Dunedin sits on a stretch of the Gulf Coast where siding earns its keep. Homes near the Dunedin Causeway, Honeymoon Island, and St. Joseph Sound take on salt-laden air and wind-driven rain off the water, while properties farther inland toward Curlew Creek and Highlander Park deal with the same Pinellas County humidity, intense summer UV, and the daily afternoon thunderstorms that build up almost every day from June through September. Add hurricane season into the mix and you've got a climate that's genuinely hard on exterior materials.
That's the reason Alpine Exteriors installs only James Hardie fiber cement siding — never vinyl, never LP SmartSide, never engineered wood. This page focuses specifically on HardiePlank, Hardie's lap siding product line, because it's the single most common siding request we get in Dunedin, and there's real technical detail — profile, exposure, finish — that determines how a house actually looks and how well the job holds up.
HardiePlank is Hardie's horizontal lap siding line — long boards installed overlapping, bottom to top, in the traditional clapboard style. Two things determine how a HardiePlank installation reads on the wall: the surface texture (profile) and the exposure (how much of each board is left visible after the next course overlaps it).
Select Cedarmill has a subtle woodgrain texture pressed into the face — it reads as painted wood siding from the sidewalk and hides minor surface imperfections well in direct sun. Smooth has a flat, clean face with no texture, which tends to look more contemporary and shows a crisper shadow line at each course. Neither is objectively better; it's a style call, and we'll bring physical samples to your home so you can see both in your actual light before deciding.
Exposure is the visible reveal of each board, and Hardie offers several standard widths — commonly 4", 5.25", 6.25", 7", and 8.25". A narrower exposure (4"–5.25") creates tighter, more frequent shadow lines and reads as a traditional cottage or Craftsman look — the kind you see on a lot of the older bungalows around downtown Dunedin. A wider exposure (7"–8.25") creates fewer, bolder lines and gives a cleaner, more modern coastal look that's popular on newer builds and remodels closer to the water. The exposure you pick isn't just aesthetic — it also changes the board count, fastener count, and labor time on the job, which is one of the real cost drivers we'll walk through below.
Board-and-batten is Hardie's vertical siding style — wide panels or boards with narrow battens covering the seams — and it's a frequent question from Dunedin homeowners who've seen it used as an accent. HardiePlank (horizontal lap) and board-and-batten aren't competing products so much as different tools for different parts of a house.
| Factor | HardiePlank (Horizontal Lap) | Board-and-Batten (Vertical) |
|---|---|---|
| Typical use | Full-house primary siding | Gables, dormers, porch accents, single elevations |
| Look | Traditional to modern, depending on exposure | Farmhouse, coastal-modern, cottage accent |
| Water shedding | Excellent — each course overlaps the one below | Good, but relies more heavily on correct flashing behind battens |
| Common in Dunedin on | Older bungalows, ranch homes, most full re-sides | Newer coastal builds, accent gables, porch fronts |
| Maintenance profile | Straightforward; fewer vertical joints to monitor | More seams and battens to keep caulked and sealed |
Most Dunedin homes we side are HardiePlank across the full exterior, sometimes with board-and-batten reserved for a gable end or a covered porch wall as an accent — you get the visual variety without giving up the proven water-shedding performance of lap siding on the bulk of the house.
Every HardiePlank board can go on the house one of two ways: primed for field paint, or pre-finished with Hardie's ColorPlus technology. ColorPlus is a baked-on, multi-coat color finish applied at the factory under controlled conditions — it isn't a stain and it isn't a single coat of paint sprayed on site. On a house exposed to Dunedin's UV load and salt air, that matters. ColorPlus finishes are formulated to resist fading and hold color consistency far longer than a typical field-applied paint job, and Hardie backs the finish with its own limited warranty separate from the substrate warranty.
ColorPlus boards also come with color-matched HardieTrim, so the trim around windows, corners, and fascia is a true match rather than a field-mixed approximation. For homes close to the water where we already spec stainless steel fasteners to resist salt-air corrosion, pairing that with a ColorPlus finish gives you a full exterior system built for the environment rather than a general-purpose product that happens to be installed here.
