By far the most arduous, time consuming, and eventually expensive portion of our summer was spent removing siding. While the front of the house was already done, and the back of the house only had the gable left, the sides were mostly three full layers of siding. The South side of the house was a bit better because we had removed both the siding around the windows as well as the bump-out, though there was the added challenge of the electrical service pole. By contrast, the North side is against the property line, with the only access being the narrow sidewalk along our neighbors’ house, which in some parts is only about 20″ wide.
The North side of the house
The outer layer of siding is vinyl, and it’s by far the easiest to remove. The second layer, on the other hand, is cement siding with asbestos fibers. As asbestos goes, it’s not the worst kind, since it’s “non-friable”, meaning you can’t crush it into powder with your fingers, but “the best kind of asbestos” is still not the ideal situation to be in. The bottom layer of siding is the original cedar clapboard. Doing this removal from a ladder or even two ladders and a platform was a non starter. Because the area is only about three feet wide, the angle is so steep that the platforms wouldn’t sit flat. Scaffolding is also too wide, especially factoring in the gutters and other protrusions from the neighbor’s house. That left a pump jack, where you put up two poles anchored to the house and the ground with a platform that jacks up between them. I found an inexpensive pump jack on Craigslist, and got to work on the South side.
The original plan was to see how long it took to remove a section of siding and use that as a guide for doing the North side after a conversation with our neighbors. Unfortunately, just getting the pump jack assembled and in place took hours, and every time I went to work on the house it was full sun and over 90°. The first time I got it set up and jacked the thing up to the top of the wall, I didn’t set up a ladder. I discovered that the jack didn’t slide down the way it was supposed to. You’re supposed to be able to step on a release and turn a little handle, but it just spun around. On top of that, even though we were following proper procedure and wetting and bagging the asbestos siding, we didn’t want the kids at home when I was doing the work, which meant I was at home by myself, on the top of this platform with no way down. It took me about an hour to work out a way to use my pry bar to get the thing to slip down about one gut-wrenching foot at a time. One or the other handles would intermittently work to more gracefully lower the platform. After that, I used the ladder, though I also managed to smack my forehead into an aluminum rung of the ladder and cut myself badly enough I still have a scar a few months later.
Only working when the kids weren’t home limited the pace of progress, as did the normal summer events that tend to fill up weekends. I managed to get about a third of the South wall done in that first whole weekend while Sarah and the kids were at her sisters’, but it was slow going. After removing the three layers of siding from a section, the immediate next step was to add house wrap to keep the rain out. Between this project and the windows, I’ve developed a keen hatred of installing house wrap. It always winds up being windy, making it almost impossible to wrestle with one person, and it seems no matter what I do, it eventually rips and blows off the wall, usually when it’s about to rain. For most houses, where it’s only exposed for a short time before siding is installed, that may not be a big problem, but we’ve encountered it repeatedly.
We rented another dumpster (I’ve actually lost count at this point) to get rid of not just the siding but a burgeoning pile of debris in the second floor from the windows, the old roof of the bay, the hip roofs from the front and back, plus more that had accumulated over the months. For some unexplained reason they didn’t want to come pick up the dumpster, and we wound up having it for nearly a month, but that worked to our benefit because of how long it was taking to remove the siding.
Back of house
Sarah helped me with the next section, and I tackled the next major section in another weekend. By this point, we had realized that we needed to hire out the rest of it. To tackle the North side of the house, even if I took a week off of work to do it, was going to be incredibly difficult, and we didn’t feel right asking our neighbors to give up their sidewalk for a protracted period. We also had a whole bunch of bagged asbestos siding that we didn’t have a good way to dispose.
After getting some quotes, we brought in some pros to finish up the job. They originally thought they could get it done in a day, but there was a misunderstanding about removing the bottom layer of siding and they wound up taking about two and a half days to get the remainder done, including the section behind the electrical service pole, the gable on the back, and the whole North side of the house. They left the trim for some reason, so I’ve been removing that so I can get house wrap on. I’m hoping to get that wrapped up (ha!) this coming weekend.
October 9, 2018 at 2:46 pm
What kind of siding will you be putting up?
October 9, 2018 at 4:37 pm
We’ve been looking at a whole bunch of options. The complication is the rigid foam. I really wanted to get Certainteed Icon, a new composite, but they only support 1″ of foam. LP Smartside will only allow furring if it’s full 2x4s, which seems absurd to me and is a non-starter for us with how close we are to the neighbor’s house. We looked at Boral TruExterior, Everlast, steel, fiberglass, aluminum, but they’ve all got drawbacks and I’m picky as hell.
So, we’ll probably just go with HardiePlank. All the expensive exotic options suffer from one problem or another, but they share a lack of experienced installers, and the quality of contractor makes or breaks the product. Everyone uses HardiePlank, so we think we can find a good contractor.
October 10, 2018 at 11:44 am
Thanks for sharing. I like LP smartside for ease of installation, though the 2×4 furring does seem extreme. Do you need more than 1” of exterior insulation? I would have thought you would spray-foam insulate from the interior since you have it down to the studs.
October 11, 2018 at 8:45 am
We’re doing both: 2″ of rigid foam on the outside and spray foam on the inside. We’re committed to having 2″ because all the windows and doors are installed 2″ proud of the wall. It’s been a while, but I seem to recall that 2″ of polyiso was also required to avoid needing exterior gypsum to meet fire code. One of our goals has been a high level of air sealing and a high insulation value. Our overall wall assembly should be around R-30.
October 11, 2018 at 9:08 am
Man, insulation science is like taking MicroEconomics 101 for the first time (of which I got a D+. My prof. took pity on me). It’s a totally different way of thinking. And there’s not really a good textbook out there for insulation aside from gleaning things from GreenBuildingAdvisor and Mr. Delafleur’s blog.
October 11, 2018 at 2:02 pm
It does get complicated, but I’ve found that Building Science Corp has a lot of good information and guidance. Some of it can be dense, but a lot of it is written in a very understandable way.