Buying Vinyl Siding

Buying vinyl siding for your house is a process, if you want to get the best siding at the best price, you really need to have a plan.  Our Plan, which is the same plan used by most siding contractors, is a simple three step plan that will guide you through the process in an orderly way.

Since most of our staff were home improvement contractors at one time, we have designed this site to be like you calling a contractor and asking questions about installing siding on your house. All the relevant questions like, what will it cost, what is the best siding to use, where do I get it, and how much siding will I need. All these questions will need to be answered, and it is prudent to have the answers before you call any contractors. 

Our three-step plan to help you in choosing the best vinyl siding for your home and how to choose the right contractor to install the new siding.  Let's get started.

Choose A Siding Style You Like

Step One; Choose A Siding You Like and Think Will Look Good on Your House.

Look at some of the siding styles on our site.  What style of vinyl siding do you like best?

Choose a siding style before you call the contractor. Why? Because you don't want to spend hours and hours with each contractor looking through brochures at dozens of different siding pictures trying to make up your mind on which siding style looks best on your house.

Choose a siding style you think will look good on your house first using our web site and others.  Review the many distinctive styles available on our site and pick and choose several that you think will good. 

Different Styles of Vinyl Siding

When buying vinyl siding, there are different styles and textures and colors and thicknesses of vinyl siding. It is way more complicated than just driving over to Home Depot and picking one out. What is the best siding for your house, how much should you pay, who will install it? How do you know if you are getting a competitive price?  Many questions.

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Clapboard Siding  

Clapboard siding is the most popular siding in the U.S.

Note that siding panels run horizontal, this is a basic Clapboard Style Siding. It looks like wooden planks. Classic styling that enhances any home.

Clapboard comes in several styles, pick the one that you like the best for your home.

To see more information on Clapboard Vinyl Siding  Click Here

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Board and Batten Vinyl Siding

Board and Batten Vinyl Siding is siding that runs up and down on your house, vertically. Also called Vertical Siding.

Vertical Siding or Board & Batten Siding runs Vertical.

Alternating wide and narrow vertical panels combine a simple, yet beautiful design. 

When buying vinyl siding you need to choose which style of siding best fits your home before you move forward, because...

Vertical and Horizontal siding have completely different installation methodology and require different amounts of labor and materials. Contractors must know this to figure out their time and materials.

Both types come in virtually unlimited styles, colors, and textures.  But we will come back to that latter. 

Styles of vinyl siding and vinyl siding colors will not affect the overall price of the job significantly.

Colors and textures are one of the last things you need to pick out. We'll talk about that later too.


If you want to see more about Board and Batten Vinyl Siding; 

 click here to see more information on  Board & Batten Siding


If you are looking for Vinyl Cedar Shake Siding, then click here to see Vinyl Cedar Shake Siding

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Vinyl Cedar Shake Siding

Vinyl Cedar Shake Siding is one of the more popular sidings, it has the old-world charm of rustic outdoor cedar shake.

To see more information on Vinyl Cedar Shake Siding   Click Here

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Make a Budget When Buying Vinyl Siding

Buying vinyl siding is like buying anything else, you must first decide what you want to spend on the project. Then go shopping and find the products that are in that price range. 

Same with vinyl siding, there are economy grades, super premium grades and you need to tell the contractor which grade you are interested in. 

If he knows you are interested in economy grade, he will not bother to show you super premium grades saving a lot of shopping time. 

Vinyl siding runs from $3 to over $10 per sq ft so there is a lot of differences in pricing. Example: if you have a 1,500 sq ft home you could choose economy siding at $3 and end up spending $4,500 or you could pick one of the premium siding at $10 per sq fo and end up spending $15,000. 

First thing to do when buying vinyl siding is make a budget.  Even before you go shopping. Why? Because when you are ready to go shopping, you will want to buy the very best vinyl siding that your budget will allow.

Vinyl Siding comes in several different qualities or grades. Usually the thicker the vinyl siding the better the quality.  And the higher the prices.

The better grades of siding will last longer, will look better installed, and their colors will stay true longer. 

To see more information on How to Make A Budget  Click Here

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How Much Will It Cost?

The number one thing you first want to ask yourself when buying vinyl siding is "What is the cost to install new vinyl siding on my house?  And can I afford it? 

Vinyl siding is sold by the square foot. So, you need to know how many square feet of siding you need to buy.  Measure your house and figure square feet.

How Much Siding Do I Need?

When buying vinyl siding if you call any contractor and ask him what his prices are to install vinyl siding, he will first ask you 'how much vinyl siding are you talking about".

So, before you call anyone, figure out how much vinyl siding you are going to need.

So how do you do that?  Go outside and measure your house!  It's easy.

Measure your house to come up with the number of square feet of the exterior walls.  

