Anyone ever put siding or windows in?

[amdskip]

I live with my parents and we have a small 1 1/2 story house with windows that need to be replaced. My dad has had replacement window contractors over giving estimates but they are like 7,500-9,000 for like 14 windows that are average size and only one is a big picture window. Replacement windows are junk IMHO because all they do is put a new frame inside of your existing frame leaving the old frame areas uninsulated and they make your windows smaller. I have my dad convinced that they are junk and we should just put new siding and windows on the house ourselves and save some money while putting in "construction windows". The siding is aluminum and showing it's age so it needs replaced too.

here is the only halfway picture of the house I have

Anyone have any experience doing this? I have worked on construction before but never got to do the siding/windows due to school starting back up. We are pretty handy together so I don't think it would be too complicated. The hard part is the window measuring and installing new wood trim around all the windows (necessary due to it being in crappy shape because the previous owners had dogs). I have watched many a home improvement show, anyone care to comment?

 

[UDT89]

all i know is its a lot, A LOT, of work.

My good friend did out windows, and hes a pro. Took him over 2 weeks to do all our windows. Its tricky with cutting the siding and fitting it correctly. Plus you have to make sure its up to code.

I say get more estimates. You dont wanna start it then be stuck with holes in your house and no siding.

 

[amdskip]

Actually I was planning on doing one side at a time and we have no building codes in our town of 4,000 people

 

[amdskip]

^

 

[Beau]

I've done wood siding and lots of windows installs. It's really not that hard. Just make sure that you have at least someone with a little framing experinience. You'll probably be able to knock the cost in half if you do the labor.

 

[jamautosound]

You could call up a couple of siding and window manufacturer's and ask if they have any "how-to" videos for free.

I used to work at a vinyl siding, shutter and window shop, but I never did any installation. We had some video's for the siding installation. Vytec and CertainTeed were two of the products we sold.

Good Luck.

Oh, and try to find someone who can purchase the products at distributor cost. Saves lots of mula.

 

[amdskip]

hmmm, thanks for the links

 

[philmacrevis]

I replaced my windows and siding 2 years ago. I replaced 9 windows and used construction windows. My father in-law helped me and it took me about 5 weekends to complete. I could've completed earlier but I also replaced my sliding glass door and resized my odd sided windows to a standard size.

 

[dirtboy]

I've replaced a few windows in a house like yours before. I didn't know what I was doing either, and even though the workmanship didn't look professional, they worked well.

 

[Fritzo]

Windows are actually pretty easy to put in if you don't have siding (remove the base boards, pull out the old window, put the new one in, level it, replace the baseboards), but it's harder to do with siding in place.

Siding, on the other hand, is a (*#$&#@ to put on and will wrinkle or sag if not down correctly. We just had our house sided and 21 new windows put in two years ago....cost $22000.