Every August here, the air comes off the Bay so thick you could chew it, and your walls take that on the chin for months until a storm rolls in to finish the argument.
So yes, we can replace one panel. If a limb punched a hole in an otherwise sound wall, a proper siding repair swaps the damaged pieces and matches profile and color as close as sun faded vinyl will let anybody match it. When the sheathing behind it has gone soft, that's a different conversation, and I'll tell you straight instead of caulking over rot and calling it fixed. What moves a siding replacement cost is square footage, the material you pick, how many corners and windows need trimming, and what we find once the first course comes off.
A promise while you're deciding: we arrive when we said we would, we don't talk over you, we don't lean on you, and we don't leave nails in your grass for the dog to find.
Keep reading and I'll walk you through how we repair siding step by step, what changes the number, and the questions folks ask before they book our local siding installation service. Ring (251) 551-3653 and I'll come have a look.
Siding Replacement
There's a point where patching stops being honest work. When more than a third of a wall is chalking, cupping, or hiding soft sheathing underneath, siding repair turns into a subscription. You patch, the next August storm finds a new seam, you repair siding again. At some stage the smarter move is siding replacement.
Here's how that goes. We strip back to the sheathing, replace any OSB that's gone spongy, wrap the house, and flash the windows and the roof-to-wall junctions properly, kickout flashing included, because that little bent piece of metal is what keeps water out of your wall. Then panels go on with room to move. Nails driven dead tight are the classic mistake here, and vinyl that can't expand will wave like a Mardi Gras flag by the second week of July. Most single-story homes take us four to six days; gables, two stories, and a lot of corners add time.
What moves siding replacement cost is material, wall area, and what we find behind the old stuff. Fiber cement, vinyl, and aluminum all price differently, and our local siding installation service can walk any of those replacement siding options with you.
What the job involves
Most siding repair starts the same way. I unhook the course above the damage with a zip tool, back the nails out, and look at what's behind it. That's where the real story lives. Wind-driven rain off one of our afternoon storms slips past a bad J-channel and soaks the housewrap and sheathing for two seasons before you ever see a soft spot.
Then we repair siding the way it should have gone on the first time. Nails centered in the slot, snug but not crushed, so the panel can move when July does what July does here. Panels pinned tight buckle and ripple by August, and caulk won't save them.
Matching is the part nobody warns you about. Fifteen summers of Gulf sun fade vinyl, so fresh stock never blends on a sunny wall. We'll often pull good panels from behind the garage and put the replacement siding there instead.
Two or three panels is a morning. A wall with rotted sheathing runs a day or two, and the folks who handle our local siding installation service do that carpentry before any new panel goes up.
What it costs
Small jobs get priced small. When we repair siding on one gable or a strip of wall under a leaky gutter, you're paying for labor, a few squares of material and the trip out. Vinyl sits around $3.43 a square foot installed here, most of it falling between $2.81 and $4.05. Fiber cement and cedar climb from there, and some specialty profiles push past $10. Full siding replacement on an average house here generally runs $3,000 to $14,000, so a patch is a very different animal.
Want a real figure for your wall? Ring us at (251) 551-3653, tell us roughly how many feet are damaged, and we'll come look. We price siding repair off the same sheet our local siding installation service uses on whole-house work, just fewer squares of it.
What swings the number is what's hiding behind the panel. Pull a course off a Midtown house after twenty summers of Gulf humidity and you may find soft sheathing, which is carpentry, not siding. Color match swings it too. Faded eighties panels aren't sold anymore, so we'll often borrow replacement siding off a back wall to keep the front looking right.
Why choose us for this
You've got a few boards buckling on the south wall, maybe a soft spot under a window, and you'd rather not think about it again until the kids inherit the house. Fair enough.
Three things I won't do.
I won't float a number over the phone and then grow it on the invoice. I measure at your house, not from the truck.
I won't open your wall and then vanish to another job off Airport Boulevard for a week. We repair siding in one stretch, because open sheathing in a Mobile August is an invitation to water.
I won't lean on you to sign today. No expiring discount, nobody hovering with a clipboard.
Honest bit: somebody will likely hand you a lower number than mine. What you get instead is the best part of nine years of siding repair on Gulf Coast walls, flashing tucked behind the course above, fasteners set so panels can move, and every scrap of old panel off your yard before we leave.
The estimate costs nothing and obligates you to nothing, whether it ends in a patch, replacement siding, or a conversation with our local siding installation service about doing the whole elevation.
Frequently asked questions
Can you swap out just a few damaged boards, or does the whole wall have to go?
Usually just the damaged pieces. Vinyl unzips with a zip tool and a panel comes off in about ten minutes once we've got the course above it free. The honest catch is color. Siding that's been baking on a south wall off Airport Boulevard for eight or ten years has faded, and new replacement siding won't match it perfectly. If the damage runs past three or four courses, siding replacement on that whole elevation often looks better than a patchwork.
Will pulling the old siding off wreck what's underneath?
No, and half the reason we repair siding by hand instead of prying it is to find out what's under there. Wind-driven rain from our summer storms gets behind loose J-channel and soaks the sheathing. If the plywood is soft, we cut it out, replace it, and tape the house wrap seams before anything goes back on. Hiding rot behind new panels is how a small job becomes a big one two years later.
How do we get started?
Ring us at (251) 551-3653 and we'll walk your walls with you. Most siding repair estimates take about half an hour, and our local siding installation service covers Mobile, Theodore and Daphne.