Due to the increasing price of buying a house, many people are investing in fixer-uppers. However, some older homes need significant renovations on both the inside and outside.
If you’ve bought an older home to fix up and need to replace the siding, here are five tips for choosing it.
Know Your Options
When talking to a siding contractor, they will give you several options for siding materials, like:
- Vinyl
- Metal
- Wood
- Fiber-Cement
The right siding for your house will depend on where you live and the weather patterns in the area. If there are frequent hail storms or strong winds, then you’ll want something durable like vinyl. Fiber-cement is also durable, but it can cost 50 percent more than vinyl to install.
Choose a Good Color
The color of your house can evoke feelings from those walking or driving past it. Warm colors, which are reds, oranges, and yellows, can make a small house look bigger than it is.
Cool colors, which have blue, purple, and green in them, are relaxing and can make a home seem charming.
When picking a color, think about what will fit in well with the surrounding environment, neighborhood, and weather.
A warm color can seem hotter in the summer than a cool color, but they attract the least heat. Cool colors, like purple, attract more heat than any color besides black.
Select a Quality Contractor
It is important to find a good quality contractor to install the siding that you choose. Get at least three estimates when searching for a contractor. Estimates can vary widely but check for a contractor who gives detailed estimates and not just the cost of labor and materials.
Check their credentials, such as licensing if required by the state, insurance, and look them up on the internet to check for complaints. Also, most siding replacement companies employ qualified installers, so ask them the same questions as you would any contractor.
Consider Insulated Siding
Heating and cooling your home can get very expensive when the weather is extremely hot or cold for several weeks.
To keep your energy costs under control, look for siding with a foam underlayment. Insulated vinyl siding has some insulating value and will have an R rating between R-2 and R-2.7.
Along with helping to keep some heating and cooling costs down, insulated siding also provides some solidity to the vinyl. It can bridge the contours of the home’s walls and give the edging, and other trim features a solid base.
Maintain the Siding
It is important to the value of your home to keep up with its maintenance demands, including that of the siding. While vinyl siding requires little maintenance, wood and aluminum siding need more attention to keep up its appearance.
Along with occasional staining, wood siding requires a seasonal inspection to make sure termites or other insects are not boring into it.
The paint on aluminum siding can fade under a hot sun, so it may need to paint occasionally. The only thing vinyl siding needs is washing with the garden hose.
If you can foresee a time that you’ll sell the house, select a good quality siding using these tips. When putting the house on the market, you can recoup some of the material and installation costs.
However, as a homeowner, you can enjoy the appearance of high-quality, beautiful siding for many years after it is installed.