The siding is almost completed!This past weekend we almost completed the siding and the soffet.
It was wickedly hot, way over 30 degrees C, and almost no clouds in the sky. With the humidity it was sweltering working under the sun. At times I was worried about sun stroke for my son and myself, as we were feeling woozy a few times.
With the sun frying our brains the work just took longer. Anyway... I am not complaining. This weather is much better than the constant rain this summer. At least we were able to work!
I had done a bit of siding in a previous building project, but we learned much about installing siding, fascia and soffet in this much bigger and more sophisticated building project. I'll share it with you over the next few posts. But first a few key points:
- Get scaffolding - it will make the work go faster and much safer. The key is to get enough scaffolding so that you can do an entire wall from end to end in one go. Using a ladder to extend the reach horizontally is simply a pain.
- Get the right tools - more on that coming but included in the set of tools you need are a skill saw, two kinds of 'scissors', measuring tools, a level, a hammer and a siding remover tool.
- Get the right siding accessories: There is a huge number of various accessories for holding, securing, and covering the siding. It is important to use the right accessory in the right place. There are different accessories for the top, sides and bottom of the siding. There are different methods for installing around windows. And that is just for the siding. There is a whole other set of accessories for installing both fascia and soffet. We will explore these over the next few posts.
- Plan Way in Advance: There is an important order in putting up the siding that starts as far back as ordering the windows. yes! even before you have picked out the colour of the siding you could be building into the design of the windows an important element for installing siding. Stay tuned for more in latter posts.
In the above picture you can see all the siding, fascia and soffet is now complete on the east and south sides of the cottage. There is a bit uncompleted just under the porch because we needed to install plywood as the ceiling which I had not yet received. [That is part of the planning tip... understand what you need and when you will needed it - of course in this case it wouldn't have mattered as we changed our minds on how to handle this area.]
The other two sides are about 90% complete - the siding is installed but not the fascia and soffet.