Vinyl siding

[Ornery]

I simply don't like the amount of J-channel.

Compare vinyl to wood... or, is that wood? If it's vinyl, it's the type of detail I prefer.

Here's the best vinyl can look VS wood. The one in wood was taken from a recent job. It needs caulk & paint, but you can see how crisp the lines are in the details. That can NEVER be duplicated with vinyl. Here's the whole 100 year old house. You just don't go throwing vinyl on a house like that!

 

[jadinolf]

Originally posted by: iamwiz82
From any distance other than close up vinyl and wood are almost impossible to distinguish. Plus wood rots.

And the termites love wood.

 

Originally posted by: Ornery
I simply don't like the amount of J-channel.

Compare vinyl to wood... or, is that wood? If it's vinyl, it's the type of detail I prefer.

Here's the best vinyl can look VS wood. The one in wood was taken from a recent job. It needs caulk & paint, but you can see how crisp the lines are in the details. That can NEVER be duplicated with vinyl. Here's the whole 100 year old house. You just don't go throwing vinyl on a house like that!

Yea wood is cleaner due to the lack of need for connecting trim. Too bad wood is umpteen times more work intensive to maintain.

The best alternative to wood is the concrete board siding. It looks just like wood and is easy to maintain like vinyl. Only problem is that it is expensive to buy and hard to install.

I appraise countless 1800s houses that have vinyl installed and they look great. Wood is just too much work to maintain on these very large old style homes. Though the new trend is the concrete board siding and it looks great, better than wood in most cases.

 

[Ornery]

This house is one property down from Garfield's Home, and neither will ever see vinyl applied to them.

If I built a new home, I'd use vinyl, and every trick in the book to make it look perfect. I couldn't see putting that much effort into a shed!

 

[ABErickson]

We just went from wood to cement fiber siding on our home (at least everything but the front). It's some nice looking stuff. Hope it holds up. It's only been out around 10 years or so, but I haven't heard of a lot of problems with it. Pretty hard to tell it from the wood. As far as cost, the cement fiber is supposed to fall somewhere in between vinyl and wood.

The vinyl is starting to become pretty standard, and some of it looks decent. I wouldn't have any problems going with vinyl either, as long as it was decent stuff. Also, make sure they do a good job of housewrapping. Use a non-perforated wrap like Tyvek, and make sure the seal EVERYTHING (windows, seams, etc.)

 

[DrPizza]

That's what I was trying to put a finger on.... too much J-channel on vinyl sided houses. Around the windows... around the doors, etc.

Certainteed makes a product for around the windows and doors which gives it a nicer look. It also eliminates much of the need for work with aluminum around the windows. They even have a product to simulate the fancy crown molding above windows (or whatever it's called), but as was said, vinyl doesn't have the crisp lines that wood does. Then again, wood loses those crisp lines after about 10 coats of paint. (100 years)

 

[BoberFett]

Just don't get cheap looking vinyl siding. You don't have to go with the crappy stuff.

 

[Brackis]

At Peninsula Habitat for Humanity we have been recently using HardiPlank and Panel with great looking results.