Hey, welcome to the you ask the pros answer podcast, your questions answered by the

pros you trust presented by pro exteriors. Well, last week's show, we started out,

I was the homeowner in the situation talking through the possibilities.

Like, is it time to replace my siding? I don't know. So we discussed a lot of the

factors that go into making that decision. Well, on this week's episode, I have come

to the conclusion that, yes, it is time. And so I talk with Aaron about what those

next steps are. Again, we are revisiting episode six of the show. We are revisiting

it because we felt like it's the right time to talk through this question again. So

without further ado, here is part two of my conversation with Aaron Rodgers. This is

the You Ask the Pros Answer podcast. Do you have questions about an upcoming

exterior contracting project, we've got answers. Welcome to the You Ask the Pros

Answer podcast. So you have convinced me it's time to replace the siding on my

house. What are some of the factors that I need to be considering as far as the

materials, durability, the look, the cost?

You've shared a little bit about that when we were talking about considering the age

of the existing siding, but do you want to walk back through just some of the pros

and cons? Yeah, so like I said before, like we're always going to try and go back

to the original substrate of the house. So you know, depending on the age, hopefully

it's plywood on there, we're going to want to get back to the original siding or

the original sheathing on the property. We're going to want to inspect around all

the windows and doors, which are, you know, the areas that are more than are more

than likely the areas that water's gonna get in. So we're gonna pull off the old

house wrap. We're gonna inspect everything that way. So we always go into it knowing

that we're probably gonna have at least a few pieces of plywood that have to get

replaced. It's pretty common.

But then, you know, we're gonna go back in and we're gonna look at, you know, how

old is your house? Is it older than say, if it's older than like kind of early

2000s, the inside of your house was built much differently than it was after the

early 2000s, simply because the codes change when we upgrade the building code,

houses are built differently. So it lets me know that your house is going to leak

air a little bit differently. So we may look at using a different style house wrap

and a situation like that. We may talk about adding some exterior insulation if your

house is, you know, 50, 60 years old. So, there's a whole bunch of variables that

kind of go into that. If you have somebody that comes in and literally just says

like, "We're going to tear off the old siding. We're just going to put new siding

right over what's there." You're leaving yourself with a lot of liability. You don't

really know if the new siding and the old house wrap are compatible. Not taking the

old house wrap off, you don't know what's underneath of it. The same way as if you

didn't take the underlayment off of the roof, you don't know if there's plywood

issues, you don't know kind of what you're covering up by putting this new product

over the old stuff. We run into it a lot of times with, we have rot or at least

a little bit of rot at the corner of every single window or the bottom of every

single door,

around all of your dryer vents, your range hood vents, your exterior outlets, we

have a little bit of surface stuff there. It doesn't necessarily mean the plywood

has to be replaced. But it's definitely something we want to look at. We run into

a lot of houses that were built in like the late 70s, early 80s, early 90s, where

the exterior of their house is actually like foam board. There is no sheathing on

there. You know, in most of those situations, we want to tear that foam board off

and we want to go back with real plywood. Couple of different factors, obviously,

but at the end of the day, what is the best substrate for our current siding

products. We want like a nice rigid backed surface to kind of mount our new siding.

All siding should be nailed into the studs. I know that's not super common

knowledge, but every product requires you to nail the siding into the actual stud.

So if you see some guy just going willy -nilly, nailing wherever he is, and he's

not hitting the studs, your siding's gonna fail prematurely.

So, yeah, so like all those little things kind of add up, you know, you can do a

really, really quick down and dirty siding replacement, you know, you leave the

soffit, you leave the fascia, you reuse the gutters, you leave the old house wrap

in place, you leave everything on the exterior of the house except for the actual

vinyl siding and the associated trims with it. You know, you can get really, really

cheap

With that replacement But like when we come in for we're tearing everything off

We're doing it just like we do a roof cutters come off sapphire comes off fish it

comes off under lemon comes off Everything on the exterior is gonna be brand new

all the lights the dryer vents everything comes off We typically on almost every

single siding project that we do We actually have the electrician or the power

company come in and we pull the outside meter panel so so we can get behind it.

