Free written scope consultation - allowances, timeline, and change-order rules on paper before a single trade is scheduled
James Hardie Windows & Doors: The Fort Lauderdale Owner’s Guide
If your James Hardie windows or doors are sticking, leaking, or showing frame rot around the sill, we stock and install the replacement parts that match your original siding and trim system. In Fort Lauderdale, most James Hardie window and door trim replacement jobs run between $450 and $2,800 installed, depending on how much framing, flashing, and siding needs to come apart to get the new piece in. We are not affiliated with James Hardie; we just know their product lines well enough to match what you already have on the house.
The usual story we hear from homeowners near Victoria Park or Coral Ridge: the window itself works fine, but the Hardie trim board around it has started to swell at the bottom edge or the corner joint has opened up. South Florida’s wet season pushes water into any seam that is not sealed correctly, and once the fiber cement absorbs enough moisture, the paint lets go and the board starts to crumble. It looks worse than it is, but the longer it sits, the more substrate (the structural layer behind the trim) gets damaged.
Which James Hardie Models This Applies To
James Hardie makes siding and trim, not the window or door units themselves, so the parts we are talking about here are the trim boards, corner pieces, drip caps, and fascia that wrap your existing windows and doors. If your home was sided with HardiePlank lap siding, HardiePanel vertical siding, or HardieShingle, the trim around your windows is almost certainly HardieTrim boards in either a smooth or wood-grain finish. You can check the back edge of a loose board or the end cut for the Hardie stamp, though many Fort Lauderdale homes have been repainted enough times that the stamp is long gone.
There are three common widths we pull off the truck for most jobs: 3.5-inch, 4.5-inch, and 5.5-inch trim. The thickness is either 5/16 inch for most window wraps or 7/16 inch where the trim butts against a thicker door jamb. Getting this wrong causes the trim to sit proud of the siding or fall behind the stucco, which is why we always measure the existing board rather than guess. One compatibility gotcha specific to South Florida: if your house was built after 2010, it may have Hardie’s ColorPlus pre-finished trim, which uses a slightly different edge profile than the primed boards installed on older homes. You can prime and paint a ColorPlus board if you need to match the older stuff, but it is better to buy the right version the first time.
Styles & brands we work with
Signs Your James Hardie Windows & Doors Is Failing
- Paint bubbling along the bottom edge of the trim: Water is wicking up from the sill. The board looks fine from six feet away, but press a flathead screwdriver gently into the lower two inches and you will feel the fiber cement give. That is not a paint problem; that is a moisture problem.
- Corner joint has separated or opened: Hardie trim corners are usually mitered and caulked. When the caulk fails and the corners open, the natural expansion of the board in humid weather finishes the job. Water gets behind the trim and the rot cycle starts on the framing behind it.
- Drip cap is missing, bent, or rusted: The metal flashing above the window should direct water away from the glass and onto the trim face. Once it goes, every rainstorm pushes water straight into the gap between the window flange and the Hardie board.
- You can see daylight between the trim and the siding: The board has pulled away from the house, usually because the original installer used interior-grade fasteners instead of corrosion-resistant screws rated for exterior use. In Fort Lauderdale’s salt air, cheap fasteners rust and snap inside the board.
- The window or door operates fine but the frame around it feels soft: The unit itself is usually not the failure. The Hardie trim is. If we catch it early, we replace the trim and re-flash the opening. If we do not, we are tearing out rotted sheathing and possibly part of the rough opening framing.
See the difference
Before
After
Before
After
Before
AfterReplacement Cost & What’s Included
In Fort Lauderdale, expect to pay between $450 and $2,800 for James Hardie window and door trim replacement, depending on scope. A single window with one bad trim board on the bottom runs on the lower end, assuming the flashing and building paper behind it are still intact. A full door surround with two side boards, a head board, a new drip cap, and some framing repair lands on the higher end.
What moves the number: how many windows or doors are involved, whether we are matching a smooth or wood-grain texture, whether the existing board is primed or ColorPlus, and how much of the surrounding HardiePlank lap siding has to come off to reach the nail fin. Every one of our quotes in Fort Lauderdale is written, line-itemed, and priced before work starts. The number we hand you is the number on the invoice, which is something we have done since 2004 under the Kingswell standard and will keep doing because it works. Every repair carries our 365-Day Done Right Promise: if the work fails inside a year, we come back and fix it at no charge. If it fails after that, we still come back and take a look; you are not stuck with a voicemail maze either way. A real person answers the phone at (754) 551-2922.
DIY or Call Us?
There are things you can check safely on a Saturday morning. Look at the caulk beads around the trim corners. Check whether the drip cap above the door is still there and still sealed. Press gently on the bottom edge of any board that looks swollen. Cleaning and re-caulking the seams is something a careful homeowner can do with a tube of exterior-grade polyurethane caulk and a putty knife.
The part we would not recommend doing yourself is the actual board replacement. The boards are heavy and brittle at the corners, and the cut has to be square and the gap backer-rodded before caulking or you end up with the same problem this time next year. Also, pulling trim on an exterior wall in Fort Lauderdale means exposing the water-resistive barrier, and if that is torn or mis-lapped, you have created a leak you did not know was there. We would rather you call and ask us to look at it. Tell me what you need, I’ll tell you what it costs, then we’ll get it done.
FAQs
James Hardie trim can last 25 years or more in Fort Lauderdale when it is installed with the right fasteners, backer rod, caulk and flashing, and repainted every 7 to 10 years. The failure we see most often is not the board itself but the installation details around it, especially the drip cap and the bottom edge seal.
If the damage is limited to the paint film or a shallow surface chip, we can patch and repaint that board and you will get several more years out of it. If the board has moisture damage, softness, or cracking that goes through the material, the correct repair is to replace the full board and re-flash the joint. Caulk over failing fiber cement is a temporary patch, not a fix. Call (754) 551-2922 and we will tell you which one you have.
Most single window trim replacements take half a day, including removal, any flashing repair, cutting the new Hardie board, and caulking. A full door surround with multiple trim boards and a new drip cap usually runs a full day. We give you a written arrival window before work starts and we hit it, which is something your last contractor probably did not do.
We stock the three most common hardie trim widths and both textures on our trucks, along with the stainless steel or hot-dip galvanized fasteners rated for exterior use. If your Fort Lauderdale home needs a less common size or ColorPlus finish, we order it direct and it is usually on site within a few days. We also regularly work with KraftMaid, Cambria, and Silestone materials on the interior side, so we are used to matching finishes across the whole project.
Written by Trevor Nash, Owner, Penhallow Remodeling Fort Lauderdale at Penhallow Remodeling Fort Lauderdale, serving Fort Lauderdale and nearby areas.