Vinyl Siding is sold by the square footage.  Often called 'squares', 100 sq ft is one square.

Once you know how much vinyl siding you will need, make a note in your workbook, I need approximately 1,500 sq ft of siding.

If you need 1,500 sq ft and your budget will allow you to buy a premium brand in the $7 - $10 range, that narrows down what you will need to look for thus saving you a lot of time.

This just makes buying so much easier. Now you can compare different brands and compare their prices apples to apples.

This allows you to go shopping and pick out the very best types and styles that fit your budget.  

How big is your house?  The size of your house will determine how much siding you need to buy? Is a ranch or a two-story home?  Two story home's need much more siding.

To see more information on how to measure your house  Click Here   How to Measure Your House

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Here is a great link to find more information on how vinyl siding can help you increase the value of your home, and the many different qualities of today's vinyl siding.   Click Here  Vinyl Siding Institute 

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Questions A Contractor Will Ask You About Your House When Buying Vinyl Siding

When buying vinyl siding here are some  questions a contractor will need to ask you about your house?

When a contractor first comes to talk with you about your project, he will be making himself a list of things to do so he can give you a price.

He will need to know certain information about the products you are interested in, and information about your house.

In the case of vinyl siding, he will ask you questions in a particular order to get a handle on what you are trying to do.

One of the first questions he will want to know is simply, what type of siding are you interested in.

Vinyl siding come in three basic types or styles, Clapboard, Board and Batten or Cedar Shake Style

Since they require different installation procedures, he must first know this before going farther.

The second question the contractor will need to know is

'what is on the exterior of your house now?'  

Why?

What's on your house now?

NOTE: When buying vinyl siding this is particularly important to a contractor because he will want to know if he must take the existing material off your house before he puts the new siding on. He must know if your house is concrete block, wood, brick, or stone. 

Each of these home exteriors have different application methods and the contractor must take that into account. More on that later.

When buying vinyl siding, what's on your house now is an especially important piece of information to the contractor. Why?  Because he wants to know if he is going to have to take the existing siding off your house, modify the existing siding, repair the existing siding before he can install new siding. Or if you have a brick or stone house, he will have to do modifications on the exterior of the house before he can install the new siding.

A contractor will need to know if you are going to put new siding over old wood siding, or aluminum siding, or stucco, or replace old vinyl siding already on your house, the contractor must know this.

It costs money to remove and or repair old siding.

Also, different exteriors require different prep work before new siding can be applied. Stucco requires different types of prep work than does old wooden siding.

And the costs vary considerably between the different types of old existing siding. Old wood siding will almost always have some weather or insect damage that must be fixed before new siding can be applied.

NOTE: Therefore, any estimate of cost that a contractor gives you will have some clause written into the contract that 'unseen' damages are to be addressed on a different work order.

This protects the contractor when he finds major damage that could not be seen upon surface investigation.

NOTE: When buying vinyl siding all the contractors should be giving you a price based on the "same" information, you need to give all the contractors exactly the same information. That way You will be able to compare all the prices, "apples 2 apples", and see which contractor is really giving you the best price!

When buying vinyl siding the contractor will need to know certain things about your home, and about the products you are interested in buying before they can give you a qualified price for the job and the real cost of  installing vinyl siding on your home.

We are going to guide you down the path of important questions to ask just like you were a contractor, and in the same basic order of importance...

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Other Costs that go into vinyl siding installation 

When buying vinyl siding there are other costs that go into the installation. The siding price is one, but there are others costs too. The big other cost is the preparation needed to make your house ready to install the new siding.

The contractor must determine how much labor he will incur in order to get your house ready to install the new siding. He will walk around your house with pen and paper and look at every little detail of your house.  

In order to save time, you should walk around your house first, before calling a contractor, and write down anything you may want to ask him. Should this be fixed, should this be removed or replaced, is this wood rotted, etc. Then you can spend more time with the contactor going over the important little detail that need to be discussed.

Make a list of all the items around your house that needs to be fixed or repaired. Take pictures and put into your project workbook.

Before you can install vinyl siding on your house you must first fix all the water damage, termite damage, rot or other problems.

You can't just cover them up! And contractor will charge you extra to fix the problems.

It is especially important to go over and talk to the contractor about each and every one of these problem areas with each contractor you talk to.  

Have the contractors tell you how they will fix or repair each item and how much they will charge you to do it.

This is an especially important thing to do when you buy vinyl siding.

You do not want to get half way done with your project and have the contractor stop his work and come to you for more money to fix things that you did not go over with him.

To see more information on Vinyl Siding Trim;  Click Here 

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When buying vinyl siding if you do a little homework before you start calling contractors you will save a lot of time and trouble. Contractors will be more responsive to you if you have a good working knowledge of the products and scope of the work to be done.