Some guys will just literally cut the siding around it, and then they just J

-channel around those boxes. Most of those things are installed over the original

siding. So why are we gonna go through this entire expense, and we're just gonna

butt the siding up to it? It wasn't how the original installation was done, and I

don't think we should be doing it that way either. So like, we want everything to

be brand new. We want it like this house was just built, and when we leave,

everything was brand new. So. You talked about you mentioned that it would be silly,

or at least in your opinion, if you had a million dollar home having vinyl as the

material. Is there any such thing is like over doing it on your house?

If you are. Oh, yeah. Being in more of a. Yes. Yeah,

I mean again

You can overdo it on everything This a lot of times comes back to like the people

that they try to Personalize what they want on the property and it doesn't always

necessarily kind of make Either financial sense or like your intended purpose of the

property. So That's why I like when people flip houses, they kind of go with

extremely extremely neutral colors. They're not going to go overboard. You can go

overboard on your home. If you live in, say, a $300 ,000 house,

I don't think you should be putting $150 ,000 into an exterior remodel.

If you live in a $300 ,000 house, I don't think you should spend $50 ,000 on a

bathroom remodel or $50 ,000 on your

she put in putting travertine floors into the inside of your $300 ,000 house. So you

could do the same thing with the exterior of your home. You know, if you live in

a, say, three to $400 ,000 house, hardy plank siding or fiber cement siding, cedar

siding is probably not the most realistic choice. Vinyl is probably gonna be more in

line with the exterior of your Um, in my personal opinion, if you live in a house,

I know that previously I'd said 750 ,000, I'm trying to be realistic here.

Uh, anything above $600 ,000 realistically should have some sort of a premium siding

on there. You can get, uh, kind of a more premium vinyl. You can get, uh, like we

install a certainty siding certainty. It has like the Main Street, which is like

your kind of your larger, um, your more popular siding that's an 042,

uh, as far as the thickness of the vinyl. And then you can also go with like the

monogram, which is an 046. So having that extra little thickness, you know, it, it

does kind of make the siding last a little bit longer. It is a more premium siding

overall. It does have a higher wind rating than the Main Street product will. Um,

Yeah, so you can consider kind of upgrading from that point, but you know Vinyl and

hardy are not the same product vinyl and cedar are not the same product using some

of these composite or PVC products Aren't aren't the same as using like a fiber

cement

So, you know, there's a lot of factors that go into it. I personally kind of in

the back of my mind I usually have a price point at which I think everybody should

consider kind of an upgraded setting or at least considering upgrading some areas to

kind of give a little bit more curb appeal and kind of make it look a little

nicer.

But yeah, to each their own, like I said, we have multi -million dollar beach houses

that get built daily here in our area that have vinyl siding on it. I very much

disagree with that, but I and build the house. Yeah. Yeah.

So you're saying maybe if you have a $300 ,000, $400 ,000 house, maybe do a couple

of the dormers with a higher end or like a gable section, like an accent piece

with the higher end material. Yeah, you can use the higher end materials or, you

know, the difference between a vinyl lap and a vinyl shake. I mean, there's a

pretty good delta between the two cost -wise. So, you know, you could do the gables

in a vinyl shake or a vinyl board and batten, At least to give it some curb

appeal and at least upgrade some of those smaller areas where it doesn't, you know

kill your budget all ultimately, but uh, but yeah We're kind of talking specifically

about the materials and the things to consider Are all contractors that do siding

projects I Know they're not all created equal, but are they all capable of

installing all the different materials, what are some of the things that I ought to

be looking out for

when it comes to that? If I spend all this money on James Hardy material, that in

itself is going to be a certain expense, but then the installation, I don't want to

waste all that by having it installed poorly. Agreed.

So you don't, you have manufacturer certifications when it comes to some of the

siding projects, or siding products, but not quite as consistently as you do with

roofing.

Siding has, in my personal opinion, has a much larger degree of error than roofing

does. Roofing is not rocket science. Siding, in my personal opinion,

has a lot more science behind the installation.

A lot of factors go into the underlayment, the house wrap.

We talk a lot about surfactants and surfactant -resistant house wraps in comparison to

the product. So like the two main, the two largest house wraps that you can use

are Tyvek and Typar. If you use the regular version of Typar or the regular version

of Tyvek, it is not meant to go behind things like fiber cement or cedar.

