Im going to be putting up some vinyl siding for my grandma next week and she asked me to try to find the best vinyl siding for a good price, some good quality siding that will last a long time. I tried google and all the sites only seem to have info on what siding is and how to install it. I want to know prices and reputable companies. Do any of ya'll know of any? What is the best place or brand to get and prices?

 

There are many brands, designs, parent/base materials used these days and classified as vinyl, that a person would just need to go look at the product. There should be an outlet close to you. Go see what they have and the different installation methods. Some are timesaving while others are a waste of time. Also look into what might be required to go between the siding and the existing material.

Some companies are:
Alcoa
CertainTeed
Wolverine
Owens Corning
Variform/Napco

Might even try Home Depot or Lowes or Builders Depot or even a surplus warehouse. They should have "How-To" booklets.

 

Cool Ill look up those companies. Im in Fort Worth but my grandma lives in Garland so thats what Ill be doing it.

 

Hmmm, I just have to try to convince you to NOT do the vinyl. Talk Grandma into something else! We have vinyl on our house, and the very FIRST time my darling husband mowed the lawn when we moved in the mower threw a rock up and knocked a hole in our siding. Ugh. The only good thing about vinyl siding is that you don't have to paint it, ever, but that doesn't even begin to outweigh the bad things about it, such as it getting brittle! I guess if her heart is set on it....I think Canexel sells vinyl siding. Good luck and have fun!

 

It's also so-o-o-o cheap, but not environmental-friendly (as far as the manufacturing process).

Hardi-plank (cement board) is good and will withstand those mower-thrown rocks and even agressive little weed-eaters.

But, it's the cost that makes the difference - plus installation is a breeze with polyvinyl or vinyl siding.

But ----- ------ it is brittle and gets even worse as it ages.

 

lol I think shes set on Vinyl, she has vinyl on her house in the back already but its the cheap stuff, she wants good quality, and Id feel bad if I picked the wrong stuff and it chips easy or somthin. Ive never installed it....man am I lookin forward to it. Shes payin me though, money-thursday $8/hr at 10 hrs a day. So I dont have to work weekends or anything, she said Ill prob make a few grand.
Should I stay away from the brand of vinyl yall have gypsyrose?. I dont want her gettin somethin breaks so easy.

 

That wood t1-11 siding is good stuff. We were going to put that on our house, but went with vinyl as it's a lot cheaper and easier to put up. Plus, we got ours discontinued on sale and they just had enough for us to cover our whole house with a little bit extra incase of any repairs so we saved a lot on it. Our siding is probably two years old now and it still looks good, but we have a very small crack in one piece on the side of our house from the snowblower. Another disadvantage of vinyl is that when you nail up the molding, it's easy to dent it and I've seen some really bad molding/trim jobs on some houses. I like vinyl siding, but it has it's advantages and disadvantages just like everything else.

 

Her yard is VERY small and she only has a front yard that takes like 45 secs to mow, litterally, 3-4 passes and its done. Everything else including her back yard is gardened. So there really wont be any rocks bein thrown from weedeaters and stuff, and since it dont snow in Texas, we dont have to worry about snowblowers.

 

I'm not even sure what brand of siding we have on the house as it was there when we bought it. I know ours gets VERY brittle though with the weather going from cold to hot to cold all in a matter of a few days. We've also had problems with the wind getting ahold of the dang stuff and pulling it down (well the top row anyway) and so my honey has had to pull out the ladder and tack it back up before the puppy dog eats it. My husband works for a wholesale building supply company (they sell to the lumberyards) and they do the Canexel, its supposed to be good, theres a really high demand for it too. I'm not sure what it is price wise though. I realize you probably won't have problems with it getting brittle from cold weather, but how does it hold up with the heat? Does it fade also? Ours is originally a faded looking greyish bluish color so I can't really say if ours has faded or not!

 

I really dunno how it holds up in heat. I do know that alot of houses around here have vinyl siding and some of the houses by my dads house have it and have had it for a long time, and it seems to be alright. How hard is it to put up and how long does it take, on average? My grandmas house is a small house built in the 40's, maybe 9-10 ft tall, and Im thinkin 40ft x 40ft or really close to those demensions.

 

we had a house burn down just up the street from us. neighbor says it went up like a tinder box because of the vinyl siding. i would check the fire ratings on the siding.
JMHO

 

Well, I'm not sure what you put down under it ( I think ours has a foam board type insulation or something) or how difficult that part is, but I think the actually vinyl siding part is pretty easy. I think (sorry I can't say I *KNOW*, the best I can do is I *THINK*) each row hooks onto the row below it, then you screw it down or something. I've heard its pretty easy but I've never personally done it.

 

Hey Wez, vinyl is extremely easy to put up. just make sure you have a good pair of snips, and two saw-horses and a pice of plywood to lay the vinyl on to cut. We used chalk lines to mark the section htat needed to be cut. it really was not very hard, jsut make sure to account for the 3/4 inch overlap or so when doing the measuring. Granted it has been a few yars since I have done it, 5 or 6 to be more precise...but I cant imagine it having changed all that much....as far as durability, We where doing it on houses in south La off the lake. So there houses where on 10 ft stilts, never had to worry about rocks or anything. and the humidity would actually keep it from drying out....really just had to worry about the boards underneath/behind it rotting out.

 

Another thing I'd consider is where you're going to get it and if they have it in stock by the piece or have to order it by the case. We built on to our house and were lucky enough to find the color to match ours, but had to order it. We bought it at Lowe's. If our house had been white we'd have been in good shape, they sold it by the box or by the piece, and had it on the shelf in the store. I was worried about running out and ordered a little too much...would have been nice to be able to go and just buy it as we went if we ran out! We had never put it up before but took our time and are very happy with the results. The directions they supplied with the siding were really good!

 

Vinyl siding isn't difficult to put up, but there's more to it than meets the eye. It IS very simple to do a very poor job. The center of a given piece should have two nails close together to evenly distribute the expansion/contraction to the two ends of the piece. From there, the nails should be driven until they just barely touch the siding, but NO MORE--THEY SHOULD NOT BE TIGHT. Siding expands/contracts quite a bit, it needs to be able to move behind those nails. If you are installing on a day that is close to the hottest day of the year, you need to get the length as tight as possible to the ends. If you are installing on one of the colder days of the year for your area, you need to leave about 1/4" gap on the ends. Average day, leave 1/8".

Personally, I'm partial to anything painted, be it wood, fiber-cement, whatever. Properly done, with the high quality of paints available now, a good paint job can outlast vinyl siding. Plus, you can more easily change the color, should the whim arise--and, it can be done for less money generally than vinyl (if you're re-siding, not new construction). Okay, I'm a painter by trade, so I'm biased....but I've seen alot of vinyl go to junk that is only 10-20 years old. Today's paints can last 30 years or more.

Jason