When building or renovating your home, you may want to update its exterior appearance. A change in siding does that in about a day. That’s how long a professional siding crew requires to install siding on a single-story home.
What siding should you choose though? How does one style or material benefit the home over another? Let’s consider the two main siding materials to answer those questions.
The Appearance and Function of Different Types of Siding
Most houses either use composite siding or composite siding. The difference comes down to material and design style. Vinyl siding, formed of resin, takes on the look of wood from a distance. Composite siding, made of engineered wood, takes on the look of shakes or shingles, but often comes in 4’ by 8’ sheets.
About Vinyl Siding
Made of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) resin, vinyl siding can take on a variety of appearances. Although sometimes manufactured to look like shakes, it typically comes in sheets that resemble wood clapboard or batten board. The hearty plastic material provides weatherp roofing for homes and exterior decoration.
It has largely replaced aluminum siding and fiber cement siding, once more frequently used. Most of the weight of this type of siding, about 80%, comes from the PVC resin. The remainder of its weight stems from paint and ingredients that add impact resistance, flexibility, and durability. Most U.S. and Canadian homes use vinyl siding, also called vinyl cladding, on their exteriors.
About Composite Siding
The manufacturing of composite siding uses a similar approach to making plywood or laminate flooring because of its designation as an engineered wood. This siding typically consists of two or more wood types mulched together, then pressed together between two sheets of backing wood to form large boards. Considered more aesthetic than vinyl siding, sheets of this siding come in a variety of textures and designs.
Vinyl vs Composite Siding
If vinyl and composite siding had to duke it out, they would both win, but based on different criteria. If a homeowner wanted an architectural appearance for the home, such as making a pre-fab home seem like a custom home, they might choose composite siding. On the other hand, if a homeowner based their choice on cost, vinyl siding would win for its lower costs.
Vinyl gets used on everything from mobile homes to tract housing. This ubiquitous building material looks like painted wood at a distance, but up close, you can tell it consists mostly of plastic. Conversely, you find composite siding on cottages in New England and custom homes in California because it can take on so many different forms during its manufacture.
Both siding types offer weatherproofing, but homeowners residing in areas prone to frequent rains may choose vinyl because it proves more impervious to high volumes of water. It also offers a hearty material for fending off hail. Composite siding performs better in arid areas where drought proves common, while vinyl fades with continuous exposure to sunlight.
Versatility in colors offers another component of vinyl vs composite siding. Although both products come in an array of options, it’s easier to paint composite siding than vinyl. Vinyl comes with a baked-on enamel, like cookware, so it doesn’t accept paint as well as wood.
Composite siding performs best when sealed with an all-weather sealant. Vinyl siding doesn’t require any sealant but may require more frequent patching. Finally, when choosing between the two, consider the locally available contractors because most of them specialize in one type of siding installation.
How to Find the Right Contractor
Once you have answered the question of vinyl vs composite siding for your own building needs, you will need to find an installation contractor. You may need to find residential roofers as well. If you fall in love with a particular design or style, visit its manufacturer’s website to locate local installers who completed the manufacturer’s training and certification process for its installation. Most siding and roofing manufacturers offer these training programs.
If this process turns up no local contractors who specialize in the siding you want, use the phonebook. It features zero spam and lists siding installers under the relevant term of siding installers. The good old-fashioned Yellow Pages can help you find a siding installer that works with composite or vinyl siding instantly. After finding a short list of options, visit the website of each one to learn more about them.
Check the Better Business Bureau listing of each company you consider using. While many review sites don’t require reviewers to prove they used the company, the BBB only allows reviews and complaints from customers. It follows up on each complaint, removing false information, so people searching for accurate information only find the reviews of actual former customers of a business. It also adds comments on how the siding installer handled each complaint.
Also, read reviews in Angi and Google My Business, but beware of GMB spam. Google doesn’t require reviewers or raters to have actually hired the company they review. Many profiles suffer from unchecked spam and false single-star ratings with no review. GMB profiles also contain posts from the company on the profile, which may include photos of current and past projects for siding installers.
If it comes down to two siding installers who charge the same and both remain available, ask friends and family who have used either contractor about their experiences.
Other Siding Considerations
Other elements of your home, such as the roof, gutters, etc. factor into the right siding choice. When you have narrowed it down to vinyl vs composite siding, you have managed to eliminate options like brick, stone, brick and stone facades, and other cladding options. Consider the other exterior features of your home to make your final decision.
Consider Your Roof
Does your home’s roof consist of asphalt shingles, metal, copper, clay tiles, cedar shakes, or another roofing material? Asphalt shingles and vinyl roofing look great together, but vinyl could clash with cedar or clay tiles. Copper roofing lends an old style to a house and, therefore, matches better with composite siding, which can take on the look of historical siding choices better and look believable up close since it consists of wood.
