Vinyl siding can make a massive difference to how the outside of your home looks and feels, but there is always a chance that it can get worn down or damaged. This damage does not just harm your home’s visual appeal, but it can actually cause more cases of moisture or insect damage in the long term.
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Spotting Damage
Repairing vinyl siding damage seems tough at first, but there are multiple ways to handle the situation. Of course, you still need to identify the damage before you can do anything about it.
Vinyl can be damaged in numerous different ways, and not all of the signs are immediately clear. In some cases, vinyl might begin to slowly loosen or crack as some longer-term damage takes hold, meaning that it will not be immediately obvious if you are just glancing at the side walls.
Chips, dents, cracked panels, rotting, or warping are common signs of some form of damage, whether that is heat, physical damage from something slamming into it, or the materials underneath beginning to rot or fall apart. Discolouring is not as bad, but it can still be something worth fixing.
Mildew, mold, and fungus are other major signs that something is wrong because they tend to only grow in the presence of a water leak. On the other hand, panels that seem to warp and bubble may be dealing with too much heat, creating gaps or cracks in the material.
Important Tools
Knowing which tools to use can dramatically speed up the repair work that you do, even if you do not need to use some of them. Without the right equipment, you might be forced to improvise or try out risky methods of fixing the vinyl – and you might not actually repair it at all.
Always make sure that you have some core tools available. These are things that you will usually have in a toolbox or garage:
- A hammer
- A caulking gun
- A tape measure
- A utility knife
- A crowbar or pry bar with a flat end
You might also want some more specific equipment, like tin snips or a zip tool, to help with fiddly work and to make sure that the materials hold. The exact tools that you use are entirely up to you, but the better prepared you are, the easier the work will become.
Also, make sure to have spare vinyl panels available. You never know when you will simply have to tear off a ruined panel and replace it.
Repairing Vinyl Siding
Vinyl is a tough and reliable material, but that does not make it any less resistant to damage. The exact method you will have to follow when repairing the material depends on how it has been damaged – and how much damage there is – but the basics are always the same.
Fixing Holes
Vinyl can sometimes develop small holes, usually due to physical damage. These are not hard to patch up, although it gets harder as the size of the hole increases. If the holes are too extreme, then you can just replace the entire siding panel altogether.
It is a good idea to clean up the vinyl before you do anything, usually using soap and water. This clears away any dirt or debris that might cause problems and can help remove the cause of the damage as well.
Then, get your caulk gun and prepare a tube of caulk. If you have not done this before, be sure to read any user manuals or included guides since each tool may operate slightly differently. When it is ready to use, insert the nozzle into the hole and start to fill it.
Wait until the calk is overfilling the hole before pulling it away. This can help you avoid future water damage, something that can be really important in areas with a lot of heavy rain. Once the caulk is in place, leave it for 24 hours, then scrape away anything that is not flush with the wall. You can paint over the caulk later if needed.
Patching Damage
Larger holes or thin cracks aren ot easily fixed with caulk, either because they are too big or because your tools are not suitable for the job. Instead, you can patch it up – which requires more work but gives you the same results.
As before, clean the area. Then, get a spare piece of siding and cut out a section that is slightly larger than the damaged area. You still want the lips and edges to be curved, so make sure that the section is still usable if you are cutting it. Otherwise, you might waste perfectly good siding pieces.
Double-check that the piece of siding you have cut matches with the rest of the siding. If you need to trim down the new piece, then do so, but be careful to not break the piece before it can be set in place.
Then, you just have to patch the damage. Put some caulk on the patch and some more surrounding the hole or crack. Place the patch where it needs to go and hold it there for a while, putting pressure against it to secure it in place. It will take a while to ‘glue’ the patch down, but it should hold perfectly.
Like earlier, you can wipe away any extra caulk, and you can always paint over the patch again if you need to. This could be important if you were forced to use a different color of siding due to not having any spares of the right color.
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