Vinyl Siding question---- - Contractor Talk - Professional Construction and Remodeling Forum

davinci · 05-16-2009, 10:36 AM

had a customer who has a 15 year old home with wood siding.they are fading and split so he wants to replace it. i mentioned fiber cement.. he responded that "wood adds more value to the home" and thatn is why the builder used wood. what is a good response to his assertion that wood adds MORE value to a home than vimyl or Fiber cement? any thoughts? this is basically a sales type question.

shanekw1 · 05-16-2009, 10:50 AM

Faded and split siding sounds like a great value to me.

Maintenance is a big factor when selling vinyl or other over wood.

Framer53 · 05-16-2009, 11:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by davinci

had a customer who has a 15 year old home with wood siding.they are fading and split so he wants to replace it. i mentioned fiber cement.. he responded that "wood adds more value to the home" and thatn is why the builder used wood. what is a good response to his assertion that wood adds MORE value to a home than vimyl or Fiber cement? any thoughts? this is basically a sales type question.

Why not sell him new cedar siding?

naptown CR · 05-16-2009, 11:09 AM

wood is great if the HO wants to paint a lot more often. As we all know wood has issues these days largely in part IMO to plantation growing. I hesitate to use wood on any exterior application. To some vinyl looks cheap. It is also the lowest maintenence, lowest cost per sq ft installed.
The fiber cement products were designed to give the best of both worlds in that they hold paint longer than wood. Do not have the rot issues that wood has and can look almost identical to wood within limitations. ( The smooth looks best to me. You still get the rich looking finish that a painted siding has with much less trouble and future problems. Fiber cement is a much better value over wood any day in my opinion.

Oh did I mention that it adds more perceived value to most than wood

Warren · 05-16-2009, 11:29 AM

Tell hi that 15 years ago fiber cement was a relatively untested, expensive technology. Now it is commonplace and highly tested. I would see if you could find some statistics to back this up. Might be some on the james hardie website.

tomstruble · 05-16-2009, 11:49 AM

why try to change his opinion?
Inform him of the maintenance issues. Install a high quality product,properly primed and installed, finally a high performance finish.There's really nothing that looks like real wood and some houses deserve it. jmo

jaros bros. · 05-16-2009, 02:17 PM

The HO is right. When a house is assessed, a home with wood siding is worth more than a house with vinyl siding. Not sure if that is true with every state. Contrary to popular belief, vinyl siding is not maintenance free and also contrary to popular belief wood siding does not need to be painted but every 10-15 years if installed properly with a rainscreen and decent material. It sounds like you don't want to install wood? Not sure why you wouldn't want to because your selling a bigger job with much larger profit than cement board or vinyl. Doesn't make any sense to me.

crimsondot · 05-16-2009, 02:20 PM

A home with fiber cement board (hardi siding) would last 10 times longer than wood or vinyl siding and it looks better, how could that deminish value? Just something to think about

tomstruble · 05-16-2009, 02:29 PM

how on earth do you come up with fc lasting 10x longer??

katoman · 05-16-2009, 04:34 PM

I would try to sell him Maybeck siding. Excellent product, pre-finished and I beleive carries a 20 yr warranty.

tomstruble · 05-16-2009, 05:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by katoman

I would try to sell him Maybeck siding. Excellent product, pre-finished and I beleive carries a 20 yr warranty.

for that guarantee Maibec requires the rain-screen detail that Josh spoke of,which should be part of almost any cladding material install except maybe vinyl as it kind of has a built in rainscreen

enforcer · 05-17-2009, 07:35 AM

how much per sq is this maibec siding at a supply house? does it come pained or stained?

katoman · 05-17-2009, 08:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by enforcer

how much per sq is this maibec siding at a supply house? does it come pained or stained?

No idea what it's going for today, that job was about 7yrs ago. But the product was awesome. Painted all sides, straight boards, not one couldn't be used. I pass by that building quite often, and it still looks great. I beleive that by the time you price in staining all sides yourself, you can convince the HO that it's the way to go. And get out of all that staining!