Hi Folks,
I have an old victorian house (3500 sq ft interior). The clapboards are very nice fir, covered w/ lead paint, and then covered w/ asphat shingles (the shingles are held up by furring strips). The clapboards are in very good shape due to the shingles that have covered them. I’ve been told “scape & paint will be the cheapest”, but I’ve also been told, “tear it down to the sheathing & put up fiber-cement siding”. Can anyone give me an idea of the relative costs of those 2 options? I’m guessing $25K for new siding, and $15K for scape / patch / paint.
Thanks,
BW in Boston, MA
Replies
Go with the scraping and painting.
My personal opinion is to keep building materials as period correct as possible especially on the exterior when working on more historic homes. I love a lot of things about fiber cement siding and it looks great on more modern homes, but when used on older homes it makes them look like historic reproductions. Not to mention if the old growth fir siding is in good condition why rip it off and throw it away especially if you could save $10k or even $5k. Well that's my 2 cents.
Hi Noumenon,
Thanks for the input. There are some fiber cement homes in our neighborhood already (old homes, resided). I think they look decent (compared to keeping the original clapboards). If the price is 10K cheaper for scape & paint, I'd do painting. However, I think factory-painted fiber cement will give me many years of maintenance-free maxing & relaxing, so for a discount of only 5K, I'd pay the extra & have the place resided w/ fiber cement. We'll see what the quotes look like. If I remember, I'll post back here w/ results.
Thx,
Mike
Depends a lot on how much scraping will be needed. Any substantial amount, with lead abatement issues, may become more trouble that it's worth. Though of course you have lead abatement issues if you tear off the stuff too.
I'd suggest first carefully looking things over (and trial scraping a few spots, etc) to see how bad it's going to be. Maybe even paint a small area to see how it looks and how well the paint adheres.
That's a really tough call.
Some things to think about:
- your age (and/or income) and how much you'll be involved in the project.
- how long you think you'll own the place, and the effect of siding change on resale value
- You have to wonder why previous owners opted for asphalt rather than "scrape and paint".
- the aesthetic and functional effects of FC vs. "scrape and paint"
Lots to think about IMO.