James Hardie Siding Denver, CO

JAMES HARDIE SIDING IN DENVER, CO

Most Denver houses are brick, which leads a lot of homeowners to assume siding isn’t their problem. Then they look closely at the gable ends, the dormers, the garage, the back addition somebody put on in 1978, and the pop-top that added a second story — and find that a meaningful percentage of their exterior is wood, and all of it is failing.

Denver siding work is different from suburban siding work. The houses are older, the lots are tighter, the neighborhoods have design review, and the job is often partial rather than whole-home. This guide covers what actually needs replacing on a Denver house, how James Hardie fiber cement performs alongside historic brick, and what design review means if you’re in a landmark district.

5280 Exteriors is a James Hardie Elite Preferred Contractor and a back-to-back Presidents Club Award winner for 2024 and 2025.

What Actually Gets Sided on a Denver House

The city’s housing stock breaks into a few eras, and each one presents differently.

Pre-war brick (roughly 1900–1940). Denver Squares, bungalows, and Tudors across Park Hill, Congress Park, Washington Park, Platt Park, Baker, and Berkeley. The main walls are brick and staying brick. What isn’t brick: gable ends, dormer cheeks, soffit and fascia, porch ceilings, bay window surrounds, and the trim around every opening. That wood is often original, and in a lot of cases it has been painted over so many times the profile is soft.

Post-war ranches (1945–1965). Virginia Village, Harvey Park, Athmar Park, University Hills, Mayfair. Usually brick on the front elevation with wood or masonite on the sides and back — the classic builder economy of spending money where people see it. The wood elevations are the ones failing.

Additions and pop-tops. This is the big one in Denver. Decades of second-story additions, back additions, and full pop-tops in Highlands, Sloan’s Lake, Berkeley, Sunnyside, and Jefferson Park. These were sided in whatever was current — T1-11, hardboard, cedar, early vinyl, stucco over foam — and they’re now a mismatched collection of materials in different states of decline, sitting on top of or next to original brick.

Garages. Nearly every older Denver home has a detached alley garage, and nearly all of them are wood. They’re the most neglected structure on the property and often the first thing a buyer notices during inspection.

If you’re in a Denver house and you’ve never thought about siding, walk the alley and look at the back of your own home. The street elevation is usually the one that got maintained.

Fiber Cement Alongside Brick

The design question that comes up on almost every Denver project: will new siding look right next to hundred-year-old brick?

It can, and it’s largely a matter of profile and proportion rather than material.

Exposure width matters more than color. Original Denver wood siding usually ran a narrower reveal than the wide profiles common on suburban new construction. James Hardie makes lap siding in multiple exposures, and matching the original reveal is what makes the transition read as intentional rather than grafted on.

Trim carries the detail. HardieTrim in the right dimension around windows, at corners, and at the frieze does more for the historic read than the siding itself. Skimping here is the most common way a technically correct job ends up looking wrong.

Vertical panel and shingle profiles exist for a reason. HardieShingle in gable ends is often closer to the original than lap siding, particularly on Craftsman bungalows and Tudors where shingled gables were standard.

Color against brick is a real decision. Denver brick ranges from red to blond to buff to the dark clinker brick common on 1920s builds. A ColorPlus selection that works against red brick can look badly off against blond. We bring physical samples and hold them against your actual wall in daylight rather than working from a chart.

Landmark Districts and Design Review

If your home is in a Denver landmark historic district or is individually designated, exterior material changes go through design review before any permit gets issued. This is not the same as an HOA, and it’s stricter.

Districts include Baker, Curtis Park, Potter Highlands, Country Club, Montclair, and a number of others across the city. Individual landmark designations exist outside those boundaries too.

What this means practically:

Review favors retaining and repairing original material where it’s feasible
Where replacement is approved, matching the original profile, dimension, and texture matters
Review runs on a schedule, so it adds weeks to your timeline — not days
Approval is required before permitting, which means before scheduling

Whether you’re in a district is worth confirming before you plan anything. Denver’s landmark boundaries don’t follow the neighborhood names people use conversationally, and homeowners are regularly surprised. A quick check with Denver’s landmark preservation staff early costs you nothing and prevents a project from stalling at the permit counter.

If you’re outside a designated district — which most of Denver is — none of this applies and you’re on a standard residential permit.

Why James Hardie for a Denver Home

It’s noncombustible. Denver’s older neighborhoods have tight lot spacing, with homes commonly five to ten feet apart. Fiber cement doesn’t contribute fuel the way wood siding does.

It survives hail. Denver sits in one of the most active hail corridors in the country. Fiber cement dents under severe hail rather than cracking or puncturing, which is the distinction that matters — punctures let water into the wall.