Dunedin isn't architecturally uniform, and we don't treat every job the same way. Downtown and the older neighborhoods around Edgewater Drive and Douglas Avenue have a lot of Craftsman bungalows and 1950s–60s ranch homes where a narrower exposure and Select Cedarmill texture keep the siding in character with the original build — it reads as traditional wood clapboard, not a modern retrofit. Closer to the water and in newer construction and remodels, we're seeing more requests for wider exposure, Smooth texture, and cooler ColorPlus tones — a cleaner, more contemporary coastal look. Neither approach is more "correct" — the point is that HardiePlank is flexible enough to serve both, and we'll help you pick the combination that fits the house and the block it's on, not just what's trending.
Fiber cement siding is only as good as the installation behind it, and this is where a lot of the real performance difference between contractors shows up — it's rarely visible from the street.
Because Dunedin is a wind-borne debris region, we also confirm the assembly matches Florida product approval requirements for the wind zone — that's part of why we follow Hardie's installation manual to the letter rather than a generic "how we've always done it" approach; it's also what keeps the manufacturer's warranty intact if you ever need to file a claim.
We don't publish blanket per-square-foot pricing because the real cost drivers vary house to house — but here's what actually moves the number on a Dunedin job.
| Factor | Why It Affects Cost |
|---|---|
| Exposure width | Narrower exposure means more boards, more fasteners, more labor hours for the same wall area |
| ColorPlus vs. primed | ColorPlus costs more up front but eliminates the initial field-paint labor and repaint cycle |
| Existing siding removal | Tear-off of old wood, vinyl, or damaged siding adds labor and disposal beyond a straight install |
| Home height and stories | Two-story walls and steep gables require more staging and slow the crew's pace |
| Trim and architectural detail | Multiple corners, dormers, and window returns take more precise cutting and fitting than a simple rectangular wall |
| Substrate condition | Any rotted sheathing or framing found once old siding is off gets repaired before new siding goes on |
We walk every job in person before quoting, because a number pulled from a square-footage formula alone tends to miss exactly the details in this table.
A properly installed HardiePlank exterior is genuinely low-maintenance, but "low" isn't "zero." Caulked joints and sealant lines are worth a visual check periodically, since sealant is the one component that ages faster than the fiber cement itself. In a salt-air environment, an occasional rinse with a garden hose helps clear salt residue and pollen buildup before it accumulates. Primed boards will eventually need repainting on a normal exterior paint cycle; ColorPlus boards are built to go far longer before that's necessary, which is a big part of why we recommend it for exposed or waterfront-facing elevations.
If you're weighing HardiePlank for a Dunedin home — whether it's a full re-side, storm-damage replacement, or a board-and-batten accent on an existing lap job — we're happy to walk the property, talk through profile and exposure options with real samples, and put together a straightforward, no-pressure estimate using the form below.
Vinyl siding hangs loosely on nail slots and is designed to expand and contract, while HardiePlank is fastened rigid to the wall with ring-shank nails at specific spacing, over a weather-resistive barrier, with cut edges sealed and joints flashed. It's a more labor-intensive install, but that rigidity and moisture management is a big part of why fiber cement holds up better in wind-driven rain.
Confirm they hold an active Florida state contractor license — ours is RB29003900 — and ask specifically whether they follow James Hardie's published installation manual for fastener type, clearances, and flashing, since deviating from it can void the manufacturer's warranty. Also ask who pulls the permit and whether they're familiar with Pinellas County's wind-borne debris requirements.
HardiePlank is horizontal lap siding installed course by course with an overlapping reveal, while HardiePanel is a large vertical sheet product typically used with battens for a board-and-batten look. They're often combined on one house — HardiePlank on the main walls, HardiePanel-based board-and-batten on a gable or accent wall.
Only if you choose primed boards rather than ColorPlus. Primed HardiePlank arrives ready for field paint and will need it applied after installation and repainted on a normal cycle after that. ColorPlus boards come factory-finished in your chosen color and don't require painting at installation.
Yes — homes closer to St. Joseph Sound and the Causeway see more salt air, so we typically spec stainless steel fasteners and ColorPlus finishes on those elevations to resist corrosion and UV fading. We also confirm the installation meets Florida's wind-borne debris region product approval requirements, which apply across Dunedin regardless of how close a specific home sits to the water.