Two siding quotes on the same Rochester house can describe two different jobs, and the difference is not always spelled out on the page you are handed.
Two siding quotes on the same Rochester house can describe two different jobs, and the difference is not always spelled out on the page you are handed. One says the old siding comes off first. The other says the new siding goes over the top of what is already there.
Both are real ways to put siding on a house. Both leave a wall with new siding on it. What separates them is what happens to the wall underneath, and whether anyone looks at it.
Going over the top is usually faster and cheaper to install. That is not a secret, and a contractor who proposes it is not automatically doing something wrong. It is a decision about your wall, and it is worth knowing you are making it rather than finding out later that it was made for you.
The answer belongs in writing, not in a conversation at the kitchen table. Under New York General Business Law §§770–771, a home improvement contract has to be in writing and signed by both parties once the job’s price is over $500. If the scope you are holding does not say which method you are buying, that is a fair thing to ask about before you sign.
On our walls, house wrap is lapped shingle-fashion so water runs over each seam rather than into it, taped at the joints and tied into the flashing at every opening. That is how we describe it on our own siding page, and the plain version is this: it is the layer that actually keeps the wall dry. New siding installed over old siding leaves whatever wrap is already back there exactly as it is.
Adding a layer over existing siding can trap moisture in the wall. Whether it does on your house depends on your house, and that is not something to settle from the driveway. It is a reasonable thing to put to whoever wrote the quote, and a reasonable thing to expect an answer to.
Water gets in around a window or a failed lap in the wrap and it does not announce itself until the wall is open. A tear-off is the point in the job where that gets seen. Going over the top can bury whatever is wrong underneath along with your ability to ever find out.
A scope worth comparing against another company’s bid names the method, not just the material. Tear-off or over the top. What happens to the sheathing if a soft spot turns up. What happens to the wrap. If two quotes are hard to compare, look at what is missing from the vaguer one, and ask about that gap directly before you sign anything.
Not sure which of the two you are being quoted? A Noble Edge inspection is free, and it comes with photographs of exactly what we find.
Roofs have their own version of this, and our roofing page answers it directly: laying new shingles over old ones is faster and less expensive on the day, and it makes three problems permanent. Every layer comes off, down to the deck, for the same reason we take old siding off a wall. A deck we have inspected, photographed and repaired where needed is a different product from one built on a deck nobody looked at.
We tear it off. Going over the top of existing siding is faster and cheaper, and it is why we do not do it. Once the wall is open, soft sheathing gets cut out and replaced. If we find rot, work stops on that elevation and we show you, in photographs, on your house, before anything else happens. You get the cost of putting it right before we do the work, not on the final invoice. Fully Insured. Rated 5.0 on Google. 20+ years of craftsmanship behind the work.
If you are holding a siding quote and cannot tell which of the two it describes, call and ask. It is a short answer either way.
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