After a long career and raising two children, Christopher is finally having the house of his dreams built. “We’ve had this property outside of Tewksbury in the family forever, and it will be the site of my retirement home. I am going to live here for the rest of my life. With that in mind, what’s my best choice of exterior?”
We’re going to share our opinion based on decades of experience as Tewksbury siding contractors. Tewksbury is a fairly typical town in that it experiences four dramatic seasons of weather. The winters can be very cold and snowy, while summer temps soar very high and the sun beats down. Stormy springs and windy autumns are par for the course. What’s the siding that stands up best to these type of conditions? Without a doubt, vinyl siding. Constructed to be durable and stable throughout the most extreme weather conditions, vinyl can stand up to Tewksbury weather without bending, twisting, splitting or sagging.
But what about maintenance? Even though Christopher is fairly active for his age, there’s a limit to the types of physical activities he wants to get involved in. Climbing up on a ladder to paint the house every few years isn’t a realistic expectation, which is a problem when you have wooden clapboard siding. The alternative – spending thousands of dollars to have a professional painter handle the job – isn’t appealing when you consider that same money can be spent traveling to see the grandkids.
The maintenance involved with vinyl siding, on the other hand, is fairly minimal. Most homeowners who choose vinyl siding keep the house looking sharp by spraying it down with a power washer once or twice a year. That’s the type of task Christopher might feel comfortable doing himself, and if not, it’s the type of task a handyman will do for a few hundred dollars. So from the maintenance perspective, vinyl siding is the better choice for senior homeowners.