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On many 1980s and 1990s production homes in the Katy area, the brick stops at the second floor and the gables and rear elevation are hardboard. Thirty years of Gulf Coast humidity have been working on that siding. A hardboard elevation at this point is usually a replacement, not a paint job.
Hardboard is a wood-fiber panel or lap plank. When its factory finish and caulk fail, moisture enters at the cut ends and the bottom edge, and the board swells, delaminates and no longer holds paint. The signs are consistent: swelling along the bottom edge of the lap, bubbling or peeling paint that returns within a season, soft ends where a board meets trim, and butt joints that have opened or split.
A screwdriver tells more than a glance. Probe the bottom edge and the joint ends; wood fiber that crumbles or gives is gone. Repainting over it seals the failure in.
Production builders in the 1980s and 1990s commonly used hardboard for upper stories, gables and rear walls on brick-front homes.
This site does not say that any named subdivision has hardboard. Whether a specific house does is something a contractor confirms on site; the answer is in the boards themselves.
Siding and roof flashing meet at every wall intersection. A siding removal exposes flashing, and a roof at the same age has flashing on the same clock. See roof replacement.
The sequence in a proper job is removal to the sheathing, inspection and repair of what is underneath, a weather-resistive barrier, flashing at every window head and wall-to-roof intersection, and new siding with trim. Most rot is found at the bottom course, under windows and behind the ends of the wall where it meets the roof. The scope should say how rot repair under removed siding will be priced.
The replacement material is usually fiber-cement, which is the usual like-for-like upgrade. Community architectural rules generally require approval for a change in siding material or a repaint in a new color, even when the color is the existing scheme; see HOA approval. Painting is done as part of the siding job, not as a substitute for it.
Only if the boards are sound. If the bottom edges and joint ends are soft, paint hides the problem without stopping it.
A contractor can tell on site. Look at the upper story and rear elevation and at the texture and joint pattern; do not assume from the subdivision.
It depends on the condition. Matching new material to old across a wall is difficult, which often makes whole-elevation replacement more sensible than patching.
Describe what you are seeing and get connected with an independent contractor who works Katy houses.
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Katy Roofing