Materials advice needed.

[Frankenkubota]

Seems there a a lot of well informed builder types out there, thank goodness!

I'm building my house and garage, using subs of course, but trying to do some myself. The grader guy said I could help but his quote triples when the customer helps!

Growing up in Wisconsin, I became a huge Frank Lloyd Wright fan. I've visited many of his buildings and even looked into either buying an existing FLLW house or a set of plans. Big big bucks, to me anyway.

Many of his homes have hip roofs and huge overhangs, we called them soffits. Ive got hip roofs with 6 ft soffits. No more rotten wood!

Hardie board has a 4 x 8 x 1/4 sheet of their cement fiber board, sort of looks like T111. They also offer pre drilled material for soffit vents. Thats 2 x 8ft I think.

I've got lots of options but I know someone out there has a better idea than me.

thx and happy t day

 

[buck12]

I am not a builder but I used Hardie on my shop in 2008 and it has held up well. Other than some fading of the paint it looks like the day it was built. I built a cabin on our remote property last year and used Hardie again. In both cased I used the lap siding. The Hardie seems to really hold paint.

 

[Peter 315]

My soffits are plywood and the vents are 2''x 8' louvered aluminum........

 

[MossRoad]

While I really enjoy FLW's designs, many of his houses are notorious for structural problems. My father was an architect. He built a house that was heavily influenced by FLW. I spent the first 24 years of my life in that house. I have fond memories of helping my father initiate repairs and design changes. My father knew this going in to it. He called it an ongoing experiment in architecture. And he warned me about buying it from my siblings when he passed away, as it would have been the proverbial money pit. He suggested we sell it and make our own memories. So we did and have few regrets. In my opinion, they have too much glass and not enough structure. This makes them settle and, after time, they start to leak water around the windows. Sometimes inside, sometimes outside, but they leak. The roofs have large overhangs and the roofs don't have enough insulation. So the heat rises out of the house, melts the snow, the melt water runs down to the overhang area, where it hits the cold overhang, freezes, ice dam forms, ice damages the roof right over the window line, and Bob's your uncle, you get water leaks over the windows and water trickles down. You see icicles on the glass either inside or outside.

Another problem with those large overhangs is that on the north side of the house, they rarely dry out on the underside and you get mold. It's hard to ventilate them properly due to the low roof line. And, many of them sag over time as they are cantilevered out into space too far.

As my father explained it, they would be better off in southern climates where snowfall was not a concern.

Anyhow, those are my experiences with FLW homes.

Ventilation, moisture remediation, structural strength are more important than the materials covering it.

 

[/pine]

Historically in southern climes wide overhangs were intended to block the sun from heating the structure and act the same as awnings etc over windows which were primarily double hung (before AC was so common)...

Full hip roofs offer the most protection from wind over other styles but wide overhangs create the possibility of "lift" which in high wind conditions are what cause the most damage and roof failures...

It was Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and the investigations following that was responsible for some of the most prolific changes in building codes across the nation in regard to structure damage due to wind and the effects of lift...it was the cause and effect of those discoveries that are responsible for the instilled use of a plethora of metal fasteners and strapping etc. used to tie the the roof structure directly to foundations...along with much more stringent methods of securing roof and wall sheathing etc...

Generally speaking structures with full hip roofs with narrow eaves/overhangs (not necessarily the most aesthetic) are the least expensive to insure against wind damage...

 

[3Ts]

Water and wind are the 2 biggest enemies of a structure. Prevent the building from getting wet and provide ventilation so it can dry out when it does get wet. Anchor the building and tie the walls to the foundation and roof to the walls. The Joplin Missouri tornado aftermath showed that a small change in construction techniques (a few hundred dollars of steel ties) would have significantly reduced the damage from the tornado.

 

[3Ts]

I'm inclined to think that the Cement board products are probably the best at the present time from a utilitarian perspective. They are durable, weather resistant, hold paint well, and some forms of them help provide for a rain screen behind them. I've used the PVC boards in both Florida and Texas, they are good in the right environment and application but I'd use the cement board first.