Mounting a camera to cement fiber siding

I have a new construction house that has cement fiber siding (HardieBoard essentially).

I would like to mount a small dome security camera to this siding. I already have a small hole in the siding where the wiring comes out. The camera is fairly small (roughly the size of a softball cut in half), and fairly light (guessing two or three pounds). I actually also bought a plastic "L" bracket to help with mounting. To be clear: the bracket will attach to the siding, and the camera will attach to the bracket.

The question is, what is the best way to attach the bracket to this kind of siding? I'm not sure if I'll be lucky enough to have this thing land in front of a stud or even furring strip; let's assume we'll be between studs/furring strips. So I'm relying on the siding board itself to support this camera.

I've searched around the 'net looking for an answer, and it looks like opinions differ. I've seen suggestions to just use a wood screw (or similar course-thread screw), others say use a plastic anchor.

I'm hoping there's someone here with experience mounting smallish/lightish things to fiber cement siding.

Thanks!

 

Small 3/16'' x 1-1/4'' tapcon screws would work perfectly.

 

I have put up miles and miles of fiber cement. Assuming you have plywood sheathing on the house, it would be best if you used screws that penetrated into the wood sheathing. It does not have to be mounted into the studs. Any standard screw would work just fine. If you only have foam sheathing, and no plywood- that is where you would run into a problem.

 

These wall dog screws work very well in thin and unstable material:
The Hillman Group Wall Dog 1-1/2 in. Hi-Lo Steel Pan-Head Phillips Anchors (25-Pack)-376246 - The Home Depot

These screws will not strip out in material like thin door skin and cheap particle board.

 

I use Deckmates. They look like sheetrock screws. Don't rust or corrode.
Pre-drilling is not necessary. They go thru the Hardie and into the sheathing.


I install a lot of cameras and the part that I'm not following is the bracket for the camera.
Usually the dome type cameras have a dome that comes off and three holes where it's mounted thru the back plate into the wall.

Are you talking about this style ?



Many cameras can be mounted directly to the wall with no bracket. It depends if the camera turns and swivels enough inside the dome.

 

Thank you everyone for the helpful feedback!

I'm not 100% sure of exactly how the house was constructed, but I'm 99% sure there is no foam sheathing. (I've actually done a bit of reading about energy-efficient home construction, as I someday want to build a super-sealed, highly-insulated house; but that's many years away.) Point is, I asked a few questions before purchase about sealing/insulation, and it's typical code-min batting on 6" studs. I would have gotten extra excited if they foamed the exterior before putting up the siding.

Yes, the camera I have can be mounted directly without the bracket. It's exactly as you described, direct-mount via three screws. I mounted another one of the same cameras this way to the ceiling of my front porch.

The bracket I'm using isn't exactly like you posted, but conceptually it's the same. Here's the specific bracket I bought: DS-1258ZJ WM110 Wall Mount Bracket for Hikvision Fixed Lens Dome IP Camera DS-2CD21x2. And FWIW, the specific camera is the Hikvision DS-2CD2132F.

I want to use the bracket mainly because I thought it would make it easier to get the camera's view exactly how I want it. I already have another one of these specific cameras, and my opinion is they are really designed to be mounted "horizontally" (like to a ceiling or via the bracket), as opposed to "vertically" (i.e. how it would be mounted if to a wall without the bracket). This will be mounted above and to the side of my back porch, so "looking down" on the scene. I figured there is a slight pitch to the siding (not perfectly vertical) and I'm worried that, without the bracket, the camera won't naturally angle down enough to get the whole deck and door. I could be wrong, but I don't want to mount it twice. I believe getting it away from the wall a bit and the "horizontal" orientation gives me more overall field of view.

Thanks again everyone for the feedback, this sounds fairly straightforward.

 

Hi All,

I ended up going a slightly different route than what was suggested here. I pre-drilled into the siding and also whatever was behind it, and used some plastic anchors. Specifically these: 1-1/4 in. Poly-Set Pan Head Phillips Light Duty Anchors with Screws (25-Pack). Some random guy (another customer, not staffer) in Home Depot started talking to me about it while I was there shopping for the screws.

I always had a concern about stripping out the siding or whatever is behind it, so even before I posted I was kind of thinking of using some kind of anchor. The random Home Depot customer convinced me it was the way to go.

At this point only time will tell, but at least now it feels solid, for whatever that's worth.

Here's a pic of the finished project, let me know what you think. The bracket itself came with a foam gasket, but I went ahead and caulked all around it anyway. I figured it can't hurt.



Thanks again for the help everyone. Happy to hear any comments on the job, even if you think I totally botched it!