Lynden Siding Vinyl Siding: A Straight Answer From a Local Contractor
Homeowners in Lynden ask us about vinyl siding more than almost any other product, and it's a fair question. It's inexpensive, it's sold at every big-box store in Whatcom County, and a lot of homes around town already wear it. We're not going to tell you vinyl is a scam or that everyone who installed it made a mistake. What we will tell you is why our company, after years of exterior work in this specific climate, made the decision to stop installing it — and why we only put James Hardie fiber cement on the homes we work on now.
This isn't a sales pitch dressed up as an article. It's the same explanation we give homeowners standing in their driveway, comparing samples.
What Vinyl Siding Gets Right
Vinyl earned its market share honestly. It's worth naming the real advantages before getting into why we walked away from it:
- Low upfront cost — it's typically the cheapest siding material by the square foot, installed.
- No painting required — the color is mixed into the plastic, not applied as a surface coating.
- Widely available — every lumberyard and box store in Whatcom County stocks it, in dozens of profiles.
- Fast to install — panels snap together quickly compared to other systems, which keeps labor costs down.
If budget is the only variable, vinyl will win that comparison every time. Our disagreement with it isn't about price — it's about what happens to it over 15, 20, and 30 years on a house in this part of Washington.
Vinyl Is Plastic, and Plastic Behaves Like Plastic
Vinyl siding is extruded PVC — the same base material as plumbing pipe, formulated with additives for UV resistance and color. That's the whole story of both its strengths and its weaknesses. Plastic doesn't rot, but it also doesn't hold its shape the way wood-fiber or cement-based products do.
Temperature Movement
PVC expands and contracts with temperature swings far more than fiber cement does. Vinyl panels are hung on nailing slots specifically so they can slide as they expand and contract — install them too tight and they buckle or warp; install them too loose and they rattle or blow off in wind. Whatcom County's shoulder seasons, with big swings between cold nights and warm afternoons, keep that movement active most of the year.
Impact and UV Aging
Thin vinyl panels crack under impact — a ladder set against the wall, a stray branch, a thrown object — in a way that's difficult to repair invisibly, since matching the color of sun-faded panels years later is close to impossible. And vinyl does fade and chalk over time; darker colors especially can look noticeably duller after a decade in direct sun.
Why Our Climate Makes This Worse, Not Better
Every siding material has to answer to the specific conditions it's installed in, and Lynden's are not gentle on plastic cladding.
Salt Air Off the Sound
Whatcom County sits close enough to Puget Sound and Bellingham Bay that salt-laden air reaches inland homes, especially on west-facing walls. Salt air accelerates the breakdown of caulking, fasteners, and trim details around any siding system — vinyl's lightweight panels and plastic trim pieces have less mass and less rigidity to shrug that off compared to a heavier, factory-finished fiber cement board.
Driving Rain
Lynden gets weather that comes in sideways, not just straight down. Vinyl siding is designed as a rain-screen — it's meant to let some water get behind it and drain out — which works fine when installed exactly to spec, but is unforgiving of shortcuts. Gaps, poor flashing, or panels installed too tight all turn that "designed to weep" system into a place where water sits against the wall sheathing.
The Long Moss Season
Western Whatcom County's moss season runs long — shaded walls, north sides of homes, and anything under a tree line stay damp for months at a stretch. Moss and algae don't damage vinyl the way they can damage wood, but they do grow readily on its slightly textured surface, and the cleaning methods that remove them (pressure washing, in particular) can drive water behind panels or strip the surface sheen if done aggressively.
Installation Sensitivity Is the Real Risk
Vinyl siding's biggest problem isn't the material sitting in a warehouse — it's how unforgiving it is of installation error, and how common that error is in the field.
- Nail it too tight, and thermal movement has nowhere to go — panels buckle and wave.
- Nail it too loose, and wind gets underneath — panels rattle, or pull loose in a real storm.
- Skip proper starter strips, J-channel, or flashing at windows and doors, and water finds its way behind the panel with nowhere to drain.
- Cut corners on house wrap or weather barrier underneath, and the siding's own drainage design can't do its job.
We've been called out to look at vinyl jobs — not our own — where every one of these mistakes showed up on the same wall. None of that is really vinyl's fault; it's an installation-standards problem. But it's also exactly why we'd rather not put a product on a home where the margin for error is that thin, and where the failure mode (trapped moisture against sheathing) isn't visible until the siding comes off.
Vinyl Siding vs. James Hardie Fiber Cement
| Factor | Vinyl Siding | James Hardie Fiber Cement |
|---|---|---|
| Base material | Extruded PVC plastic | Cement, sand, and cellulose fiber |
| Fire behavior | Combustible plastic, can melt or deform near heat | Non-combustible |
| Finish | Color mixed into plastic; fades and chalks over time | ColorPlus factory-baked finish, formulated for UV and fade resistance |
| Dimensional stability | Expands/contracts significantly with temperature | Minimal movement; engineered for regional climate (HZ5 line for the Pacific Northwest) |
| Impact resistance | Cracks under impact; hard to color-match repairs | Resists impact well; more rigid board structure |
| Moisture behavior | Rain-screen design, dependent on precise installation | Engineered moisture resistance, less installation-error tolerance issue |
| Typical warranty | Often prorated after early years | Non-prorated, transferable limited warranty on materials |
| Upfront cost | Lowest of common siding materials | Higher upfront, generally lower lifetime cost |
Why We Standardized on James Hardie Instead
We don't install LP SmartSide, Cemplank, Allura, primed spruce, cedar, or vinyl. We install James Hardie fiber cement siding, exclusively, and it's a decision driven by wanting to stand behind our work for decades, not just through the final walkthrough.
Non-Combustible by Nature
Fiber cement is cement, sand, and cellulose fiber — it doesn't burn or melt. That matters in any climate, and it's a meaningful difference from a plastic-based product.
Climate-Engineered Product Lines
Hardie's HZ5 formulation is engineered for climates with more moisture and freeze-thaw cycling — which describes Whatcom County well, between the driving rain, the salt air inland from the Sound, and the long stretch of damp, moss-favoring weather each year.
ColorPlus Factory Finish
Rather than color mixed into a plastic panel or a field-applied paint job, ColorPlus finishes are baked on at the factory under controlled conditions, which holds up to UV exposure and touch-up better than most site-applied coatings.
A Warranty Structure Worth Reading
Hardie's limited warranty on their siding products is non-prorated and transferable — worth asking any contractor, on any product, to explain in plain language before you sign anything.
Questions to Ask Before You Choose a Siding Material
Whatever material a homeowner in Lynden ultimately chooses, this is the honest checklist we'd want someone to run through:
- Is the warranty prorated, and what does that actually mean in year 15 versus year 2?
- Who is responsible if the siding is installed wrong — the installer, or does the manufacturer's warranty get voided by installation error?
- How does this material handle sustained rain driven sideways by wind, not just straight-down rain?
- What does the manufacturer say about fire rating, and does that matter for this specific home or lot?
- What's the realistic maintenance schedule — cleaning, caulking, repainting — over 20 years, not just year one?
- Can the contractor show you the specific product line engineered for this climate zone, not just a generic version?
Get an Honest Look at Your Home
We'd rather explain why we don't install a product than sell it to you and let the weather sort it out over the following decade. If you're weighing siding options for a home in Lynden or elsewhere in Whatcom County, we're happy to walk the exterior with you, point out what we'd actually recommend and why, and give you a free, no-pressure estimate — no obligation to use the form below.