Your Home’s Exterior Cladding
PROS & CONS IN 2021 — By Joshua Strange & Max Maloney — T
here are several different material options for your home’s siding: wood, metal, stone, vinyl, brick, fiber-cement, stucco and more.
This article is designed to give you a quick glance at various siding options, their maintenance, life span, and costs.*
What Is Cladding?
Cladding, also known as siding, is often revered (or reviled) for the way it makes a building look. However, cladding doesn’t just influence a building’s appearance. Cladding also plays a very important role as the outermost component of a building’s exterior wall assembly.
Cladding is the outermost component of a building’s exterior wall assembly.
Cladding protects the wall assembly’s sensitive, underlying components from ultraviolet (UV) light, wind, rain, and temperature extremes. Aside from protecting a building’s conditioned space, cladding also deters unwanted guests, such as mice, squirrels, birds, and insects from getting inside!
*NOTE: 2021 has seen an unprecedented labor shortage as a side effect of the COVID-19 pandemic. In conjunction with this, demand for materials and construction jobs has skyrocketed. As a result, material prices can change on a daily basis, and lead times may be longer than usual for both labor and materials.
22 Community Associations Journal | November–December 2021 Why Maintain Cladding?
Savvy homeowners recognize cladding as an important asset, both for curb appeal and as part of the building’s defenses against damage and deterioration. Many associations diligently save money in preparation for regular inspections and maintenance to preserve the building’s appearance and extend the useful life of the cladding system and its components.
Savvy homeowners recognize cladding as an important asset for curb appeal and defense against damage and deterioration.
When performed per the cladding manufacturer’s recommendations and industry standards, inspections and follow-up maintenance are very effective at mitigating the damaging effects of storms, accidents, vandalism, and long- term exposure to the elements.
Inspections and maintenance extend the useful life of the cladding system.
Common Cladding Materials
There are many types of cladding. In the interest of brevity, this article will briefly describe four commonly used cladding materials used in the Pacific Northwest: vinyl, cedar, fiber- cement, and stucco.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36