The surfactants that are in both of those products will break down that house wrap

long -term. And the times where I talk about houses being completely rotten,

a lot of those are 100 % the fault of the house wrap

You know, sometimes you have to have the way we build houses these days, you have

to have an air gap or a drainage gap behind your siding or you have to use a

siding that, that is meant to, you know, have certain types of siding installed over

it. We see quite often we see a lot of builders in this area will install fiber

cement siding over plain in Tyvek, you know, it requires a certain perm rating and

Tyvek does not have that perm rating.

So there's nothing we can really do because there's no code that states that. But

if you talk to a professional siding installer, professional roofing installer, all

these little details are things that they can provide for you that somebody that

just kind of does siding on the side or on occasion. They may not have that

information. You do have some things like the VSI, which is the Vinyl Siding

Institute. They do have a certification that you can check into.

Certainty has a master installer program that you can look at. I think it's called

Master Craftsman. Wolf has a Wolf Pro certification that you can provide.

James Hardy has their elite for program for contractors. So there are some things

out there that you can look for or ask for specifically, like, hey, we're looking

to get James Hardy. Are you certified with James Hardy? Here in our area,

there's only two of us that have that certification. For the Wolf Pro, there's

probably maybe a dozen to 15, kind of in the whole Delmarva Peninsula certainty,

there's probably same thing, maybe 15 or so in the Delmarva Peninsula area.

But yeah, so you can ask for that stuff.

Some of it makes a difference. There's plenty of companies out there that have all

those certifications and still use the cheapest labor they can get a hold of. But

at the end of the day,

the times is always going to fall on you as the consumer. If you were having a

name brand product installed, again, from a previous episode, it should be 100 %

spelled out in the contract. What house wrap they're using, what products they're

using, how they're fastening it, what type of fasteners. All that stuff should be

laid out. So the burden ultimately is going to fall on the consumer to do their

homework. If we're installing a James Hardy lab, If you go into Google and you type

in James Hardy, James Hardy siding installation instructions, you're gonna come up

with a PDF manual. You're gonna come up with two versions. You're gonna come up

with like the super in depth, like 40 page version, which is gonna give you every

possible detail, every spec that you'll never need to know. And it might come up in

like three different languages. Or the other one is the James Hardy best practices

installation manual, which is only three pages. That one's gonna give you the easiest

way to use the consumer to kind of look at it and go, is that detail right? Yep,

looks good. That detail right, look, looks good. Unfortunately, we can't really count

on the local code enforcement for some of this stuff because we routinely see jobs

that, you know, have stuff installed wrong and code enforcement comes around and it

still gets passed, still passes inspection. Some stuff they just can't see once the

sidings up. It is what it is. And the other stuff is like super, super obscure

codes that just don't get enforced. So, so yeah, so you can always find a guy that

can do it super cheap and super quick. You can always find a guy that can charge

you a whole bunch and he may still do it super quick and just use super cheap

labor. But ultimately, the best thing I can tell any homeowner is do your homework,

research the products in their installation,

and be there when the siding is actually being installed. I get that not everybody

can be, but if you come there at the end of the day, your siding project is not

gonna take one day, it's not like a roof, you know, it's normal for a siding

project to take one week, two weeks. You're gonna come home every day from work or

be there out there in the morning before you go to work, look at the installation

while it's happening. Are they nailing into the studs? Does the flashing match the

installation instructions for that product?

Are the overlaps right? Are they using the appropriate trims in this area in this

area? All those little details, if you see one little issue, it's probably not a

concern. If you see two issues, depending on what the issues are, it still may not

be a super big concern. But if you notice that almost every single installation

issue is incorrect, then there's a huge red flag and I would probably stop the

project, meet the actual contractor on site and just show him, like, hey, I have

the same information you were supposed to have. I'm looking at it knowing that this

is wrong. It doesn't look like you guys really are taking the time or have the

courtesy to install this properly. So we need to fix this before you get the job

finished.

But yeah, so. Aaron, I want to talk directly to the audience just for a second.

Episode five and two, we talked at length about how to find a reliable contractor.

