Looking for Vinyl Siding? Look no more…here’s why!!
I have watched the siding business from the front row for 13 years. I’ve found it interesting to watch which siding works and which siding fails in Portland’s unique weather. Obviously, the OSB type siding failed. (OSB includes LP, Masonite, Weyerhaeuser siding products.)
At 1st Oregon Exteriors, we don’t install vinyl siding…and I’ll tell you why.
Portland Weather Wall Woes: Part 2 - Roofs, Peeling Paint and Defective Siding
PSSSST! I’d like to save you a lot of money and a ton of stress…
When your home was built, just after the framing went up, they installed your roof. In new production type homes this roofing service is given to the lowest bid roofing contractor in town. (Over at Roof Life of Oregon, we never bid on new construction because we can’t bring ourselves to cut those kind of corners.) Unfortunately for home owners who need to replace their roof, a lot of replacement roofing contractors follow the same line of thought. Sell the re-roof for a cheap price and then cut every corner in the book. Fast is the standard rule for these guys, and most times, important details are overlooked for the sake of the almighty dollar.
This one concept is very important for you to realize, as it is a mistake made over and over by the vast majority of homeowners. It ends up costing them more than they could ever imagine. It reminds me of a saying by a great man named John Ruskin who said “Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort.“
Portland Weather Wall Woes: Part 1 - Leaking, Mold and Dry Rot
Have you ever noticed that one or two of your exterior walls just look worse than the other sides of your home? They look beat up, rough and they won’t hold paint very well. When the wind and rain come, a drip may even appear in your windowsills. If there is a drip coming all the way through to the inside of your home, imagine what’s going on inside your walls.
Mold, mildew, and dry rot are not to be taken lightly and should be a major concern in Portland. Some of our largest repair jobs are the result of improperly flashed deck attachments and improper window installation. It costs soooo much less to do it right the first time than it does to come back and fix a disaster. The handyman from down the street, or the contractor who operates out of his mobile office (pickup truck with a ladder) may have a lower bid, but are you qualified to check his work and make sure his weatherization efforts are up to par?
Portland Curb Appeal! It’s all about changing the way your home looks!
One of my favorite things to do is to help customize your home’s front entry. Today, homeowners have two entrances, your everyday garage entry and your more formal front entry. Both represent your personal style and give a sense of who you are to all those who come to visit.
When a housing sub-division is developed and built, a lot of attention goes into planning the general layout. The plot lines, general public services, school districts, transportation and of course: location, location, location. These are of the utmost importance because that is what tends to attract the buyers. As a general rule, a sub-division of homes tends to have an overall pleasant appearance but the individual homes lack the uniqueness that most of us really want. That’s where 1st Oregon Exteriors comes in. If you live in the greater Portland Area and have a desire to improve your home’s curb appeal, making it unique, we have some amazing ideas for you that can really add some curb appeal to your home. Let’s talk!
Here is a homeowner that we have had the privilege of serving:
The Shelton’s wanted to remove their leaking EIFS type siding (synthetic stucco). Fixing the dry rot that often develops behind EIFS is just standard procedure. As we talked about all the options to making their home exceptional in their neighborhood, we decided to use stone, beveled cedar siding, custom wood window trim and some really nice garage doors.
Some of the neighbors watched us as we customized the Shelton’s home. One had a beautiful home with a very normal but boring 3-car garage. We consulted and decided that the garage was a prominent and permanent feature of the home, but by adding brick pillar bases and then accenting the arches with clear cedar and Hardi Shingles and blending textures and types ended up giving a really classy upscale welcome to their guests. We balanced the garage entrance enhancements by accenting a large bay window in a similar way. The end result was accepted with smiles of appreciation and sense of uniqueness. It was tasteful and fun to come home to. Oh yes, the guests will love it too!
For twelve years straight, we have done this kind of creative, very fun stuff in Portland. And we have become quite good at it. If you’re thinking that your home could use a little 1St Oregon attention, we can help. Give us a call at 503-925-0124, or request an estimate by filling out our form.
