4 Surprising Benefits Of Vinyl Siding In Edmonton

Yes, vinyl siding is the cheapest. But it has other benefits too!

If you live in the Edmonton area, then you’ve already seen plenty of vinyl siding installed on houses all over the place.

From Stony Plain to Ardrossan, and from Bon Accord to Leduc, vinyl is the most popular exterior siding option in northern Alberta. And it has been for more than 30 years. “That’s because it’s the cheapest one!” you might be saying. And that’s definitely true: vinyl siding is the lowest cost material out there.

But there’s more to it than just the price point. Here are 4 other reasons to choose vinyl for your siding renovation:

1. Vinyl Siding Is Super Easy To Repair

The weather in Edmonton is no joke. Our massive summer thunderstorms bring hail and high winds, both of which can damage vinyl siding. And there’s plenty of other hazards even if you don’t get hit with a big storm. You’ve got baseballs, hockey pucks, and careless husbands who get the snow shovel juuuust a little bit too close to the house.

If your house does pick up a few nicks and scrapes, it’s not a huge deal. We can repair vinyl siding pretty easily.

Here’s how we change a panel of vinyl siding. First, we unlock it from the surrounding pieces with a special tool, and then we can pull it right off the wall. Then we pop a new piece in, nail it on, lock them all back together, and we’re done. The whole process takes about 10 minutes per piece.

But what if you’ve got older vinyl siding that’s a bit faded? Or maybe your colour isn’t even available anymore? You probably don’t want a shiny new, slightly mismatched piece of siding right in the middle of your front wall. That's not the kind of "design contrast" people are usually going for!

Don’t worry. We can “harvest” some siding from a lower visibility wall of your home, and install the new “shiny” siding where you don’t really see it. Then, we’ll make your repairs with original material that’s been installed on your walls for years! Talk about a close colour match.

Since vinyl siding is so forgiving and easy to work with, we have way more options and flexibility when it comes to making repairs down the line. We’ve helped hundreds of homeowners with small exterior repairs over the years. We can make most vinyl siding damage disappear quickly and easily, which saves you time and money.

2. Plenty Of Vinyl Design Options In Edmonton (Almost Too Many Options!)

Back in the day, vinyl siding only came in a few colours and one profile. Not anymore!

20 to 30 years ago, vinyl siding was pretty boring. OK, scratch that. Vinyl siding was EXTREMELY boring.

Thankfully, today’s vinyl siding options are way more diverse. There’s light colours, dark colours, vinyl siding that looks like wood, vertical options, about 20 different vinyl shingle options, and probably tons more choices that I haven’t thought to list.

When you design your new exterior with vinyl, you don’t have to sacrifice on style. And you won’t have to worry about your mother-in-law dropping off a casserole at your neighbour’s house anymore.

3. Vinyl Siding Works Great With Exterior Insulation

Since Edmonton’s weather is so darn dramatic, homeowners are always trying to make their houses more energy efficient.

And while vinyl siding doesn’t do anything by itself to make your house warmer, there’s still an energy efficiency angle. Because vinyl is so light (only about half a pound per square foot) it’s the best siding to pair with exterior insulation panels.

Since exterior insulation is basically just a fancy sheet of styrofoam, nails pull right out very easily. And the foam panels don’t do anything to support the nails, either. So with some siding products, we worry about the nails sagging if we install too much insulation.

With heavier siding like Hardie Board, we can only install 1” of insulation before we need to install wood strips over top, which adds quite a bit of cost to the job. Vinyl siding allows us to install an insulation layer up to 1 ⅝” thich by just increasing the length of the siding nails.

That’s enough insulation to keep you warm and cozy next winter!

Vinyl siding allows for thicker layers of exterior insulation with little added prep work.

4. Vinyl Siding Is Ultra Breathable

Some people think that their exterior siding needs to be completely waterproof, keeping all exterior moisture away from the walls.

But the truth is, your siding doesn’t keep your house waterproof. Your house wrap is what keeps your house waterproof. But since house wrap can’t withstand exposure to the sun’s rays, it needs something to protect it. Vinyl siding blocks the sun, and also keeps most of the rain, snow, and ice off as well. But only most of the rain.

Because vinyl siding is designed to fit into open pocket Jtrims and corners, it actually allows a fair bit of water through. But because vinyl siding is so open and light, all that water drains back away from the wall very easily.

This means that if you do happen to get water behind your siding, maybe because of a gutter leak, or a window problem, vinyl siding will allow your walls to dry out much better than some other materials (like stucco, for example). And water is the enemy of all contractors. We want to get as much of it away from your walls as we can!

But since so much water is expected to get behind your siding, you’d better make sure that your siding contractor is an expert at installing house wrap, peel & stick flashing, and all the other essential moisture details.

At Blue Jay Exterior Renovations, siding is what we do, day in and day out. We aren’t some general contractor that picks up a few siding jobs per year and muddles their way through it. We are an exterior renovation expert: and in fact, we are the only contractor in Edmonton that focuses exclusively on exterior renovations for homeowners. We never work for builders, and we’ve built our entire process to give individual homeowners the best possible renovation experience.

If Blue Jay sounds like it might be the right fit for your project, we’d love the chance to give you a free quote for your home. Give us a call at (780) 850-2602, and we can get started!