The house is 40+ years old. The T11 siding seems to be popular around here, but you have to keep up with painting and other mentaniance.
The south, and west sides of the house get lots of sun, and thus get hot. Not at all good for the T11 (or any other) siding.
Right now, the house is a tan color, not white. I'd like the new siding to be white.
White just doesn't get as hot, and there isn't as much sun damage.
If you wonder about that, then next time you're walking past a line of parked cars, just touch the top of each one as you pass it.
The white cars are noticeably cooler than any other color. Black will be hotter than most, but even off-white gets hot.
If you look at the older cars, often you'll see peeling on the top -- but never on a white car. Not as hot = longer life span.
The house is on a hill, and the back (down hill side) is about 4 stories high.
Working on it isn't much fun.
The last time we had it painted, the guys working for the contractor did finish the job, but quit when it was done,
because they didn't like standing on top of that scaffolding. It is a long way down.
And scaffolding set up on the side of a hill, particularly by folks who haven't done it before, can be a tad precarious.
First, gotta have a house number while working. 41
We'll look at a couple of the mistakes that he made along the way.
EG, if you look, you can see a larger than appropriate crack between the jamb and garage door.
Big enough to let rodents in.
Working high up, ya need scaffolding. which is expensive. But you can get a couple columns and attach a plank between them. Then you pump it up and down with your foot to get where you want to be. What holds them up? OH, you screw braces through the roof shingles. And hope you remember to fill all the holes when you move 'em. You also screw 'em to the new siding that you've just installed. I don't know how you deal with those holes.
If you look, you can see white in the corner.
The T11 siding didn't come together.
He's done that in a couple places.
Again, if you look, you can see white above part of the wall. Side paneling should cover the entire house. Shouldn't be like that.
The arrows are where there are nailing mistakes. Down arrows are nail holes where the nail has been removed in the new siding. Up arrows are nails that are there, but most of them missed hitting the studs behind them. Studs are on 16" centers. Those nails aren't even close.
More of the same random nails. "Really, there must be a stud somewhere around here. Let me try a few more, and I'll find it eventually."
In truth, Chris started early in the summer, thinking that he had enough time to finish before the rainy season started.
Which I asked him to do.
But a warranty job came up and he spent 2 months or more on that.
And then it started to rain, and he continued working.
Since it was raining, I asked him to stop, until the end of the rainy season,
because where there wasn't a wall, rain could get in and damage the wall board on the inside, which wouldn't be good.
While he was stopped, I had a couple other folks look, and they pointed out all the problems with Chris' work.
At that point, I decided to change contractors.
That was probably good from Chris' point of view as well, since I think he had seriously under bid the job.
I don't think there's any way that he could have completed it and not lost money.
When we were talking, before the contract, he said he'd have a couple guys come and help him with the job.
That only happened a couple days -- I think because he realized that he was losing money.
I suppose it is possible that when he realized that his bid was too low, he could have made intentional mistakes,
hoping that I'd back out. (Which is what happened.)
I've been asked about getting my money back, but he doesn't have any,
While working, he had to move because he couldn't afford to pay his rent.
I do wish him well, just not on my dime.