Gloucester, MA – Up here on a vinyl siding project, this is not a brand new job. This is an existing vinyl siding project that was done about 15 years ago and was improperly installed. All the brand new sheets of plywood installed on the side of this home are replacing rot on the sheathing. The rot was around the windows, a lot of that was contributed to the fact that the flashing (the aluminum trim coverage) around the window was not properly done. This poor customer who thought they bought a maintenance-free product is now back at it again; to the tune of unfortunately thousands of dollars. If you look at the front of the house, we did the front portion of it from last year (to view the full article from last year, click here ). By the way, this house is literally across the street from the ocean, so this house deals with a lot of the elements. On the ladder, you can see a closeup of the rot we have, which is all attributed to improper flashing of the trim that was installed on this home. What you are looking at can happen with wood siding, vinyl, aluminum, etc. If the flashing around windows is not properly done this is what happens, you end up with all this rot. The water that gets down behind the siding and it just sits in the sheathing, this causes the sheathing to become spongy and literally start rotting from the inside out. When all the sheathing and carpentry work is repaired, we cover the whole side of the house with Ice & Water Shield. This is a product we use on roofs to prevent ice dams; this is leak proof material, and we needed it on this house. We flash around our windows to prevent the water from getting behind and into the siding. We completely rebuilt the sill using a pre-primed material, and then put on new aluminum casings on. 
The final touches on the project include installation of J-Channel around the windows (completely flashing and caulked) so the customer will never have to worry about water getting behind the siding again. The siding itself on this project is a CertainTeed insulated foam-backed siding, one of the top products in the marketplace. With the insulated-back siding it gives a lot of stability to the product, but it also helps the energy costs of a home and provides a great sound barrier for the customer. Close up to the siding, you can see how spongy the old siding on the home was. With the insulated siding, the solidness of the product is way higher, and it doesn’t even budge when you touch it. The panel has the foam installed right on it from behind. The front side we did last year, and we are doing a side a year on the home until it is wrapped up. You can see the insulated siding and the window trimmed out, and we are done.
