When people search for siding in Lithia, most contractors talk in generalities — colors, curb appeal, maybe a warranty number. We'd rather talk about what's actually going on the wall. Alpine Exteriors installs James Hardie fiber cement exclusively, and within the Hardie product line, HardiePlank lap siding is the board we put on the vast majority of Lithia homes. It's worth understanding what that product actually is — the profiles, the exposure widths, the factory-baked finish system — before you decide what your house needs. This page is about HardiePlank specifically, not a general "why siding matters" pitch.
HardiePlank is fiber cement: a mix of cement, sand, and cellulose fiber pressed into long boards and cured. It's not vinyl, and it's not one of the engineered wood products built around a wood-fiber core. We don't install those — not because of a marketing angle, but because fiber cement behaves differently on a house in this climate. It doesn't expand and contract with heat the way vinyl does, it doesn't need the gapped installation vinyl requires to avoid buckling, and it holds a factory finish far longer than site-painted wood-composite products. Those are practical, verifiable differences in how the material performs over 15-20 years on a house, not claims about anyone else's product being defective.
"Lap siding" means horizontal boards installed with each course overlapping the one below it — the classic look most Lithia homes already have, whether that's a FishHawk Ranch two-story or an older ranch house off Fishhawk Blvd or State Road 640. HardiePlank comes in a few surface textures:
"Exposure" is how much of each board is visible once installed — the overlap determines the rest. HardiePlank lap boards are manufactured in a few widths, and the exposure changes the entire visual scale of a house:
| Board Width | Typical Exposure | Visual Effect |
|---|---|---|
| 8.25" | ~7" reveal | Traditional, wide reveal — common on ranch and farmhouse styles |
| 7.25" | ~6.25" reveal | A slightly narrower, still classic look |
| 6.5" | ~5.25" reveal | Popular on two-story homes; reads clean without looking busy |
| 5.5" | ~4" reveal | Tighter, more refined reveal often paired with board-and-batten accents |
Wider exposure on a large elevation can look right at home from the street but overwhelm a smaller structure or a shaded, tree-covered lot — and Lithia has plenty of both, from open new-construction lots to older wooded parcels near the Alafia River corridor. We walk this decision with the homeowner before ordering material, because it's expensive to get wrong and impossible to change later without re-siding.
James Hardie also makes a board-and-batten profile — vertical panels with a batten strip covering each seam, rather than horizontal overlapping boards. It's a different aesthetic and a different installation method entirely, not just a style variant of HardiePlank.
HardiePlank lap is the right call on the majority of full-elevation residential re-sides. It sheds water predictably (each course drains onto the one below), it's the look most buyers expect on a traditional or transitional home, and it's what most of Lithia's existing housing stock already uses, so a lap re-side blends naturally into the neighborhood rather than standing out as an oddity.
We use board-and-batten selectively — as a full treatment on farmhouse-style builds, or as an accent on gables, dormers, and porch elements paired with lap siding on the main walls. It reads as a deliberate design choice rather than a whole-house material, and on the newer construction going up around Lithia and FishHawk, that lap-plus-vertical-accent combination is one of the more common requests we get.
Every HardiePlank board can be installed as primed siding that gets painted on site, or ordered with ColorPlus — James Hardie's factory-applied finish, baked on in a controlled environment before the boards ever reach the jobsite. The difference matters more here than it might in a drier climate.
Hillsborough County runs long, humid summers and a real hurricane season, June through November, with wind-driven rain that hits siding hard. A field-applied paint job depends on weather conditions the day it's sprayed or rolled — humidity, temperature, dry time. A ColorPlus finish is cured in a factory, resists fading and chipping years longer, and comes backed by its own 30-year warranty separate from the substrate warranty. For a homeowner who doesn't want to think about repainting the exterior every 7-10 years, ColorPlus is usually the better long-term value even at a higher upfront material cost.
Custom color matching to existing trim, HOA-specific paint codes in some of the newer Lithia developments, or touch-up work on an existing HardiePlank home that wasn't originally installed with ColorPlus are all legitimate reasons to go with primed board and site-applied paint instead. We'll tell you honestly which situation you're in rather than upselling ColorPlus when it doesn't fit.
Most HardiePlank problems we get called to fix on other contractors' work trace back to a handful of installation shortcuts, not a defect in the material itself.
The bottom starter strip sets the kick-out angle for every course above it. Skip it or install it wrong, and the whole wall's reveal lines drift out of level by the time you reach the roofline — a cosmetic problem that's very visible on a two-story elevation.
James Hardie specifies exact nail placement relative to the board edge and requires blind-nailing through the overlap zone in most residential applications, not face-nailing near the exposed edge. Wrong nail placement is one of the most common causes of board splitting and premature failure we see on re-inspections.
HardiePlank needs a minimum clearance from grade, roofing, and decking — generally 6 inches from grade, 2 inches from roof and horizontal flashing — to keep the board out of standing water and splash-back. All butt joints and openings get sealed with a high-quality, paintable sealant rated for the movement joint, not construction adhesive or whatever caulk was on the truck that day.
Anywhere a roofline meets a wall, water needs a diverter to kick it away from the siding instead of running down behind it. This is a small, cheap piece of flashing that gets skipped constantly on production-home work — and it's usually the first place we find rot on a 10-year-old house.
Lithia sits inland from Tampa Bay, so you're not dealing with direct salt spray the way a barrier-island property is, but the humidity load is still real, and storm season brings the same wind-driven rain risk as anywhere in the county. The mix of large-lot, wooded parcels and newer platted subdivisions like FishHawk Ranch means we see two very different site conditions in the same zip code: older homes with mature tree canopy and more shade/moisture retention around the foundation, and new-construction homes on open lots with full sun exposure that stresses paint and caulk lines faster. Both situations change small decisions — drainage detailing, sealant choice, even which HardiePlank texture reads best against a home's setting — and we account for that on every estimate rather than running one standard spec for the whole area.
If you're weighing HardiePlank lap siding for a Lithia home, we're happy to walk your specific elevation, talk through profile and exposure options, and give you a straightforward written estimate — no pressure, no pushy follow-up calls. Just fill out the form below and we'll get in touch.
Fiber cement is cement, sand, and cellulose fiber cured into a rigid board, while wood-composite products use an engineered wood core. Fiber cement doesn't absorb moisture into a wood substrate the way composite products can, which is a major reason we install only Hardie fiber cement on Lithia homes. It also holds paint and factory finishes longer without the substrate itself degrading.
Ask whether they're a certified or experienced Hardie installer, whether they follow James Hardie's published fastening and clearance specifications, and whether they'll put the exposure width and profile in writing before ordering material. Also ask to see photos of completed lap siding jobs, ideally something they can show you locally in Hillsborough County.
Select Cedarmill has a subtle woodgrain texture that reads as traditional lap siding from the street, while Smooth has a flat, clean face often chosen for more modern or transitional home designs. Both come in the same board widths and exposure options — the choice is purely aesthetic, based on the style of the house.
ColorPlus costs more upfront per board, but the factory-cured finish typically outlasts field-applied paint by several years and carries its own separate finish warranty. For most homeowners planning to stay in the house long-term, ColorPlus works out to a better cost-per-year over the life of the siding.
Lithia doesn't get direct salt spray like coastal Tampa Bay properties, but it still sees the same humidity and hurricane-season wind-driven rain. Proper flashing, clearance from grade, and sealed joints matter just as much here — the difference is more about site conditions like tree cover and lot drainage than salt exposure.