Why is Siding preferred?
A lovely home is everyone’s pride. Besides, giving your home an aesthetically pleasing look, protecting it from the home-destroying elements is the biggest challenge for every homeowner. Taking the right decision for one’s house is in proportion with the life span of the house and the economic stability of the homeowners. Among the ways for achieving the objective, either buying a new house or making an advanced enhancement in the house; home siding can prove to be the best possible economic alternative over the high-priced choice of making use of bricks, cedar and concrete composite products. Siding or wall cladding is, creating the first-line defense against the elements such as rain, heat, and sun, thus creating a cozy and calm atmosphere internally; the attachment of some protective material on the outer side of a wall of some dwelling or building.
Choosing Siding Material
Initially, you must know about how your choice is going to affect the look of your house. For providing an appealing outlook, go out and do some research work looking around houses and buildings, until you don’t get a clear and distinct perception of how the material looks on a larger scale.
Masonite siding
Among the various siding materials, Masonite siding, also known as hardboard, is a known budget-friendly siding choice, made of wood fibers held together with glue or resin through a heat and compression process, generally available in the thickness of 1/8 and ¼ inches.
List of Materials for Siding
You might need a Masonite siding board sufficient to cover the entire exterior of your house, Masonite corners, and trims for house entryways and windows, end trim for where you meet different surfaces, for instance, soffits and workmanship work. Other materials you might need are corrosion-resistant nails, building papers, blazing, and lengths of J-channels.
Tools to use throughout the Siding process
To start with the practice of applying Masonite siding board on the exterior sides of the walls, you may require some working and good-conditioned, efficient tools. For measuring purposes, take a measuring tape, a folding ruler, and a metal square; for marking purposes, take a chalk box and utility knife; for leveling purposes, take a level; for cutting purposes, take tin snips or shears, a circular power saw, a hacksaw, and a carpenter’s saw; for making tabs, take a snap-lock punch; and as supporting tools, keep a claw hammer, nail slot punch, pliers, stepladders, sawhorses and pry bars with you while going to start the house improvements.
Procedure for Home Siding
Complete with all the requirements, now we can start our procedure of siding installation.
Measuring and marking:
The first step is going to be the measurement and marking process of the underside of an architectural structure. There is a caution for measuring that it should be measured such that there is some gap presence to allow expansion of material due to atmospheric changes. The next step is to cut the Masonite siding board along the markings as measured.
Window and Door siding:
Fitting the siding about the window is the biggest job of strength. Taking accurate measurements, to fully fit the siding and then cutting sections of the panels and arranging them to fit requires the presence of mind concentration.
Necessary insulation of corner areas:
Installing foam sheathing strips at corners before attaching siding corners, assist as a proper drainage plane and a better water control system. The sheathing strips must be about ½ inch in thickness and assured to be smooth, clean, and dust-free. For promising perfection, siding corners should be arranged in such a manner that they completely cover the part of the roof overhanging the ramparts of the house.
Fixing the nails in nail slots:
Each Masonite siding board has nail slots to be used as soffit pieces or fascia boards for the house. What we have to do is to install the nail lengths of the J-channel against the inner sides of the fascia board, and this must be done in such a way that the nail centers the slot, allowing expansion.
Exterior wall insulation:
Before siding the walls of the house, first, apply the essential insulation material to the walls. While siding the walls, remember to leave some gap, to allow weather expansion, depending on the thermal conditions of the region.
Basic idea of overlapping:
The last point to consider is the overlying of adjacent panels. The precise manner of overlapping is such that it is not noticeable from the area you are standing or the most used region of the house. Assembling must be done with perfection, to assure that overlapped length is about 1inch.
Finally, we are at the last stage of admiring our job while looking at it, each day.