I’ve noticed houses that had 4x8 sheets of hardie installed without the batten strips tends to break and pull away from the wall especially at the seems. I tell my customers I won’t install it without batten strips so it lasts and have also added batten strips to other people’s installs not done by me that have issues. I was also curious do any of yall actually have hardie 1x2 strips or do you just rip down the 1x4’s. I know at least at some point in time they made them but they seem unavailable everywhere and I see other crews doing the same as me ripping 1x4’s in half but was wondering if there is actually a place to source them from or if they just quit making them because they broke too easily in transport? I was just curious if this was an unspoken thing that everybody figured out or if hardie actually decided it needed to be installed with batten strips.

I also see some people installing hardie directly over the studs with just tyveck and for me even if the walls are crossbraced I won’t do it without a sheathing and I’m not even sure it would pass an inspection without sheathing behind. Almost all my work is repairs and remodels on at times very old homes so I see all types of crazy stuff that was done before me