I had planned to post about home project planning. Then we were hit by 90 mph winds that ripped three pieces of my house’s vinyl siding off. So instead, this post is about spontaneous home repair.
A large storm system raced through the upper mid-west states ripping off roofing, downing powerlines, and in my case pulling off the siding. I heard the thwacking of my siding hitting against the side of my house that evening after the worst of the wind had passed.
I went outside to check what was making the sound and what the extent of the damage was. Thankfully, I saw it was just siding coming off. Unfortunately, the piece that was making all the noise was stubbornly hanging by one nail and pulling at the pieces around it. It was also making a ton of racket.
One piece of siding was laying on the ground. Since the wind was still blowing hard, I grabbed it and pulled it inside. A larger piece was nowhere to be seen. I ran up the road in the direction that the wind was blowing that night to see if I could still recover it. I went four houses down and looked at both sides of the street, but nothing that looked like siding was there.
The next morning I drove slowly down the road and I was pretty sure I’d identified an obliterated piece of my siding. I picked it up after work so that I could cut a new piece down to size. I had an uncolored piece in the garage.
Cost Avoidance:
I have reattached siding before this and it was easy. There was no reason to believe that putting one new piece up and reattaching the rest of the peak would have been as expensive as my deductible which was a bit over $1500. I contacted my insurance agent but decided against starting a claim.
Schedule:
I went shopping for a colored replacement piece just before the weekend so it could be up and installed prior to leaving town for the holidays. There is typically bad weather around the end of the year and it was only going to get colder.
Had I filed a claim, the work likely wouldn’t have been completed until the next year after the holidays.
Researching the Process:
Earlier in the year, I reinstalled vinyl that a sparrow had pulled loose that then pulled several pieces down after a storm. I found this great video from This Old House on reinstalling vinyl pieces. I did not reinstall the entire peak of the roof that time but I was aware that I might need to. The pieces were longer and I was able to confidently get my pieces back in place without pulling the piece above off. I really didn’t know if it would be necessary this time around.
That time I went and bought the paint can opening tool. This time I had to buy the vinyl uninstaller zipper tool. It was much harder to snap a new piece of vinyl over an old one. I assume the older piece expanded and the newer piece is tighter in the channel. More on this later.
The zipper tools are not terribly expensive but they don’t magically make it easy to put difficult pieces together. I hope that I did eventually get it together correctly. It’s also possible that if I would have committed to redoing the entire peak I would have had better luck getting it to slide over the older piece. This location was challenging though because of the basement egress window and the AC unit in the way.
Supplies:
I brought the damaged piece to Menards to get a replacement. It may be necessary to go to a siding store or to look up the brand with the barcode underneath the piece first but my house used to be a rental house for decades so I assumed that they had purchased it at Menards. The people working in the vinyl area knew exactly the type and color at a glance.
There was a patch of foam insulation that had ripped loose as well. Sadly, Menards didn’t sell foam for the siding…apparently, it comes with the siding when you do a whole house. I did find foam that was just a hair thicker at Home Depot in sheets (16 sqft for $11). Then during the project, I discovered that I needed the zipper tool which I purchased at Ace Hardware.
I bought some other items for repairs that I hope to get to before it snows as well. I’ll save those for later.
DIY Replacing and Reapplying Vinyl Siding:
The most difficult part about the siding was getting enough leverage to pull up on the piece while I snapped the vinyl over the old piece. Theoretically, the channels would have slid together and a small notch is taken out on the edge. I didn’t notch mine. Hopefully, that won’t come back to bite me. Regardless, I may have been stuck with the oversized old piece and undersized new piece. I just needed to be higher up for better arm strength.
The longest piece, which was the lowest missing piece, was the piece that I had to replace. I tried to tape the edge of the new vinyl to reduce the miter saw from chipping the vinyl. It failed. My taping wasn’t good but the angle for the roof was less than 35° and I had to cut from both sides. It wasn’t pretty. It chipped a large piece of the narrow corner. Next time, I think I’d try scoring it with a blade.
As mentioned above, I used the damaged piece to size the new piece. I had Menards cut the long 16-foot piece in half (after confirming against the piece I was replacing). This way I could get it into the car without bending it. Now I have almost 8 feet of colored siding left over.
Where things went wrong for me…
Placing the ladder was very tricky. I managed to get it closer to the inside and tacked the piece up with a nail. However, since I was off to one side, I’d pinned the vinyl too far down and at an angle without knowing it. I’d recommend, if you can’t get the piece to hook in like it’s supposed to, then nail it so the channel is the height it would be when snapped together. Make sure it’s level.
I was able to slide the end of the vinyl over the two other pieces on one end and up under the edging piece. Since I’d gotten it to slip over two other pieces already, I didn’t readjust at this time. I tried to work from that side and tried to work from the other. It would trick me into thinking it was in place when it was actually just too low.
Even with the zipper tool, it would flip down and at times I was undoing my work instead of snapping them together. Much of my trouble was due to the ladder, the overall height, and the limitations on where I could place the ladder. It also would have been great to be ambidextrous.
Recovering
Just when I was about to give up, a friend came by to cheer me on. I was beyond spent with my muscles and I did pay for this for days after (keep this in mind if you have muscle issues). It was all because of the new piece and not having a sidewalk to level the ladder within any position. I also have a folding extending ladder which is unnecessarily heavy (an aluminum straight ladder would have been much lighter, though maybe not so stable with that footing).
After that, it was easygoing. I cut down the foam and nailed it. Then the old pieces popped over the new one with ease. The ladder had to be moved several times but at least I had a friend to help. I dropped nails, the hammer, and the zipper tool…and go figure they fell into the pile of leaves down in the basement egress.
The piece above the piece that had been dangling, was pretty much pulled out. The pieces at the peak were getting shorter and pinned between the edging and the attic vent window edge which made it much more difficult to get under. However, I tacked it down and popped it back into place.
There is a chance that I could have pulled the piece above out a bit, but it did appear that the pieces were more secure at the top so I didn’t pull off and reapply the other pieces. The other deciding factor was that I wasn’t sure my ladder could actually reach its peak. I’m pretty sure it couldn’t because I was also on the sloped side of my house.
When I did this on the other side of the house, there was a sidewalk that had been leveled next to the house and the pieces were lower and the ground higher. All these factors should be taken into consideration. I now know this side of the house is much more difficult and precarious. It wasn’t as windy as I’d expected, at least not that day.
Conclusion:
I’d highly recommend this as a DIY project if new pieces can be purchased. While the piece I put up there was darker (not sun-bleached), I can’t actually tell when driving by or looking up in the evening. This is a low-cost project with very little skill required. You are likely to scuff the vinyl with these tools, especially with trying to apply the top piece.
It’s a great project for becoming a competent home-owner and is likely to be something you may have to do several times if you have vinyl siding. I highly recommend watching the video linked above before tackling this project yourself.
The next project if it stays warm enough will be filling in the hail holes with caulking and painting over the color of the siding. I also hope to get my garage door seal replaced before it begins to snow. I may also add a bottom seal as water keeps pooling and freezing in my garage.