Blaine LP SmartSide comes up a lot in conversations with homeowners in Blaine and around Whatcom County, usually because it's priced lower than fiber cement and marketed as a durable, wood-look alternative to vinyl. It's a legitimate product with a real engineering pedigree, and plenty of contractors install it well. We don't. Here's the honest reasoning behind that decision, not a sales pitch against a competitor's product.
What LP SmartSide Actually Is
LP SmartSide is an engineered wood siding — strand-based substrate made from wood fibers, resin, and wax, pressed and treated with a zinc borate preservative, then coated with a factory primer or finish. It's a step up from old-style hardboard siding that gave engineered wood a bad reputation decades ago, and LP has made real improvements to moisture resistance and the borate treatment over the years. For a lot of climates, it performs reasonably well when installed correctly and maintained on schedule.
What It Gets Right
- Lighter and easier to handle than fiber cement, which can speed up installation
- Easier to cut and work with standard woodworking tools, no silica dust concerns during cutting
- Reasonable impact resistance for an engineered wood product
- Lower material cost than James Hardie in most markets
Why We Don't Put It on Homes Here
Our reservations about LP SmartSide aren't about the factory product being defective — they're about how it holds up over the long haul in Blaine's specific climate, and about the maintenance burden it puts on the homeowner after we've left the job site.
Wood Substrate, Salt Air, and Driving Rain
Blaine sits right on the water, and that means salt-laden air working against every exterior surface on the house, year-round. LP SmartSide's substrate is still wood fiber at its core. The borate treatment protects against rot and insects, and the factory coating protects against moisture — but that protection is only as good as the finish integrity and the installation detailing. Any cut edge, fastener penetration, or caulk joint that isn't sealed and maintained becomes a point where moisture can reach the wood substrate. Combine that with Whatcom County's driving rain — wind-driven, sideways rain that hits wall surfaces harder than a straight-down shower — and those failure points get tested constantly, not occasionally.
Moss Season Adds a Maintenance Layer
Our long moss and algae season is hard on any siding, but it's a bigger deal on a wood-based product. Moss and algae hold moisture against the surface, and on LP SmartSide that means prolonged dampness sitting right against a substrate that's vulnerable to rot if the protective layer is compromised. Homeowners can manage this with regular cleaning and inspection, but it's an ongoing commitment, not a one-time install-and-forget decision. Fiber cement doesn't eliminate moss and algae growth either, but there's no wood substrate underneath to worry about once that growth is present.
Installation Sensitivity
LP SmartSide's long-term performance depends heavily on correct installation: proper clearances off grade and roof lines, correctly sealed cut ends, proper fastener placement, and caulking that gets maintained on a schedule. That's true of most siding products to some degree, but the consequences of a missed detail are more serious with a wood-based product than with a cementitious one. We install a lot of siding, and we'd rather standardize on a product where the margin for error — ours or a future homeowner's maintenance crew — is wider.
Warranty Structure
LP does back SmartSide with a manufacturer warranty, and it's worth reading closely if you're considering the product. Warranty terms on engineered wood siding tend to carry more exclusions around moisture intrusion, finish maintenance requirements, and installation compliance than what we get with our fiber cement warranty. That matters most years down the road, exactly when a claim is most likely to come up.
Why We Standardized on James Hardie Instead
We install James Hardie fiber cement exclusively, and it comes down to matching the product to this specific coastline. Hardie's fiber cement has no wood substrate to protect — it's cement, sand, and cellulose fiber, which means salt air and moss don't threaten the core material the way they can with an engineered wood product. Hardie's HZ5 product line is engineered specifically for climates with high moisture exposure, which describes Blaine well. The ColorPlus factory finish is baked on with a process designed to resist fading and cracking without the same reliance on field-applied caulk and paint maintenance. And Hardie's transferable warranty terms are, in our experience, more straightforward for homeowners to actually use if something does go wrong.
None of this means LP SmartSide is a bad product or that every installation of it fails. It means that after weighing the trade-offs against what Blaine's coastal climate does to a wall system over ten, twenty, thirty years, we made a call about what we're willing to put our name on. We'd rather install one product exceptionally well than spread our crews thin across several.
Talk to Us Before You Decide
If you're comparing siding options for a home in Blaine or elsewhere in Whatcom County, we're happy to walk through what we've seen work and what hasn't in this exact climate. Reach out for a free, no-pressure estimate — we'll look at your home, talk through the options honestly, and let you decide from there.