I resided my house
(video at bottom)My house had a very old with composite shingles that was
installed over the top of the original wood siding that potential buyers were mistaking
for asbestos and were scared away.
In no way did I want to take on this job so I started by calling in a local siding specialist
to give me an estimate. I really wasn't prepared for the price that was quoted to me. The
quote was for more then $18000 for a less then 1200sqft house. In case you were wondering it
is almost double what the going rate should have been but obviously he didn't need the work.So
I went on a fact finding mission to see what it would take to do this on my own. I priced out
the permit through the town building department & the dumpster rental which I would need for a week.
I had to calculate the amount of materials to order and to have it delivered.
I pulled out the tape measure and took down the area measurements of the exterior of my house. Then
opened up my visio program and created some drawings and inputted the numbers I had recently taken
down. The visio program wasn't required but it made things easier to keep orginized.I took my drawings
with measurements down to the supply house and together we figured out how much siding, j-channel, soffit,
rolled aluminum flashing and outside corners I would need.
I also had to price a break rental. It is impossible to do any of the aliminum bends
without the break and there are quite a few to make around windows, doors & eves. I priced
it out at about $200 for 3 days at a local rental facility. So after buying the material, renting the
dumpster & break & paying for the permit I was at close to 25 percent of the previously quoted price. With
this in mind I decided to bite the bullet and move forward with doing it myself.
I ended up borrowing a couple of 20' extention ladders from 2 of my neighbors along with an aluminum
plank extention. I bought a couple of ladder jacks at home depot and was on my way.Since I had no plans of
getting help with this project I had to be very strategic as to what I ordered and when. Since I had to
remove the outer later of shingles my first choice was to go buy some cheap tarps to stage the shingles that
were being removed. The dumpster gets charged by the day so I got far enough into removing the shingles before
I called them. I then called for the supply house to deliver the siding materials. A few days later they made
the delivery. Still well before I needed it but I had the room in the yard to store it.
After exposing the original wood shingles which were in good shape but because of all the nail holes
from the out later I had to get bundles of furring strips to level it off. I then went over the
furred out wood shingles with 3/8" foam board insulation. All of this nailing prompted the purchase
of an air compressor and several nail gun attachments. I went the cheap route with the nail gun and
compressor at harbor freight.
So now the shingles were removed, the furring strips were in place, the insulation was installed I had to
rent the break, I measured out all the bends I would have to make and then pre-bend all of the aluminum. I
ended up having to reframe my windows and then wrap them in the aluminum before I could start with the siding.
Remember it was $200 for the 3 day rental so I was an aluminum bending fool for those days.
I did rely on the manufacturers web site video on how to do the installation and it was a big
help. They explained how to measure, how to fasten and best practices depending on your application
and climate. I ended up using a certainteed product which was fine but I'm not endorsing and hating
on the product. It was relatively easy to install once the initial learning curve was done.
My 70 year dad helped but he has a limited range of motion but he was creative and rigged up a pool
skimmer handle with a folder bundle clip tapped to the end. I would yell down some measurements and he
would cut and raise them up to me. Wow did it save some leg work on the ladders.
It took me about 3 weeks from start to finish and saved more then 12 grand. A project of this size
was daunting and thinking back I was really nervous about taking it on myself but it definitely worked
out for the best.
