<p>My house had not been painted in 23 years, but that was at the point when we moved in. Our last paint job lasted 11 years, just had it redone in September. And H, who is 66, knows better than to even contemplate DYI. Especially after his brother fell off a ladder and had to be medivacked(Sp? Looks weird) The only way you should do your own is if you live in a ranch on a totally flat lot. Neither of which is my place. I, too, am big on being true to and respectful of your architecture. When I see siding, I always wonder what it will look like in 100 years, like my house. Not that I would be around to look!</p>
<p>I wasn’t aware that aluminum was still available</p>
<p>We had a premium vinyl put on our house 22 years ago. We had wide corner boards, and wide trim around all the doors and windows. Still looks great. It replaced white aluminum siding that got “see thru” and turned gray in the rain. We had the old cedar shake siding under the aluminum stripped (and the windows replaced) before putting on the vinyl so the windows were at the proper reveal. If vinyl is not typical for the neighborhood, and you have the bucks, then the prepainted cement board siding has a 20+ year paint life and looks just like wood. We are specifying it for our pump stations in historic areas to replace the cedar (there seldom seems to be money in govt. to maintain things at any normal time interval).</p>
<p>Wow, it is wild. One installer price could be many times of the other for the “lowest cost” siding. For example, I could buy the material for $5000 from the warehouse and DIY, whereas Sears would charge me $23,000 installed and it takes bout 5 days. Of course, you get the Sears guarantee.</p>
<p>23k is crazy. Art lover, how do you decide on a price for ‘this old house’? We have one to sell and have decided that fixing it up ourselves would net us zero, but we don’t know what price to ask.</p>
<p>I echo the sentiment to check the neighborhood. In my upscale California neighborhood there was the a rental (which was exceedingly rare in itself) where the out of state owners chose to put some sort of aluminum or vinyl siding on it. In a neighborhood of wood siding, shake, or stucco, it stood out like a sore thumb. I’m thinking it would be really hard to sell in that neighborhood unless they priced it as a tear down.</p>
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<p>If you ask a realtor, they should be able to tell you what your house will be selling for. You are damn right, it is crazy to pay 23K for a siding job, no matter how much guarantee you get. After all, it is the old “car” trick, “I won’t fix it because it is not covered in the fine print”.</p>
<p>I have vinyl-sided all of my rentals. It costs about twice what a paint job would, but it will last many times longer.</p>
<p>Unless a house was historically significant or there was a real value hit, I would side it.</p>
<p>ETA: in the NE area, lead paint is a huge issue. If you have lead paint on your siding, getting that properly remediated before painting could lead to a $50,000 paint job. In that case, it is much cheaper to cover it.</p>
<p>nre</p>
<p>I thought if you know there is lead paint, you have to remove it, cover it will result a huge liability. Am I right?</p>
<p>In my state covering it is an acceptable remediation as long as it is a solid covering. There are encapsulants that can be used in some limited circumstances.</p>
<p>Remediation generally has to be done by licensed deleaders, and the precautions and procedures are pretty extreme. I have a moderate-risk deleading license, which allows me to cover lead as long as it doesn’t disturb the paint, and to actually remove lead paint on up to two square feet of area, and even the rules for that get a little crazy. All of this adds $$$ to the cost. There are EPA regulations now, too. More $$$.</p>
<p>There are multiple inspections involved (more $$$), and once you pass the inspection and get your certificate of compliance, are you free from strict liability. In this case “strict liability” means that if someone in your building has lead poisoning, there is lead paint in the building, and you don’t have a certificate of compliance, you are presumed at fault. Liability insurance doesn’t cover this any more either.</p>
<p>Without strict liability it becomes pretty difficult to prove where the lead poisoning happened, because lead is everywhere. 100 years of using leaded gas has contaminated virtually everything.</p>
<p>My state offers some modest tax credits to delead, which helps.</p>
<p>We stopped testing for lead because from a landlord perspective you are actually better off not knowing for sure.</p>
<p>NRE</p>
<p>In ca, I was told the fine is 35K/day! Or it is Federal?</p>
<p>On one of my investment house, the paint is peeling, can I cover it with siding and call it encapsulated? I was told houses built before 1960’s has 80% chance of lead paint.</p>
<p>The fine for what?</p>
<p>“Encapsulation” has a specific meaning in the lead paint area. Covering something is different than encapsulating, but covering can remediate lead paint.</p>
<p>At least in my state, I have no idea what the law is in CA.</p>
<p>The fine is per day of not re-mediate a lead paint problem and knowingly concealing evidences to renters/buyers.</p>
<p>We found the mdf siding in lowes or hd is avtually cheaper than paint and should last longer than just paint</p>