Enhancing the exterior of a house is equally important as decorating its interior because appearance casts the first impression. You may not always get a chance to look inside of a house but if its exterior is good enough, you can immediately make a good opinion about its construction and design.
Putting in more effort on enhancing the curb appeal of a building, a renowned construction company in Pakistan, uses different decorative materials of which the most famous are – Vinyl siding and Stucco. Vinyl siding is a decorative and protective material made up of plastic which takes the form of a wood clapboard and serves the purpose of weatherproofing, along with enhancing the exterior look of a house. Stucco is the type of decorative plaster that is applied usually on the exterior of a house in order to enhance its curb appeal. It is applied with hand and is a semi solid when wet.
If stucco on your house exterior is wearing off and this time you want to change the exterior with a new decorative material, then considering vinyl siding is certainly a good decision. You have two options to go with, either to install vinyl siding over stucco or removing the existing decorative material completely and installing a new one. In case of installing vinyl over stucco, you need to have a furring strips in your installation kit. Most of the luxury homes in Pakistan have special kind of decorative materials on their house exteriors.
Preliminary Step — Repairing Cracks on the Stucco
For a smoother and more durable installation, the preliminary step you need to take is the preparation of surface by filling up the cracks on the surface of the stucco. Doing this is necessary because the cracks become a source of energy leakage ultimately leading to poor installation of vinyl siding. Even you can purchase stucco patches from the market to fill up the cracked area and you don’t need to rack your mind on choosing the exactly matching piece, because the surface will hide under vinyl siding.
Installation of Furring Strips
The purpose of installing these long narrow strips of wood is to make the siding installation more durable and perfect. To install these, you need to use 1 ½ inch to 2-inch wooden screws. These are not fixed on all over the exterior but over the frames of doors and windows, on the outer edges of the wall in order to secure J-channel, brick molding and end-piece. For installation of the each of the furring strip to the stucco, there requires a 16-inch center.
Installing an Insulation
It is all up to you either you want to go for an installation or not but to make your house energy efficient, you can install an insulation in between the stucco and vinyl siding.
Vinyl Siding Installation
Before installing this outermost protective layer of vinyl siding, you need to secure the windows, doors and edges treatments to the furring strips by using treated wood screws of ½ in to ¾ inch screws. Mark one point where you want to start installation from and follow a proper sequence from one corner to other end. Once all the installation is done, make sure it is properly levelled. For this you need to place the ends of the siding directly next to the edge of the wall, window frames and door frames. The pieces on ends and corners should be applied after making proper measurement of the area, so that they could get fixed properly.
Author Bio:
Nabeel is an experienced author, having more than 9 years of experience under his belt, is currently contributing as a senior author for Amer Adnan Associates. He is working as a modern interior designer in Pakistan for several years.
Also you could put blown in insulation in the walls from the outside and then half an inch of Styrofoam insulation as you put the new siding on.
Getting the insulation in there is one of the most vital steps in my opinion. It really surprises me how much people forget to do it. You might as well not have a wall at all almost if you don’t proper insulate it. It is what keeps it warm when it’s cold outside and the opposite. Great instructions!
http://professional-siding.com/siding.php
Wonderful article, Erin! I’ve been thinking about installing vinyl siding, so I’m glad that I stumbled upon your article. I think you’re absolutely right: if your stucco on your house is wearing off, it’s important that you’re considering a different decorative material. I’ll be sure to follow your suggestion by replacing my stucco with vinyl siding. Thanks for the great tips; they’ve been very enlightening!
I don’t think you should pick siding because it’s easier to install. It’s better to look at the pros and cons of the material before deciding. Both vinyl and stucco are common, but one may be better depending on the type of climate you live in. It’s a good idea to look at both options.
Reading that it doesn’t matter that the stucco used to fill in the cracks doesn’t have to match the exterior of the home makes sense but it is something that bothers me. Thank you for including furring strips in this post, I wasn’t sure how installing vinyl siding would work with our stucco. I’ll be sure to hire a pro so the leveling around the home is consistent.
With siding, you need to know whether or not it will install over certain materials. Like you said, you can install siding over the stucco. If you are doing that, then you need to be sure to use the proper materials. You wouldn’t want to install the siding and then have it fall off due to you installing it improperly.
I’m planning to get some vinyl siding for the custom home I’m having built (I really want something that is durable and easy to clean) and it’s good to know that the contractors will need to use treated wood screws for the windows, doors, and edges to furring strips. You do a great job talking about how to do it yourself, but I don’t really even know what a furring strip is, so I definitely would prefer the help of a professional. Getting insulation in between the stucco and vinyl siding is a good idea; I definitely want to be energy efficient with my new home, so I’ll be sure to bring that up to the contractors I hire.