Having watched "Holmes on homes" (BBC Canada) and seen the adverts for siders in the newspaper, I'm a bit concerned about hiring a contractor to do the siding on my house.

Anyone else out there ever done it themselves ... I'm try to decide whether to just paint this summer or replace the wood with vinyl.

If you have, can you remember how long it took?

Built a small addition on the back of our house, nothing flash, single storey 10' x 12' so the wife had somewhere to smoke in the cold winter months. Looked at different options for the outside of it before deciding on vinyl siding. Purchased it from Home Depot and also grabbed one of the comprehensive instruction leaflets whilst in there. I was surprised how easy it was to install. Nail up all the trims first and then drop in the siding. I had about 200' to install and around 4 windows plus one door. Lots of tricky work around the doors and windows but it only took me a day and a half to finish it. Apart from a few cuts, scrapes and blisters from the tin snips I used to cut it, it was not what I would class a big job.

Painting might be slightly easier but the vinyl siding will mean no painting for quite a while, and besides, I hate painting anything.

Good Luck

Simon.

Thanks Simon

I think out local Home Depot run a course in how to do it ... I'll try to fit it in before summer.

I lost confidence in contractors when one of them asked if I wanted to take the old stuff off ... very pretty ... vinyl siding stuck on top of 20 year old wooden siding.

I personally hate vinyl siding, it always seems to make a house look tacky. If you don't want wood, Home Depot has this stuff called "fibre cement" which looks a lot better, might want to look into that.

What condition is your wood siding in? Painting doesn't take that long, and it's a good excuse to buy an iPod

Hi

We have just replaced a whole building with Hardy Plank (fibre cement), it is excellent as looks just like wood and does not look cheap like the vinyl. It is cheaper than real wood and there is zero maintanance. Comes in a variety of colours too. Lots of new sub divisions use this now. Got ours from Home Hardware.

JJ

Don't suppose you know the cost comparison with vinyl?

....just been told (off the top of his balding head) that it was about a third more expensive (but well worth it!). If you want to know the exact cost and our sq footage, can let you know tomorrow?

JJ

Maybe I'm alone here, but I like vinyl siding ... I'm a sucker for "cheerful" colors.

We're planning to go for the energy efficiency survey ... I can see us taking the route of replacing/increasing the insulation and possibly installing a Tyvek wrap ... the old siding doesn't fit all that well, so it's probably easier to replace it with something modern and energy efficient.

While I'm at it ... anyone out there got opinions on Tyvek ... I've heard that it's good, but can be rendered less effective once you start hammering nails for siding, etc through it.