Licensed & Insured
Restore. Rebuild. Renew.
Siding is a rain screen, not a raincoat. What actually keeps water out of the wall is the barrier underneath it, which is why a cracked panel matters more than it looks like it should. We repair and replace siding, trim, soffit and fascia across the 252, and the inspection covers every elevation of the house.
How a wall works
Most people assume siding is what keeps water out of a wall. It is not, quite. Siding takes the weather, meaning sun, wind-driven rain, hail and the branch that comes down, and sheds the great majority of it. What stops the rest from reaching your framing is the weather-resistive barrier behind it: house wrap or felt, taped and lapped, with flashing at every window, door and penetration.
That division of labor is why a cracked panel is more serious than it looks. Nothing dramatic happens for a while. Water gets behind the siding, the barrier does its job for a season or two, and then a lap that was never taped or a piece of window flashing that was never installed lets it through. By the time it shows up inside, the sheathing has usually been wet for a long time.
Panel replacement. Cracked, punctured, melted or hail-marked panels swapped out. Vinyl becomes brittle with age and cold, so an old wall can crack simply from being unclipped. Part of the inspection is working out whether a spot repair will hold or create damage of its own.
Full re-side. When the wall is coming off anyway, the barrier and the flashing get done properly. This is the only moment they are accessible, and skipping it to save a day is the most expensive saving on the job.
Trim, soffit and fascia. Corner boards, window and door trim, and the underside of the eave. Soffit is also where a roof gets its intake air, so rotten or painted-shut soffit is a roof-ventilation problem wearing a siding costume.
Wall sheathing. If moisture has been getting in long enough, the plywood behind the siding has to be cut out and replaced. Covering it is not an option we offer.
Hail arrives at an angle. A storm that bruises the roof frequently marks the elevation it came from as well: cracked vinyl, dented aluminum trim, holes punched through soft panels, and gutters dented on the same side. So when we inspect a roof after a storm, we walk the walls as well. Damage nobody recorded is damage a claim cannot account for, and the siding does not get a second storm to be found in.
What to look for
Most of these are visible from the ground on a walk around the house.
How it runs
01
A walk of every elevation, not just the one you called about. Storms hit one side of a house, and it is often not the side you noticed.
02
What comes off, what goes back, and what we expect to find behind it. Anything that can only be confirmed once the wall is open is flagged beforehand rather than after.
03
Panels off, barrier and flashing corrected, any wet sheathing cut out and replaced, then the wall closed back up.
04
Cleaned up and walked with you. Offcuts and fasteners are magnet-swept off the beds and the lawn.
Common questions
The questions homeowners ask us most often about siding. If yours is not here, call and ask.
Usually close, sometimes exactly. It depends on the profile and whether the color is still in production, and on sun fade, which no new panel will match on a wall that has been out in the eastern Carolina sun for fifteen years. Where an exact match is not available you will hear that before the work starts, and there are usually good options: take replacement panels from a less visible elevation and put the new stock there instead, or re-side the one elevation so it reads as a deliberate choice.
Whichever the wall can take. Individual panel replacement is straightforward on siding that is still flexible. On older vinyl that has gone brittle, unclipping a course to reach one panel can crack the two beside it, and at that point a spot repair stops saving money. The inspection is what tells you which of the two your wall is, before you commit to either.
A weather-resistive barrier, house wrap or felt, over the sheathing, with flashing at windows, doors and penetrations. It matters a great deal, because it is the layer that actually keeps the wall dry. It is also only reachable with the siding off, which is why a re-side is the moment to get it right and a single panel swap is not.
If the cause is a covered event such as hail or wind, siding is generally part of the loss in the same way the roof is. It is also the part most often left out of the paperwork, because a roof inspection does not automatically include a walk of the walls. We record both. See insurance restoration.
On its own, not much, because siding is a rain screen rather than insulation. What does change how a room feels is sealing the air leaks and replacing wet sheathing found behind it, and adding insulated sheathing or a foam underlayment while the wall is open. If that matters to you, raise it at the inspection, because it has to be decided before the wall closes.
Yes, and they are worth doing on their own more often than people expect. Fascia is what your gutters hang on, and soffit is where the roof takes in air. Soft fascia is a gutter problem waiting to happen, and blocked soffit is a ventilation problem that shortens the life of the roof above it.
Commonly thirty years or more, but sun exposure decides a lot of it. South and west elevations fade and go brittle faster than north-facing walls, which is why one side of a house often needs work long before the rest. Hail and flying debris shorten it too. In practice, siding is usually replaced because it has cracked, faded unevenly or let water behind it, rather than because it reached a particular age.
The rest of the exterior
Tell us where the house is and which side took the weather. We will walk every elevation, not just the one you called about.
Rather talk it through? (252) 544-6845
Four details and we will call you back to set a time that works.