And Aaron has driven home the point a couple of times of just how easy it is to

become a business in the state of Delaware. So do not make the assumption that just

because you hired a company to come out and do the project, that they are doing it

the way that it's meant to be done. Now, it doesn't mean that everybody's shady and

not doing things the way that it should be done. Some of them might not know what

they don't know. And that's not good either because that's going on your house. So

like Aaron saying, ask the questions. it's your home. Don't feel bad going out and

looking at the stuff that's being done to your home because you're the one that has

to live with it. Yep. For the long run. To kind of bring this conversation home,

I just like every topic we discuss, I realize it's hard to to give us a synced

answer, but as best as you can.

I live in a pretty standard, it's four bedroom home, but let's say three, four

bedroom home, I decide I'm gonna go with vinyl siding, I wanna replace it. You've

already established that at Pro Exteriors, we're not gonna just replace the siding,

we wanna go down to the bare substrate. If I'm looking at replacing the siding on

my very average home, what is the ballpark figure that I need to be budgeting for

understanding that there's a million variables.

Am I looking at five grand? Am I looking at 30 grand?

If you're looking at like kind of your average house, I would say an average house

of, you know, one story, two story, not crazy cut up. If you're going to go back

and you're just going to do kind of the plain game, we're going to do a little

bit of vinyl. You might have one or two gables that have some accents. We're going

to reuse the gutters if they're in good condition.

I would say budget at a minimum around 15 ,000. I would start at 15 and for that

same exact house, if you want to upgrade a few little pieces here and there, you

might want to redo the gutters or add gutter and guards. You might want to upgrade

the actual siding. You want to add a little bit more curb appeal. One of the

things that we do a lot of is we add a larger trim around all the windows and

doors. That same $15 ,000 job can jump to $25 ,000 quickly.

At the end of the day, $25 ,000 on the exterior completely redoing your siding.

It's one of those projects that typically pays off long -term, especially if you look

at the lifespan you're expecting out of that project, 25 ,000 over 25 years is

nothing. That same house in 25 years, if it's $400 ,000 now, it's probably going to

be worth $700 ,000 in 25 years. I mean, who knows, right?

But yeah, so I'd say 15 on the lowest end, 25 on the highest end. Again, you can

always find people to do it cheaper. You can always find people to do it more

expensive. But that's kind of like the best way to go about it. Kind of have a

really general idea. $15 ,000 if I just want to get down and dirty and just replace

it as is. $25 ,000 will get you some upgrades and some little niceties that should

pay off. What that tells me is if I get a quote back that's significantly less

than the $15 ,000, I need to be asking, what does that include?

Because more than likely it's, well, they're just going to pull the old siding off

and put new siding up and correct might not ever uncover some of the bigger issues.

And I also, you know, kitchens and bathrooms are one of the things that people like

you said, spend a ton of money on because it's, it's fashionable to have like a

nice new kitchen and that kind of stuff. People drop 50 60 grand on a kitchen. And

a lot of it is just aesthetics. We're talking about essentially the blanket to your

house, the thing that's going to be the first line of defense when it comes to bad

weather. And so that seems pretty reasonable. I mean,

it's not nothing, but it's... Yeah. I mean, it's the exterior of your home is the

thing that everyone else sees way more than they're ever going to see the inside of

your house. So not only is it important as far as the overall aesthetics of your

property, but also like the roof and the siding is what keeps the moisture out.

It's what keeps the living portion of your home dry.

So it is a crucial piece. I think that more often than not,

people underestimate the technology that goes into years nowadays,

you know, roofers don't really get a lot of respect. And you can always find a guy

that's going to do it way, way cheaper. It may be, you know, a guy and his friend

that do it kind of part time on the side. There's a couple of guys that that we

don't make fun of them, but we often joke that, you know, if they can do one job

a week, it pays for their pace for their

There's a lot of those guys out there that they're perfectly okay with running a

business. They're not worried about next year or the year after. They're just worried

about this week and their price oftentimes reflects that. But with that being said,

you should always choose a contractor that will be here this year,

next year, five years, 10 years from now.

In the event that something actually goes wrong, having a contractor that is still

in business and that will actually come back and fix the issues at no cost, I

mean, it's really, really hard to put a price tag on that. So, yeah.

