Home Improvement

Kobayashi said:

Curious for anyone who knows how all this stuff goes together:

My house eventually needs new windows and siding. Does one or the other need to be done first? I assume both is obviously ideal, but trying to see the best way to potentially spread out the pain.

For windows, what's the best to go with? I really only care about durability, insulation, and low maintenance.

For siding, was thinking to do a fiber cement with the color baked in. Again, goal is durability and low maintenance.

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Since we’ve recently had this conversation with our builder his feedback was that they will do windows first and then siding. Reason being is that you want the window in place to correctly flash the sill, header, and sides, do the sealant correctly, and then come back with trim and siding to integrate and overlap all that.

We’re doing Hardie board, but in our case the builder prefers to paint on site rather that have it ordered finished. The ColorPlus cost increase from Hardie doesn’t make sense bc we’ll already have a full crew on site doing painting and finishing for everything else. On top of that almost all of the feedback I’ve read in the Home Build Facebook groups recommended field painting for better flexibility with matching to trim, porch, whatever. And also easier to match if we ever had to repair in the future, bc I can just go get Sherwin Williams Rookwood Dark Green rather than having to worry about Hardie color match. Also, even the factory painted stuff will probably need to be painted and sealed after cuts in the field. YMMV here though, depending on circumstances.

Windows, man… we’ve seen probably 6 different window quotes and it is really hard to find any “unbiased” opinions. It is just a minefield of negativity and favoritism. And it depends on what style you want and how much you want to spend. I’d almost just say find whoever locally has the best customer service and installer. A less expensive window installed and supported better will outperform an expensive window with a shitty install and no service. Half the people act like Pella killed their dog, half the people act like Marvin will literally suck your dick and are the greatest, another half order from China and say they’re amazing, then more recommended obscure small Midwest companies. It is really miserable selecting windows and you feel like any choice you make is deciding between a 10” dildo up your ass or a 14” dildo. Both without lube.

We went with Weather Shield wood clad all casement because of some specific HA requirements. We got a similar Marvin quote that was 25-40% more expensive. Is that window going to perform 40% better? No. The U factory, SHGC, air penetration, whatever are all basically the same. Architecturally it is a little different. Marvin uses Ultrex I think they call it, a super strong pultruded fiberglass. Looks great and is incredibly strong. But we couldn’t justify the increase.

EnerLux, Windsor, Provia, MI Windows, Sierra Pacific. You can go blind and crazy researching and reading the internet about all of them.