I've got a few pet peeves when it comes to home improvement. Well, actually, I've got thousands of peeves. For instance, a builder once told one of my home-inspection customers that his sinking foundation would level out after a good rain. And there's this: There's a faux-know-it-all in Arizona who says that natural gas will only burn inside an appliance, such as a furnace.
But today, three things in particular are bugging me: Vinyl siding. Power-washing. Power-washing vinyl siding.
Friends and neighbors, believe me when I tell you: The only good thing about vinyl siding is that it's cheap. A naïve homeowner isn't likely to know that, because the vinyl siding salesperson most likely didn't go to the trouble of explaining that vinyl siding isn't meant to be waterproof. Vinyl siding isn't a barrier, it's a decoration. A vinyl salesman will likely tell you that it's a wonderful material that you'll probably never have to paint.
A lot of vinyl siding has a fake wood-grain pattern, like the stuck-on trim on the sides of an old Ford station wagon. It's not fooling anybody—everybody knows it's not wood. Second, the stuff is marketed as a low- or no-maintenance material, even though it cracks, fades and eventually falls to pieces.
I understand the need for low-cost siding on some new houses. It's hard enough to afford a house these days, even without paying for brick, wood or composite siding. I am a little bothered, though, by the fact that a vinyl-sided wall is so flimsy that a squirrel could gnaw his way through it in just a few minutes' time. Little-known fact: Vinyl siding isn't firmly attached to a house. It hangs off nails, just like pictures hanging on your walls.
The worst thing about vinyl siding is that it's heavily marketed as a cure for peeling paint on old wood siding. The ad copy for vinyl siding goes something like this: Throw away that paintbrush! Never paint again!
Believe me when I tell you: A vinyl wrap on any house will likely make things worse, because water will get behind the vinyl and rot everything that can rot in the wall cavity. Over time, your "low-maintenance" vinyl will let water drip into your walls and cause long-term damage that will cost you money.
If you do a little research on the Internet, you'll find that the Vinyl Siding Institute explains in their Vinyl Siding Installation Manual (www.vinylsiding.org/publications/0804_VSI_2007Manual.pdf) that "Vinyl siding has always been designed as an exterior cladding, not a water-resistive barrier."
That's just their way of saying, "Don't blame us when the vinyl starts letting water get into the walls."
There is one good thing about vinyl siding: You can melt it, shred it and repurpose it into all kinds of useful things, including soda bottles, insulation, shovel handles and such.
Now, on to power washing. By my count, 99 out of 100 people hauling a power washer in their truck bed are just plain destructive. Most of the time, when a power-washing man power-washes your wood deck, he destroys a fair bit of the wood, leaving splits and cracks that will hold water and cause your deck to rot much faster than it would have if you'd left it alone. If he power washes your brick, stone or stucco walls, he'll blast away a considerable bit of masonry, and effectively age your house by about 100 years. If he power-washes your concrete driveway, he'll likely leave you with a damaged, multi-colored mess. Hint: If concrete really needed power washing, there would be power-washing trucks running up and down all the interstate highways.
Don't let anybody power-wash your vinyl-clad walls. Vinyl siding is loosely hung, often over poorly installed and/or damaged materials. Your average power-washing man could easily blast vinyl siding right off your house.
If your vinyl siding gets dirty, I say don't power-wash it. Get yourself a telescoping car-wash mop (about $20 to $50), and clean up the vinyl with soap and water.
Finally, this: Some years back, I read about a contractor who bet his client that he could enter the client's house in less than one minute, without touching a door or window. The contractor pulled a box cutter out of his pocket, cut out a door-sized area of vinyl siding, kicked his way through the sheathing, insulation and wallboard and was in the house in less than 60 seconds.
The third little pig had it right: Bricks trump sticks. And, if you ask me, almost anything trumps vinyl.
Email editor@nashvillescene.com.