So doing your homework, we talked before, checking license, get a copy of their

business license, get a copy of their contractor registration for the state of

Delaware, get a copy of their insurance policy, which should include their general

liability, their auto liability, because if their vehicle isn't registered in their

business name, if their vehicle goes through your garage door when they pull in the

driveway, you can't go after their business for that.

It should also include workman's comp.

I won't go as far as to say it should include an umbrella policy. But definitely

those things should be very easily for a proper business person to provide like

that. Most of us that have been doing this a long time, like that information is

on our phones, you know, we go into Google Drive, I can send you five documents

right here where we're standing here. And then you could always go to the fact of

like checking with the suppliers, call the manufacturers, most of the manufacturers

that we work with, and a lot of our

Um, those big brand names are going to know those people, you know, they, they

recognize who the bigger players are in the area and they, you know, they meet with

us. They want to give us, you know, additional training or they come into the

showroom and they give us, uh, um, brochures and whatnot. So, um, we have

relationships with all those guys and any contractor who does it for a living, who

does it professionally and wants to be taken seriously, Those manufacturers and

suppliers are going to know who that person is and I think that's that's an

important piece of this whole thing Yeah, more so and I can attest to it more than

just having a Surface level relationship those guys are coming in and doing trainings

for our crews and and that's worth It's weight and gold to install it like you

talked about. Yep. Well, I want to real quick I just want to recap kind of what

we talked about and make sure that I didn't miss anything. So my wife and I are

on the fence about whether or not it's time to replace our siding. We want to be

looking for signs that the product has deteriorated, maybe looking around the inside

of the house as well, just to see if there's some stuff that doesn't look the way

that it should.

Want to consider the age and the material that's on there now and kind of figure

out, okay, is it within the life expectancy of the material? Yeah.

Obviously, some of the stuff that goes along with that is the environmental factors,

you know, where's my home located? Is it on the shore where salty air and high

wind is prevalent? That's going to impact all of that. But then even more than

that, when I think about the energy efficiency, How well is my home insulated? Is

it an older home where insulation has either just deteriorated and rotted over time?

Or they didn't use it to begin with but also Trying to make sure that my home.

I don't want it to be the best one on the block, but I certainly wanted to look

Presentable whether I want to sell it or not and then ultimately it comes down to

Choosing the right material, and really the biggest factor is choosing the right

contractor to do the job because I can spend a million bucks on the most expensive

material, but if it's installed incorrectly then I've gained nothing, right?

Does that sound right? Zero. Yep. Yep, okay.

Anything else you wanted to add or we kind of covered the gamut? Yeah,

I think we've pretty much gone over everything that Realistically needs to be touched

on. Again, like hiring any contractor for any home project, just check their license,

check their insurance, get it in writing, make sure the contract and everything is

specific. If they have a warranty, make sure the warranty is in writing, okay?

But at the end of the day, again, just Do your homework. Yeah, that's all I can

say Cool. Well, as always, thank you for for being the expert for being the pro

All right, that is all we have for you today on the you ask the pros answer Hey,

would you please help us get the word out about the show? The simplest way to do

that is to leave reviews on Apple podcasts Follow us on social media or simply tell

a friend. Also, if you are watching on YouTube, would you please like this video

and subscribe to the channel? Before we go, we want to hear from you. What are the

questions you have related to exterior home remodeling? Would you please email those

questions to info @askproexteriors .com and simply place you ask in the subject.

If you're facing an upcoming home project, we hope episodes like this, empower you

to tackle it with confidence. Remember, knowledge is power, and a little bit of

research can go a long way. Until next time, happy home -owning. The You Ask the

Pros Answer podcast is produced in -house by the Pro Exteriors team. Pro Exteriors is

the exterior contracting division of Empire Construction Group, LLC. This podcast is

intended for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal advice.

For more answers to your questions, please subscribe to this channel and podcast so

you'll never miss an episode. Do you have an upcoming home remodeling project? Find

more answers to your questions at AskProExteriors .com.

Hey thanks for watching this video would you please help us out by hitting that

subscribe button that would be awesome also if you never want to miss another one

of our uploads please be sure to hit that notification bell all right thanks see

you