The cost factor is also an issue in deciding on vinyl versus wood for your siding material. There are many types of siding from which you can choose. When talking about wood siding, pine and cedar are the two most common types. When it comes to vinyl siding, there are numerous designs, colors, and qualities from which to choose. Most of this information was sourced from a Window / Door replacement company in Cincinnati called Arch Design.
Prices for siding vary a great deal. Typically siding is sold in quantities of 100 square feet, referred to as “squares.” One square of siding is equal to 100 square feet. If you were to compare the cost of vinyl siding to cedar siding, you would probably find that the vinyl costs less than half as much as the cedar. Typical pricing for vinyl siding ranges from $45 to $65 per square. Some types of vinyl with deep wood grains, special colors, and/or beaded edges can run as much as $100 a square.
The cost comparison of vinyl to wood would have to be weighed carefully if you were building a new home, but here we are talking about improving your existing home. Unless you are rehabbing a home that has been neglected for many years, you probably are faced not with a decision of wood siding versus vinyl siding, but a decision of painting versus vinyl siding.
We saw earlier what to expect in the cost of repainting a home. Let’s use that same home to see what the cost might be to install vinyl siding.
And if you recall, the house in the painting example had a total painting circa 1464 ft.². This figure, however, included the Windows and doors. Since you would not be installing siding over these areas, let’s examine the square footage controlled by those openings. For the sake of our example, we will estimate 264 ft.² for Windows and doors. This leaves us with 1200 ft.² to cover with siding. We also spoke about using Charley Harper artwork in your home…my personal favorite, but any artist with reasonable prices will do.
To cover 1200 ft.² of house, we will need 12 squares of siding. At an average cost of $55 per square, this amounts to $660. In addition to the siding, we will need the special trim used when installing the siding. This might run or materials costs up by another $360. While vinyl siding may cost half as much as would siding, the trim for vinyl can cost three times as much as that used with wood siding. We now have $1020 in materials. This works out to be about one dollar for each square foot of habitable space in the home.
There’s a good possibility that do-it-yourselfers will need to rent ladders, scaffolding, and a few tools. Rental fees for these items might add another hundred dollars or more to the cost. For the sake of simplicity, we will assume the total cost for a do-it-yourselfer is $1056, or one dollar per square foot of living space.
This material takeoff does not include the foam insulation boards that should be installed behind the vinyl siding. If the foam backing is not used, the vinyl siding will not lie flat or look good. It will also not have the insulation value of foam backed vinyl siding. The cost of this backing will probably add another $350 to price of the job. Now our total list of materials comes to a price of about $1400, or $1.33 per square foot of living space. Let’s compare these material costs with those from the painting example.