How to Install Vinyl Siding

Vinyl siding can be an inexpensive way to create a durable exterior for your home. Knowing how to install vinyl siding can save you up to half the price a contractor would charge. Although vinyl siding is easy to install, and the cost of vinyl siding is low, there are several important steps to making it look good.

Vinyl Siding Is All About Concealment
Vinyl siding is easy to form and work with, but its design leads to many seams and cut ends. Vinyl siding manufacturers have developed a number of specialized pieces to help hide the details and loose ends of siding installation.

• Siding panels. Siding panels come 12-foot lengths and cover between 8 and 10 feet vertically. Each siding panel is designed with a locking channel along the bottom and a fastening channel along the top called a nail hem. The locking channel locks into the siding panel below and the panel is nailed in place along the nail hem.
• Starter strip. Starter strip is installed along the base of walls and provides a locking channel for the bottom of the first row of siding panels.
• Corner posts. Inside and outside corner posts are designed to provide a decorative finish where walls meet. Both types of posts have a vertical channel along both sides that hides the cut ends of siding panels.
• Trim strip. Utility and J-trim are the primary types of trim used around openings in the wall. Utility trim is used along the bottom of window openings and to provide a locking channel for siding that has been shortened vertically. J-trim is used around the sides and tops of windows and doors, providing a channel for water runoff and a place to conceal siding ends.
• Soffit trim. Soffit trim is designed to cover the siding panels used on the underside of roof eaves.

A Word On Fasteners
Vinyl siding can be installed using corrosion resistant nails, staples or screws. The key is to leave a small gap between the fastener and the surface of the siding. A gap about the thickness of a dime will be perfect. Siding panels should be able to slide horizontally, but not vertically. This allows for expansion and contraction due to changes in temperature.

An Overview of Vinyl Siding Installation
If you think of vinyl siding as a system of interlocking parts, it is easy to break the installation down into simple steps.

Using a snap line and a line level, establish the bottom of your siding installation. Make sure your bottom line will completely cover the exterior of the house. Nail starter strip to the bottom of all walls.

Inside and outside corner posts are installed, leaving a quarter inch of clearance at the top to allow for expansion. Corner posts should be carefully placed so that they are plumb and extend about three quarters inch below the bottom of the starter strip.

Next, trim should be installed around windows, doors and utility openings. Care should be taken to allow for rain runoff by working from the bottom up. If you start at the bottom of openings and each piece overlaps the other, rain will run down and around the sides of openings instead of seeping inside.

J-trim and utility trim should be installed along the top of all walls where they meet the soffit or roofline. This trim will conceal the edges of the final rows of siding panel.

Starting at the bottom, siding panels should be installed. Lock the first panel along its entire length into the starter strip, then nail it to the wall through the nail hem. Continue adding siding panels, overlapping seams by at least one inch and leaving quarter inch gaps at either end to allow for expansion. Each panel should follow the same pattern: lock into previous course of siding and then nail loosely into the nail hem.

The last siding row should be trimmed to fit. If the nailing hem is removed, a special tool called a "snap lock punch" is used to create locking lugs along the trimmed edge. Spaced six inches apart, these lugs will lock into the lip of the previously installed utility trim.