The finish holds at 5,280 feet. ColorPlus is a factory-applied baked-on finish, not field paint, carrying a 15-year limited warranty against peeling, chipping, and cracking. On a house where repainting means renting lift equipment on a tight lot, that’s worth real money.

It doesn’t feed anything. No rot, no insects, no woodpeckers — a genuine and underrated problem on wood-sided Denver homes.

We install the HZ5 line. James Hardie makes two regional formulations. HZ5 is engineered for freeze-thaw climates like Colorado’s; HZ10 goes to hot, humid regions. We spec HZ5 on every project here.

COMPONENT	TERM
James Hardie Product	30-year limited, non-prorated
ColorPlus Finish	15-year limited
5280 Exteriors Workmanship	10 years

What Denver Siding Projects Cost

James Hardie with ColorPlus typically runs $15 to $30 per square foot installed. Denver projects tend to land differently than suburban ones for a few reasons.

Partial jobs carry a higher per-foot cost. Siding only the gable ends and dormers on a brick house is a smaller square footage but not proportionally less work — you still mobilize, still set up, still detail every transition. Expect the per-foot number to sit at the higher end on small-scope work.

Access drives cost more than it does in the suburbs. A 25-foot-wide lot with a neighbor’s house six feet away and no driveway means staging material in the alley, moving it by hand, and working from ladders where a suburban job would use scaffolding. It’s real labor.

Substrate surprises are more likely on old houses. Century-old sheathing that’s been wet intermittently for decades gets repaired before new siding goes on. We look for this during the estimate rather than discovering it after demolition.

Trim complexity is higher. Denver Squares and bungalows have more corners, more window openings per elevation, and more decorative detail than a 1990s suburban build. That’s labor.

Design review adds schedule, not usually cost — but a stalled schedule has its own price if you’re coordinating with other work.

We assess and itemize rather than quoting a lump sum, because on this kind of house a lump sum is a guess.

Permits

Siding replacement in Denver is permitted through the city, and we handle it. If your property is landmark designated or in a district, design review comes first and permitting follows approval. We manage both.

Denver is a home rule city with its own process and its own timelines, which run differently from Arapahoe or Jefferson County. That’s worth knowing if you’ve done a project in the suburbs and are calibrating expectations from it.

Why Denver Homeowners Work With Us

James Hardie Elite Preferred Contractor. The top tier of the manufacturer’s program, requiring ongoing certification and installation to specification.

Back-to-back Presidents Club Awards, 2024 and 2025. A national recognition given to a small number of contractors.

We do the whole exterior. Windows, GAF roofing, and TimberTech decking alongside siding. On an old house where the roof, windows, and siding all meet at details that leak, one contractor owning all of it is worth more than it is on new construction.

20 years on Front Range homes, with a 10-year workmanship warranty behind every install.

Denver Siding Questions

My house is brick. Do I need siding at all?
The brick doesn’t, but the wood elements almost certainly do — gable ends, dormers, soffit and fascia, porch ceilings, trim, and any addition. On most pre-war Denver homes that adds up to more surface area than people expect, and it’s the part that rots.

Can James Hardie be installed over stucco?
Not directly. Stucco has to come off and the substrate underneath has to be assessed. On homes where stucco was applied over original wood siding — which happened frequently in Denver mid-century — what’s underneath is often in poor condition. We’d want to open a section during the estimate.

Will new siding look wrong next to my original brick?
It doesn’t have to. Matching the original exposure width, using properly dimensioned trim, and selecting color against your actual brick rather than a swatch book is what determines the outcome. We work through this in person with samples.

How do I find out if I’m in a landmark district?
Denver’s landmark preservation staff can tell you, and it takes one phone call. Do it before you plan anything — the boundaries don’t match the neighborhood names people use.

Can you side just the back and sides and leave the brick front?
Yes, and it’s common on post-war ranches. The design work is making sure the transition at the corners reads deliberately.

What about my detached garage?
We do those regularly, often as part of a house project. It’s usually a small enough scope that adding it to an existing mobilization costs much less than doing it standalone later.

Does siding help with the noise from I-25 or I-70?
Marginally. Siding isn’t the acoustic weak point in a wall — windows are. If noise is your primary concern, window replacement is where the money goes further.

Get a Free Denver Siding Estimate

Whether it’s a full re-side, the wood elevations on a post-war ranch, or the gable ends and dormers on a brick bungalow, we’ll come look at what you’ve actually got and tell you honestly what needs doing now versus what can wait.

Call (720) 707-6964 or request a free estimate.

Serving Denver including Park Hill, Washington Park, Congress Park, Berkeley, Sloan’s Lake, Sunnyside, Highlands, Platt Park, Baker, Hilltop, Mayfair, Montclair, Virginia Village, University Hills, Lowry, and Central Park.

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