OT: Who here knows a lot about vinyl siding?

The reason I ask is that it in the future I would like to get my home and garage sided with the vinyl that looks like wood lap board siding.
A friend of mine told me that I should have my house sided now while the market is down, but I also would like to wait until my home needs to be repainted in a few years.

I am not sure what it would cost for material? $70/square, $90/square---I dont know.

What does labor cost? Has anyone had their home vinyl sided in the past, what did you pay for material and labor.?

I have about 40-50 squares of material that will need to be purchased--plus the J-channel for the corners and windows.

I know that vinyl siding is the best for low maint., durability and cost.

I have a neighbor that has cedar lap board siding and could not imagine having that, I now have T1-11 siding that is less expensive then the cedar lap board.

PUT THE SIDING ON YOURSELF .. TRIM IS THE HARD PART OF THE JOB

PUT THE SIDING ON YOURSELF .. TRIM IS THE HARD PART OF THE JOB

I am picking up 18 square from menards tonight. It was 73 bucks a square for certianteed monogram 46. That's on the high end for non-insulated siding. It's about 100 bucks a square at the local lumber yard. Cheap end and I have used it but do not recommend it is at about 50 a square. Add in your corner, j trim, u trim I would imagine that my 73 dollar siding is 100 dollar a square siding don't have the reciepts here to figure with.

Vinyl is easy to put up so if you can run a hammer and a snips or saw you can install yourself. I have always done it myself cause its so easy but not everyone is up for that. I just know that when you start dealing with those window/siding people they are sharks so buyer beware.

The cost of the siding is about 1/4 the total cost of doing a siding job. Yep another one of those things I did for a living years ago. Putting it on isn't all that hard but you do need to have a good idea of how to do it or you can make a mess of it. Don't buy the real cheap stuff either because it will not last very long before it cracks etc.

My skills are mid level "do it yourself". My applications were very satisfactory I worked alone after studying some hand-outs from suppliers. There are some small and important points that many would not know intutively, like leaving the nail-head up from the vinal to allow for expantion. So recommend a little study and conversation with others.

Having vinyl siding on my house I will say this, get the better quality stuff with some insulation on the back so it is quieter. In the cold winter wind my vinyl siding makes a lot of noise, it's kind of distracting at night when I'm trying to sleep sometimes. And a little more insulation is always good.

I know it won't hold up to a rock thrown by a riding lawn mower,

Vern

Don't know much about the price but used to install it years ago. Do it yourself, it's pretty straight forward. Find the lowest point on house and start there. Pull chalk lines around the house at the top of whatever height the starter strip is from this lowest point. Make sure you go all the way around the house so you know that when they are all level you end up on your very first mark. Otherwise one or more walls won't be level. Tack on the starter strip. Tack on the corners. Box out around the hydrant, service entrance (meter or electric), doors, windows, decks porches and anything else that you will have to cut and fit-up around with J-channel including under the eves (soffit if you are going to use it and which is what I'll call it anyway). Stand in your drive or on the path to what ever door is considered the main door to the house, then lap the siding away from that point on all the walls that you can see from there. Or if curb appeal is more important to you lap all the walls that can be seen from the road AWAY from the road. Nothing worse than a sagged vinyl lap opening up on a hot day for all to see. Maybe today's vinyl doesn't soften, this is the way I did it for a living 30 years ago. The instructions (if you get any ) will tell you how much to measure up for the next course. Snap all new lines. Keep it level! DON'T get carried away with nails being to tight. The vinyl should slip with a sticky hand applied but not so easy(loose) that the wind will rattle it around. When you get to a soffit you will either use J-channel or something new I'm not familiar with to finish it up. You might have to rip the last course to fit. Might even have to hand cut slots for the nails to slip through. If your house is fairly new the soffit might even be level with the base. Now if you have a gable end you will have to cut each course at the appropriate angle to fit on each end. Try to stagger the laps all over the wall so not to many are grouped in one area. Then when you start up the gable you can use a shorter piece that's easy to handle. Place it over the last course lining the top end up with the end of the course it's laid over. Using a combination square, square up to the line you snapped or marked for the top of your next course (or you can simply measure it horizontally from the end of the piece in your hand) to where the top will meet with the soffit. This is your gable angle. Mark the next piece of siding for the next course with this piece by lining up the top of the angle with the bottom of the next piece, then laying it on top and sliding it to that mark with the bottom and then marking the top. Clear as mud? There's an easier(faster) way but I can't figure out how to describe it here. Most times the angle will stay the same on both ends all the way to the top so flip-flopping the last piece around for the next ones works for the most part. You'll soon figure that part out. If this is to much info or (more likely) seriously outdated info sorry to take up so much space. If it's helped a little then good my day wasn't wasted. ...Randy

PS - Considering your handle do you have an idea as to how much a Winchester Model 12 field grade shotgun would be worth? It has what I call a flame arrester choke on it ( looks like a vented silencer) with a removable choke in the end made by Lyman. It hasn't been shot in at least ten years. It's still tight. It's at least forty years old. It was my Dads. Thanks!

