Explore Your Options: Types of Vinyl Siding

Looking to enhance your home’s curb appeal? Vinyl siding offers a huge variety of siding options, so you can enhance the look of your home’s exterior no matter your style or budget. Vinyl siding comes in a variety of profiles, colours and even textures, allowing you to completely transform the exterior of your home. By understanding the full range of options, you can better select the type of vinyl you want to install for your home.

Why Vinyl Siding?

Vinyl siding is a great durable, cost-friendly option for your home renovation or exterior upgrades, with numerous benefits:

1. Lower cost: Vinyl siding not only has a great curb appeal, it has a much smaller upfront cost than wood and other types of siding. With lower investment, you’d think that it brings less value to your home but new vinyl siding has been shown to be a great option ROI – wise.
2. Less Maintenance: Vinyl is virtually maintenance free. This means you can enjoy a great variety of styles and colours without worrying about staining or rotting wood or repainting
3. Huge Selection of Options: Because vinyl siding is a very flexible product, it can be manufactured with more colour options than other products. With endless combinations of colours and styles, you can find an option that fits your home’s style and boosts your curb appeal. 
4. Higher Durability: Protecting against harsh temperatures, wind and moisture, vinyl siding is a great choice for homes in Edmonton and Calgary or other cold-weather climates.

The Three Main Types of Vinyl Siding

If you’re considering updating your siding, the first step is to determine the type of vinyl siding that works best for your home. There are a lot of options – from horizontal or vertical siding to scalloped siding and more, how do you know where to start? Most Edmonton roofers typically utilize three types of vinyl siding, which include:

1. Horizontal Siding – Horizontal siding or clapboard style is one of the more commonly used types of vinyl siding. It can be combined with other types as well to create various textures on the front of your home. Other horizontal styles can include Dutch lap and beaded or log-siding style. The Dutch lap and clapboard styles are two of the more popular varieties and offer a traditional look. They can look like real hand-carved wooden planks with varying textures, lengths and thicknesses, and work well on modern or even historic homes.
2. Board and Batten – The board and batten style is a vertical vinyl plank. Sometimes referred to as a “barn siding”, this style has been used for centuries on older homes and can be paired with wooden shakes for a more rustic look. This style typically features wide boards of siding with a thinner board or ‘batten’ in between the wider boards.
3. Half Rounds – Also called scalloped shakes or scalloped siding, these are used more for accent than the actual siding of the home. Half rounds come in a variety of shapes, patterns and colours and are used to trim a home and add a special touch to the home’s style. Used on gables or above windows, they provide unique charm and style.

Textures and Colours of Vinyl

Once you select the main type (or types) of vinyl siding you want, now you must decide on the texture and colour of that siding. The textures may vary by manufacturer and the style of siding selected, but four of the more common textures you can choose include:

• Woodgrain – This features a real wood-like texture without the worries of swelling or rotting.
• Smooth – Smooth and sanded finishes can replicate sanded and painted wood or be used for finishes such as board and batten siding.
• Beaded – Typically used with horizontal or clapboard siding, beaded texture provides a shadow line on the bottom edge of the siding, creating more definition in your siding.
• Rugged – This gives your home a more rustic texture and is used primarily on Cape Cod and Craftsman style homes.

In addition to textures, you will have numerous colours to choose from. The spectrum of colours you can choose from will depend on the style of siding you choose as well. Traditional pastel and neutral tones are always available, but darker colours may require special insulation in order for the colour to maintain its appearance over longer timeframes.

Vinyl vs. other types of siding

See how vinyl siding stacks up compared to other popular forms of siding to find the best fit for your home.

Wood: With many different styles of vinyl siding, you can achieve a similar look to wood siding for a reduced cost and maintenance.

Brick or stone: Vinyl offers similarly low maintenance as brick or stone, as well as the added noise buffering benefits, for a significantly lower price.

Stucco: Stucco provides more durability and fire resistance than vinyl siding, but will typically cost 3 or 4 times as much.

Fibre-Cement: Vinyl is a lot easier and quicker to install than fibre-cement which can be problematic if done wrong. Vinyl siding also has more flexible selections and a lower initial investment.

Find the right siding for your home

With an endless number of combinations of vinyl siding styles, textures and colours, you can amp your curb appeal and increase the value of your home, no matter your budget or style. Don’t know where to get started? A. Clark Roofing & Siding’s Alberta roofers can help you find the perfect vinyl siding for your home and make sure it’s installed properly and safely. Whether you want to combine styles or just find something simple and timeless, we can help. Contact us at 780-465-7571 or fill out an online contact form to request a no-obligation estimate today.