Portland Siding: A Few Words of Warning
There are at least 10,000 homes in the greater Portland area that have Lap siding on the front of their home and T-1-11 panels on the sides and back. This was the builder’s way of saying that he was cheap and wanted to defer the cost of doing it right to the homeowner. The homeowner living there from the 6th year on gets that privilege. You get to be the one to finance the replacing of your dry rotted, rain soaked, mildew ridden, defunct siding. Even though you really do not want to know, it’s better to know this now than find out later.
The problem is that wet/dry rot in your walls makes for a really expensive problem to remedy and has the potential to stall a home sale. It is far better to deal with this error prior to a sale. We can help you determine if there is a problem, just call us.
Some people wonder how this could happen when the home is supposed to be inspected as its being built. Here is the answer:
In Portland, there is only one way to put the exterior of your home together to keep Oregon’s weather out, anything short of that is wrong and will fail. In Portland, we get 8 months of moisture. Sometimes it falls straight down, but on occasion it comes in sideways, and because of this the siding, windows and trim on your home need to be put on with that in mind. Every detail must be followed just as spring follows winter.
Without exception, houses with LP (Louisiana Pacific), Weyerhaeuser, or Masonite T-1-11 panels (that your home’s builder chose to put on your home) will fail due to application error.
Here are just a few of the most common application errors:
Too many nails driven past the outer skin of the panel. This allows water absorption and a place for rot to begin. In addition, as the siding begins to swell due to a manufacturing error, the nails sink into the panels even more everywhere. This usually happens on the two weather walls of your home.
Another very common error that will cost a homeowner a bundle is the fact that the framer of the house (not the siding installer) installed the panels. The Framer is paid by the foot to frame the house; not one thought is given to weatherization, moisture, and rot. These T-1-11 panels are an important part of the structure of your home. They double as a shear wall holding your framing straight and true, and also as an exterior siding. That’s how the builder saved money; by paying the framer to do a sider’s job.
You get big mistakes like installing the T-1-11 panels right on top of the window frames. The window frames hold moisture that is quickly soaked up by the panel and thus begins the rotting process. The same is true on any horizontal trim. The siding must not be touching the ledge. If a window has a trim accent, it must be flashed correctly. It is incorrect to caulk the entire top of any horizontal trim, as this doesn’t allow interior moisture to escape the wall as it travels downward. By putting dams at each end of the trim flashing, water will be prevented from going down the corners and entering into the interior window well.
That’s it, those are the biggies that will cost you a bundle, I hope we can help you sooner rather than later.
Sacrificial Cedar Siding - Portland’s Choice for Green and Durable Siding
It was one of those nice February days when walking around a neighborhood is a real joy, especially Portland’s historic West Hills neighborhood. We were going around meeting neighbors of one of our recently completed projects. We had taken an older home with very nice old growth cedar siding and replaced it with a narrower lap siding. The house went from a 10- inch reveal to a 5-inch reveal. (The “reveal” is the amount of siding exposed to the weather. It also makes a big difference in changing the look of your home.) We used smooth faced cement siding called Hardi-Plank. That and a lot of other neat stuff made this house unique in the neighborhood. Our client’s neighbor, Bill McClennan, had noticed the change and he gave us a “well done boys!” congrats.
My son and I really liked Bill from his handshake. Our intent was to just meet the neighbors and leave a business card for future help in any of their exterior home projects. Bill told us about his ongoing re-siding project. Time, along with Oregon’s weather had worn out his cedar shingle siding. His current focus was the southwest walls, what we call the “weather walls.” This type and kind of siding is one of the most expensive sidings that you can put on a home, about $1,600-1,800.00 for every 10×10 area. In the remodeling world, an area of that size is called a square.
Bill put us on stand-by, just in case he couldn’t complete the task as he is getting up in age. But, before we left, he had something he wanted me to see. We went into his garage and he showed me a siding shingle that had given its life protecting Bill’s home for 42 years! As you look closely at the siding shingle Bill is proudly holding, you will notice the bottom seven inches are almost completely gone. The next seven inches is the backup row for the exposed row that would be in front of it as it sits on the wall. That bottom edge started out ¼ inch thick before Portland’s wind, rain, sleet and snow whittled it down to nothing.
