Regardless of the make or model of your mobile home, it still requires maintenance and upkeep. New windows and siding are the two most common exterior updates for a mobile home. Most of us go with vinyl but re-siding your mobile home with fiber cement siding makes for a great looking home, too.
Any house siding will require care during its lifetime, including the need for replacement on occasion. If you are ready for a new look consider the many benefits of re-siding your mobile home with fiber cement.
Related: See the Homeowner’s Guide to Mobile Home Siding
Re-Siding Your Mobile Home with Fiber Cement can Mean Lower Maintenance for You
Whether the mobile home is currently sided in wood or vinyl, it will likely have some upkeep each year. Wood siding requires frequent scraping and painting to look its best. Also, over time some of the planks may begin to splinter, rot, or require replacement.
Vinyl siding is often seen as a lower maintenance option, and is frequently installed on mobile homes. However, it has its upkeep and issues as well. Vinyl may warp in hot weather. It may also crack or break upon impact, particularly in the cold, and may even drop right off of your home due to the fastening system.
Re-siding your mobile home with fiber cement gives you a truly low maintenance siding option for your mobile home. Fiber cement doesn’t peel, chip, or flake the way that wood does. Also, the color doesn’t fade, so you don’t need to worry about repainting every few years.
Fiber cement can hold up better in both hot and frigid climates than vinyl, and it’s installed more similarly to wood, so you don’t need to worry about planks simply popping off over time. Installing fiber cement siding on your mobile home means that you’ll have a lot less exterior maintenance over the coming years than you will with either wood or vinyl.
Better Durability
Hand in hand with the maintenance issues of wood and vinyl is the question of durability. Fiber cement siding contains a mixture of sand, silica, cellulose fiber, and Portland cement. This makes it heavier, denser, and more durable than either wood or vinyl. So, no matter what area or conditions your mobile home is in, or if you decide to move it from one place to another, you can rest assured that your mobile home will continue to look as good as it does the day that you re-side your mobile home with fiber cement.
In fact, fiber cement siding not only helps protect your mobile home from impact, it’s also fire resistant and bug resistant as well. This increased durability can help protect your home from anything Mother Nature may throw at it.
Appearance
Mobile homes can be just as attractive and stylish as stick built homes. They can also have a range of different appearances and trims. Fiber cement siding is easily able to accommodate any look or style that you desire for your mobile home.
Whether you choose to create the look of a rustic cabin with stained, irregular shingles, or you want the classic look of horizontal lap siding, it’s possible to create the look by re-siding your home with fiber cement. And with several options for matching trim as well, you can not only complete the look of your mobile home, you can get the same durability and low maintenance good looks everywhere on the exterior at once.
Fiber cement house siding also comes in a wide range of colors, able to suit any region your home may be located in. From dark greens to pale cream, you can find a color that will complement your mobile home.
Install Fiber Cement Siding on Your Mobile Home
Mobile homes deserve the same care, attention, and quality materials as other properties. Make sure that your mobile home is beautiful and low maintenance by installing fiber cement siding.
Weight Issues
Fiber cement is a heavy siding material. It’s made of 90% silica (sand) so it weighs in at around 300 pounds per 100 square foot. That’s 8 pounds more than cedar siding.
Because of the weight, fiber cement is best for manufactured homes that have standard size studs (2×4 or larger) and will not be moved.
What do you think? Do you have fiber cement siding? We want to hear from you. Comment below and let us know!
Thank you for reading Mobile Home Living!
Can I put the cement board over the metal siding we have. We are also planing on changing windows and trims
I am in the process of planning the remodel of my 1980 double wide which has some previous improvements. The focus is modern and low-maintenance. I plan to use fiber cement siding to replace the ‘board and batten’ panels. Is it possible to put the fiber cement panels directly on top of the pressboard? I ask that because one of the previous improvements was double-pane windows, which unfortunately have about a ¼” gap between the siding and the window flange all the way around because nothing was done to compensate for the greater depth of the new windows. (The options I have been offered as a solution to this are trimming the sills and reseating the windows or adding an extra layer of trim or removing the current trim and re-trimming with thicker wood.) Given that I have now decided to use fiber cement as the lowest-maintenance, best-looking option for the siding, what is the best way to attach the siding and fix the window issue? Thank you for being here!
Thanks for the tips, Robin! I would love to see your fancy new home! It sounds great!
Hi Crystal, we are in the process of enclosing the exterior of our 1970 single wide. We have built a pole roof over the home and installing stick built section of wall between the posts and then we will insulate and side it with 4×8 sheets of cement board siding and complete the look by adding battens to get board and batten look. We had cement board siding on a two story farm house we built and it is amazing! I highly recommend it.
Very nice looking.
If we ever were able to reside our doublewide (from vinyl), this is
definitely an option, in the shingle style. Maybe a nice moss green?
Great article.