl-clad home in this climate often shows its age unevenly: fading on sun-exposed walls, staining on shaded ones, and the occasional cracked panel that never quite matches when replaced.
Why We Chose James Hardie Instead
Fiber cement isn't immune to the elements, but it's a fundamentally different material for a wet, salty, moss-prone climate. It's non-combustible, it doesn't feed mold or moss growth the way organic-adjacent surfaces can, and Hardie's ColorPlus factory finish is baked on under controlled conditions rather than applied on site — which holds color longer against UV and salt exposure. Hardie also engineers specific product lines (HZ5 and HZ10) for different moisture and temperature zones, so we can match the product to what a given wall actually faces rather than installing one generic panel everywhere. It carries a strong transferable warranty, which matters if you sell the house down the road, and when it's installed to spec — proper clearances, correct fastening, sound flashing — it's built to hold up through decades of exactly the kind of weather Lynden sees.
Our Standard, Not a Verdict on Your Choice
We're not saying every vinyl-sided home in Whatcom County is in trouble — plenty aren't. We're saying that after weighing installation sensitivity, moisture behavior, and long-term appearance against our local climate, we decided fiber cement was the one product we could stand behind on every job, so it's the only one we install. If you're weighing your options for a re-side, we're happy to walk your specific home, talk through what we see, and give you a straight, no-pressure estimate for a Hardie install — no sales pitch required to get an honest answer.