Has anyone hung vinyl siding?

[Deleted]

Is it worth the saving to do it your self? Is it do-able to very difficult?

H and I have a brick house with maybe 20 ft of siding by the door. We got a quote to get that siding and the gutters replaced (on 1100 sq ft) and the quote was $7000. That seemed outragous to me.

I am considering doing it myself but H thinks we should just suck it up and pay someone to do it. Is the difficulty to coast savings ratio worth it?

[sailorgray]

That seems pricey to me. We had our whole home (1200 sq. ft) and new gutters put on for about 11 or 12 grand. At first, we got an estimate from a big company in our area and they said it would be about 22k. We checked out some smaller companies and they did it for so much less. I would see about getting another estimate.

[FoxInFiji]

Depends how handy are you guys? If you're very handy yes it could be a DIY project. But otherwise no. Vinyl siding is much more difficult to install than hardiboard or wood siding because it has to always be able to expand at every spot you attach it. As the temperature of vinyl changes it expands and contracts a lot so not accounting for this will ruin your siding quickly...say 2 years. For example there needs to be J-channel at every window and door opening for the changing siding pieces to hide behind. Waterproofing around the top of windows and doors is crucial or you'll have water and eventually mold behind the siding (a common issue on DIY jobs). Every nail needs to be kept loose...tight enough to hold the siding in place during heavy winds but loose enough to allow it to expand. DIYers often put nails in too tight as well.

That cost seems high but I don't know if you're in a HCOL area or not. I would definitely get 3 or more quotes to compare. Prices can drastically change between contractors.

[katybug_h]

We hung ours, but DH grew up doing construction, so he was familiar with the process. I don't know that I would recommend DIYing it unless you have some knowledge on how to do it. Like FoxInFiji stated above, it needs to be able to expand or it will warp rather quickly as the weather changes.