Does your house have personality, or is it simply another house on the street? One way to make your house the talk of the town is to develop an original exterior design. Other than dramatically altering the building form, the most effective way to increase street appeal is to do something different with the cladding.
Although you’d never know it by driving through the average modern neighborhood, vinyl siding is not the only cladding option. Wood and metal siding are obvious alternates, but the possibilities include shingles, shakes, stucco, panels, tile, brick, block and stone. Combining two or three different types of cladding automatically makes a house more interesting.
Contrast, whether in terms of texture, color, pattern or light, creates visual interest. For example, a smooth surfaced, light colored wood siding stands out next to a rough faced, dark colored brick cladding. Vertical or diagonal siding further contrasts against the horizontal brick bonding pattern.
The cladding design can create visual illusions. A low lying one storey house seems taller with vertical siding. Horizontal cladding makes a house seem wider and more anchored to the ground. Light colored cladding makes the house seem larger, and dark tones make it appear smaller.
To make part of the house stand out, such as the main entrance, use light colors against a darker background. Bold colors are good for drawing attention to special features, such as corner boards, window trims or shutters. In areas with many rainy, overcast days, bright colors offset the depression. Where the house has natural surroundings, which provide ample color and texture, use simple white cladding for contrast.
In choosing cladding, architects prefer more natural, real looking materials, true to the residential style, such as wood, brick and stone. Materials that imitate another are generally frowned upon. Vinyl and metal siding are common imitators; they derive their aesthetic from traditional wood siding since they don’t have one of their own.
In contrast to manufactured siding, real wood siding gives more opportunity for design. Wood allows a greater play of verticals, horizontals and diagonals in any combination. From a practical standpoint, wood is also much more thermally stable than vinyl.
Vinyl is highly susceptible to temperature change; it elongates and shrinks on a daily basis as the sun rises and falls. Eventually, vinyl develops permanent deformities seen as warping, rippling, buckling and open joints. Plus, compared to wood, vinyl and metal have low impact resistance.
Cladding affected by moisture, such as lumber, plywood, hardboard panels and stucco, should be kept at least 200 mm off the ground and 50 mm above an adjoining roof surface. Install siding before doing interior gyprock as the vibration from hammering loosens the interior nails and causes them to pop, making replastering and repainting necessary.
For a renovation project, avoid trying to match older cladding unless the materials are readily available. Even the same material won’t match perfectly since the older material will have weathered. A poor match makes the house look like a patchwork quilt.
Try to achieve variety, originality, and creativity in the cladding design. Any look is possible with some design effort. Make a strong statement rather than apply the conservative rules of the mundane mainstream. Give the neighbors something to gab about – express your personality in the cladding design!
THERMAL EXPANSION
All building materials are affected by temperature change. Higher temperatures cause materials to expand and lower temperatures result in contraction. The amount of dimensional change varies with each material and is referred to as the “coefficient of thermal expansion”. A higher coefficient means the material expands and contracts more per degree of temperature change.
Concrete, masonry, wood and steel have low coefficients since their lengths vary little with temperature change. Softer metals such as aluminum and lead are more affected by temperature change and have higher coefficients. Vinyl is much softer than metal or wood and is greatly affected by varying temperatures.
To reduce distortion in vinyl siding, especially on the hotter south and west sides of a house, an allowance of 13 mm must be made for regular expansion and contraction at corners, doors and windows. The expansion space is covered by a “J” trim. To minimize buckling, vinyl siding nails should be centered in the nail slots and not hammered tight to the wall.