Most metal roofing options look good with either choice. Metal roofing comes in a variety of colors, including non-traditional home roofing colors, such as red and blue. This versatility means it can look good with either, negating the vinyl vs composite siding question. When building a new home, consider a metal roof, which lasts up to 50 years; when updating a home’s exterior siding, consider updating an asphalt roof at or near 15 years old.
Examine the Roofing and Gutters
Also, consider the home’s type of roofing gutters when wrestling with the question of vinyl vs composite siding. Many guttering styles pervade the housing market and your home’s style and placement affect your choice of siding. Never mind the color of the roofing gutters since you can have them painted to match the siding or to match the trim. Both options will look great.
When building a new home, let your gutter company offer advice. If you already answered the vinyl vs composite siding question for your home, request your roofing gutter pro’s guidance in choosing the right gutter style for your siding choice.
How Trim Work Influences Siding Choices
Along with siding installation, your home also requires trim to enclose the edges of the siding. This trim work offers a finished appearance to the house and protects the edges of the siding from incurring damage from weather exposure, especially rain and snow.
If you have your heart set on a specific trim design, such as an ornately carved wood trim, try it out virtually using an app before deciding. This lets you answer the question of vinyl vs composite siding with some certainty, ensuring that your choice will look good with your trim and siding choice. Typically, if a trim would look good with clapboard, it will look good with vinyl siding. If the trim suits cottage architecture, such as the styles of historical homes in the New England states, composite works better.
Finishing a Home’s Exterior
Once you’ve decided on vinyl vs composite siding, you move on to the other house exterior questions and hiring. If you plan to build a new home, you need to hire more than just siding installers. Finishing the exterior will also require residential roofers. Typically, the siding installers put on the trim, too.
For roofing, you will need a separate contractor. This individual should work well with your other contractors Your general contractor will probably make recommendations or have someone they typically use under subcontract.</>p>
If your general contractor does not have a regular roofing service, choose one yourself using the same methodology described above for locating and choosing a siding contractor. This individual should coordinate their schedule with the other contractors, so they don’t work at cross purposes. Without a general contractor, you will need to coordinate the schedules.
If you choose composite as your winner in vinyl vs composite siding, you will also need to hire an exterior painting service. The color of the siding won’t matter, but the color of the paint will. Pick a paint color that complements your roof and architectural elements.
The painters and roofing contractor will join the window installation contractor in making your home lovely. Window installers may work before or after the siders. Typically, the general contractor schedules this work as well. If you handle the hiring in a piecemeal fashion, scheduling this work also falls to you.
Renovating a Home’s Exterior
Sometimes, people think renovating will be easier than building a new house. In some ways, yes, but in other ways, no. While you get to live in your home while renovating it, your curb appeal may temporarily go downhill. Homes with more than one floor or level require scaffolding to work on, in most cases. Expect to either have construction debris in the yard or a dumpster full of construction debris.
Which siding to use, and the right trim only make for the tip of the iceberg? While the general contractor plans and coordinates the demolition and construction schedule, you will need to plan your family’s amended schedule. Construction projects take up space, and you will probably need to navigate around heavy equipment and debris containers for at least a few weeks.
Wait! How Long?
Your professional roofer probably gave a one-day installation quote and that’s true. Materials shortages, shipping and freight delays, and the weather can put behind the most well-planned renovation or building project. Most construction professionals recommend adding two weeks to any quote. That doesn’t mean two weeks of ingoing roofing, but it can mean a two-week delay before the demolition crew of the roofing service can remove the old roof, and then replace it with a new one. The same rings true of siding.
Most construction work, even interior projects, requires proper climatic conditions. Painting, varnishing, and installing most types of flooring all require specific temperatures and no precipitation in the forecast. Precipitation affects humidity, which affects how well certain materials adhere to a surface.
Doing exterior work requires good weather. The temperature must fall in the mid-range of the 70s or 80s Fahrenheit with no precipitation. These ideal weather conditions let work crews install, paint, and seal the various aspects of a home’s exterior. If bad weather hits, expect it to create a delay of at least the length of the weather event; some work requires dry ground, so include drying time.
Vinyl or Composite Siding?
Your choice of vinyl or composite siding depends on your home and the appearance you desire for it. Once you determine which material works best for your area’s climate, use a home design app to decide which style of that material works best and the trim, roofing, and windows that look best with it. Each of these items requires its own installer. If you don’t hire a general contractor, you will need to locate these installers on your own.
Doing exterior work requires good weather. The temperature must fall in the mid-range of the 70s or 80s Fahrenheit with no precipitation. These ideal weather conditions let work crews install, paint, and seal the various aspects of a home’s exterior. If bad weather hits, expect it to create a delay of at least the length of the weather event; some work requires dry ground, so include drying time.