You can do it yourself. Go with a good heavy thickness, I just put Certainteed / Wolverene on my house. The instructions are on the internet. Although this was not my first house , it's not that hard. Don't scrimp on the thickness, there are different grades The siding is the cheap part, all the accessories are the parts that cost. There are more than 1 width of J channel , get the one that fits your siding. When applying the siding the starter strip must be straight. It should be level, but straight is more important. I would put half inch Tuff R 4x8 on after removing all the old siding. This helps it expand and contract if you can't get the nails just right and also gives extra insulation. There is a special one for use under vinyl sidng doesn't cost any more than the nice shiny aluminum foil coated one which reflects the sun's heat back into the siding.

Where do you live Gun guru? I can give you all kinds of professional advise/pointers. About the best vinyl siding around here is Certanteed "Monogram". It also installs a little different than all the others. When installing, you lock it on to the previous siding panel, then let it settle down. All other vinyl sidings, you need to hold up on the panel when nailing. A couple other quick tips: Do not use foil faced insulation. Do not level siding unless house is level. Many are not level. What to do: Put a 48 inch level up against all the windows on the wall you're going to side. If all the windows read 1/2 bubble off to the right, then you run the siding 1/2 bubble off to the right. Everything will turn out nice. I think you get the picture. I can always tell the amateur sider. Windows and doors all look crooked. Where the siding and soffits meet, the siding is on an angle. Sure enough, they leveled the siding. As far as thickness goes, you need to be at .044 - .046. No thicker, no thinner. What ever brand you choose, make sure it has UV protection. More important than insulation under the siding is "TYVEK" brand house wrapp. If useing rigid board insulation, do not use ship lapp joints. You'll pull your hair out trying to utilize every piece. You'll want a toung & groove, or but joint. Do not put all your nails in the center of the nail slot. You want to control the direction of the expansion/contraction. Example: pick one nail slot within a few inches from the corner post, and favor the corner post side of the nail slot when nailing. This will prevent the siding panel from comming out of the corner post when contracting in cold wheather. I can give you over 30 years of little tricks in the siding business. A full coverage job works out to be about 50% labor - 50% materials. Like someone else mentioned, get a good trim man.

OK Oliver, You win. I haven't done a stitch of siding in 30 years so I shouldn't have opened my mouth here. But I see things have improved. The early siding was installed a little different because it was new to us I guess. It a matter of how you want the house to look pertaining to the level. Most of the houses I worked on were in downtown St.Louis and were already a hundred years old when I worked on them in the seventies. We had to not only try to make the walls look decently level but they usually sagged inward too so we had to try and get them to look plumb also. I wasn't an amateur back then but I didn't continue in the business when my partner decided to quit. H3ll we were only teens but we made a pretty good living for a few years. I bow to a master though! Take care. ...Randy

Randy-IA, No winner's or looser's here. I can tell by reading your reply, that you have done your share of that business. And you know, every house is different. Take Care.

Thanks! I've been out of it for so long and didn't do it for but 3 years that I forgot a lot of the details. We did try to reduce the effects of a crooked house with some head scratching and creative application of siding using any breaks such as door openings or large windows to hide the looks of a out of level/plumb wall or out of plumb windows and doors. We also bent our own trim so fudging the dimensions of the trim helped to hide some irregularities also. There's a lot of tricks to learn to do a good job siding. ...Randy

Go to www.gunbroker.com

And that will give you a good idea of what it is worth. If it was your dads then it is worth more to you then to me. I have a Remington 11-48 12gauge autoloader (bought in the 1950's by my grandfather) It is priceless to me, but worth about $300 in the market. My grandfather died in 1998. My son will get that remington in 30 years or so.

Did our house and it still looks pretty good 5+ years later. I found j-channel corner pieces at Menards. They are pretty handy to have around windows and doors. At the time selling the old alum. siding just about paid for the vinyl.

Had some installed 30 years ago when it was new. Power failure due to ice storm. Guy used pocket knife to cut all of it. Looked good, too.