New Siding, Right Down to the Sheathing

The reliable signs are boards that are cracked, buckled, or soft to the touch, paint that won't hold no matter how often it's redone, and rising heating and cooling bills. The one that matters most is soft: it means water is behind the siding rather than on it. If it just looks tired, that's cosmetic. If it's soft, water is behind it, and that's a replacement.

If both are near the end of their life, yes, and it's a genuine saving rather than an upsell. The roof and the siding meet at the flashing, so doing them together means the transition is built once, correctly, by one crew, under one warranty, with one setup and one round of disruption. Done years apart, someone has to cut into the other trade's work.

It's driven by the square footage of wall, the number of stories, how many corners, windows, and gables the house has, and what the crew finds once the old siding is off. A simple rambler and a colonial with dormers are very different jobs at the same square footage. We measure the house and put the number in writing after an on-site inspection rather than guessing at it over the phone.

It gets photographed, shown to you, and repaired before the new siding goes on, at a price agreed before we start. Rotten sheathing is the most common thing hiding behind old siding and the most common reason a siding number moves. Covering it up is faster and cheaper, sure, but you'd be putting new siding over a wall that's still rotting.

Most homes run about a week, and the range is wider than roofing because the variables are bigger. Rot repair, the number of corners and openings, and the weather all move it. You get a schedule at the estimate and you hear about a change on the day it happens.

Usually not, and it's the same rule as roofing. Virginia's statewide building code exempts replacement of an unlimited amount of siding, in the same clause that exempts roof covering, wherever the design wind speed is 100 miles per hour or less. Northern Virginia is 90. A permit comes back if the job goes structural, or if you're in a historic district, and Alexandria's historic districts do require a permit for over 100 square feet of siding. HOA approval, where you have one, is a separate matter from the permit and it's the approval more likely to affect you. We'll supply whatever your architectural committee asks for.

Yes. We hold Virginia Class A contractor license #2705084385 and Maryland Home Improvement Commission license #142051, and we carry full liability and workers compensation coverage. Both numbers are checkable with Virginia DPOR and the Maryland Home Improvement Commission. One crew works both sides of the Potomac out of our Falls Church office.

Yes, on the same terms as any other job. Two payment structures, a soft credit check to start, and strong and weaker credit both considered. Bundling siding with a roof doesn't change the financing terms, and it's the most common way our customers pay for both at once.