T1-11 replacement

[C & M]

The siding on my house - 5/8" T1-11 - is just over 30 yrs old and me... I'm a lot older and getting tired of the staining that has to be done. Had someone else do it and the job stunk - it wasn't his house, right. SO, I'm thinking of a low/ no maintenance siding but don't want to go with horizontal. The only thing the old rancher has going for it are the hip roof and the vertical siding. I looked into the concrete but I was told that it had to be painted every 5 yrs and the composite stuff is REALLY expensive. I guess the expense would be offset by the reduction in maintenance. I asked an architect who apparently didn't want to be bothered and he said to vinyl side it. Doh!!! Any suggestions short of burning it are welcome.

[Roger Taylor]

I've got T1-11 on my house, and it is about 15 yrs old. It has been painted only once, and merely touched up after that. Have you considered using a good exterior stain-killer prime, followed by acrylic paint? In my experience paints last much longer than stains. This would be your most economic choice. Other than that, I don't know which of the many siding choices would be best for you, if you really want it covered. I personally dont like to cover wood with an impermeable cover, like vinyl or aluminum, as if there are leaks in the new siding, you get rot and insects in the underlying wood, which is hell to detect once it's covered.

[Doug Boulter]

"C & M" wrote on 19 Jul 2005:

Hardipanel. I've never used it, but the Hardiplank (the horizontal stuff you don't want) supposedly needs painting only every 8-10 years. Based on mine, I'd say 10 years was easily do-able.

[Banty]

I have T1-11 on the front and addition to my rancher (built 1960). My last paint job was in 1997 and is still looking good - the guy I got did a meticulous job on the prep and I had him use a Ben Moore paint. So you could probably do a little better and still keep the siding if you want.

However, since I'm looking for low maintenance like you, and detest the horizontal lines I'm seeing on every new-sided house around me, I'm going to use Royal Board and Batten vinyl siding. The job will be this fall. It's fairly rare around here (upstate NY) to use this for the whole house, but two local examples I've seen - a contemporary and an Eichler type house, look good to me. Not quite as good as cedar board-and-batten, but if you're going for plastic, you're going for plastic ;)

Banty

[Banty]

Not sure what you mean by texture and what you mean by holding dirt - from your sentence construction it sound like you want the dirt and I'm not sure what product (the Alside?) that would do that...

At any rate, I'm having a contractor do it; dunno what I can say concerning installation.

Good luck, Banty

[C & M]