In fiber cement installations, visible defects are rarely the first sign of failure.
More often, the problem develops silently—behind intact façades—until cracking, board movement, or fixing loss appears years later.
In many of these cases, the root cause is not board quality or design intent, but incorrect screw selection.
Retrofitting fiber cement boards onto existing buildings is rarely straightforward. Unlike new-build projects, refurbishment works must adapt to unknown, inconsistent, and often non-compliant substructures that were never designed to receive modern cladding systems.
Fiber cement boards are widely specified for their durability, non-combustibility, and resistance to rot. Yet many long-term façade failures attributed to “installation errors” or “paint defects” share a deeper, less discussed root cause: moisture cycling fatigue. This phenomenon rarely causes early failure.