Siding replacement in Fort Wayne

Time to re-side, or just repair?

Repair makes sense when the damage is in one place: a hail-cracked wall, a few loose panels, one corner where a gutter overflowed. Replace when you see these across the house:

• Vinyl that's brittle, cracked in cold weather, or faded unevenly from wall to wall
• Panels buckled or wavy, often from being nailed too tight
• Wood or hardboard siding swelling, flaking or soft at the bottom edges
• Water stains, peeling paint or mold on the inside of outside walls
• Aluminum siding dented and chalky, with the color rubbing off on your hand

Small jobs are covered on the siding repair in Fort Wayne page.

How much siding replacement costs in Fort Wayne

Nationally, re-siding a house of about 2,000 square feet runs $8,500 to $20,000, with $14,500 typical. Material sets most of that, and labor runs about $1 to $4 a square foot of wall.

Siding	Installed, per sq ft
Vinyl	$3 to $12
Engineered wood	$2 to $10
Fiber cement	$5 to $14
Wood	$2 to $15
Aluminum	$3 to $10
Steel	$4 to $16

Removing the old siding adds about $1,000 to $2,500 for the house. Rotted sheathing found underneath is priced separately, board by board.

Vinyl in a northern Indiana winter

Vinyl grows and shrinks with the temperature, so it has to hang loose. The industry installation manual calls for nails left about 1/32 inch proud of the panel and at least 1/4 inch of clearance at corners, trim and window openings, widened to 3/8 inch when it's installed below 40°F. Panels nailed tight are the usual reason vinyl ripples on a hot August afternoon.

Vinyl can go up in winter. Installers cut it more slowly when it's cold, because it's more brittle then.

What a full re-side includes

Whichever siding contractor you hire, the quote for a full re-side should cover these five steps.

1. Old siding comes off and gets hauled away, unless the quote says new goes over old.
2. Soft sheathing gets replaced and nails get set, so the wall is flat enough for new siding.
3. House wrap goes on lapped from the bottom up, with flashing at every window, door and roof line.
4. Trim goes on next: corner posts, J-channel around openings and starter strip at the base.
5. The new siding goes up last, with courses kept level around the house and joints staggered.

We take the old siding off on nearly every job. Siding over siding saves the tear-off cost, but then nobody sees the wall behind it.

Permits and historic districts in Fort Wayne

Re-siding needs a building permit in Fort Wayne and the rest of Allen County: the county's residential permit guide lists siding with roofing as permitted work. In the city's local historic districts, siding seen from the street also needs a Certificate of Appropriateness first, and the guidelines treat covering wood siding with vinyl or aluminum as not appropriate. Repairs that match what's there, in material and look, count as routine maintenance and don't need one.

Older houses: what's under the siding

Many older houses have vinyl or aluminum over the original painted wood. On a house built before 1978, removing or cutting into that painted wood can disturb lead paint. Once the work disturbs more than 20 square feet of painted surface outside, the firm has to be EPA Lead-Safe Certified and use lead-safe work practices.

Siding replacement questions