Some say that a picture is worth a 1,000 words, and in this case Bill’s snapshot stands as a reminder to the rest of the Portland homeowners: Always check the two weather walls on your home, as they will wear out 2-3 times faster than expected.
Should I be worried about my LP, Weyerhauser, Masonite or EFIS Siding?
What are the types of siding that I need to worry about, and how can I tell what it is?
Let’s face it; most people really don’t care about their exterior siding until it fails, allowing water into the walls of your home. You may discover siding failure when you go to paint your home and you find that you can push your finger right through your siding or trim! And if you have wood windows, Portland’s legendary weather always proves to be too much for the exterior sills and trim.
After you make these discoveries is when you want to figure out what went wrong, or how to make it right.
The really good news is you don’t have to know what happened, or what went wrong. Just call us, and we will look at it for you and give you a solution at absolutely no cost.
If you’re the type of person who would like to know the types and kinds of defective siding here in Portland, Oregon, here is a simple breakdown:
In an effort to replace real cedar siding, at least three companies made Oriented Strand Board or (OSB). They made it out of wood chips and fiber and steam pressed and formed it to look like wood. Between the years 1990 and 2000, thousands of Portland homes were sided with OSB type siding. The most popular siding used in Portland, Oregon was made by L.P. (Louisiana Pacific). It was the first to the market and a lot of builders switch to it from cedar. (It saved them a lot of money and it met the wood siding requirements of the neighborhoods). Right behind L.P. was Weyerhaeuser and Masonite products with very similar products.
All of these products came with a 25-year warrantee, but within 3-5 years, the boards started to swell, absorb water and develop mold and mildew within the boards. All of these types of siding need to be removed and replaced as soon as possible.
The two other types of defective siding you will find in Portland is Masonite’s imitation stucco board. It starts out with a hard outer shell and then quickly softens and begins to rot. 50% of the problem is the product and 50% in due to poor installation. A lot of Tudor style homes built in the last twenty years used this stuff and it is bad news.
Another type of siding in Portland is called EFIS. (Exterior Finish Insulated System). Some call it “Fake Stucco.”
It looks great and you can make some really amazing accents and facades on your home, but when it fails, it will cost you a ton of money to fix or replace. The biggest areas of concern are the window trim accents, transitions between floors, and doorways. They crack out and leak; we have too much water here in Portland for this type of siding.
I hope this information is helpful and I look forward to serving you.
Do you have questions about your siding? Call us, or leave a comment below…
Do You Do Small Siding Repairs?
This question is commonly asked, “Do you do small siding repairs?”
With Oregon’s weather bearing down on the southwest sides of your home’s exterior, something is going to give. And, it doesn’t matter what type of siding you have. It’s a matter of physics. A High-low pressure situation is created by the controlled environment inside your home versus the changing barometer outside. Your home environment creates a siphon for water and air penetration. This means if the caulking, siding, or flashing fails at any of the 100’s of intersections, or a window expands and contracts one too many times, you now have a leak. If you’re lucky, you will see the leak right away and get it fixed, but most leaks will go undetected in your walls and cause a lot of problems. Like mold and mildew to grow and/or dry rot to set in costing you a lot of time, energy, and money. Your best defense is to have your home’s exterior checked every 5 years. To ignore the outside of your home in Portland, Oregon is to make owning a home more expensive than need be.
The two largest repairs that we have remedied in our 12 years of business have both been stucco. One was an EIFS type (imitation stucco) installed incorrectly, the other was traditional stucco installed incorrectly. Both types allowed water to get behind the siding and remained undetected for a period of time resulting in dry rot and fungus inside the walls. Both of these projects were over $130K to fix. Removing and replacing defective siding on most homes will cost about $20-30K, as long as there are no dry rot issues.
Small repairs in your weather walls are a lot less expensive to fix than the above-mentioned projects. Often, it’s a structure such as a dormer that’s allowing water into your home. A dormer is a structure that sticks out of your roof line, usually with a window and it really takes the brunt of the weather. We may just have to take it apart and put it together correctly using components and a skill set not found in the new construction. You may have siding that has a leak, but can’t be detected from an outside ground inspection. The worst thing to do is ignore it. Letting it go just because the rain stopped will end up costing you a lot of money. Contact us if you have concerns about your siding.