Save money and energy with new siding and windows

I had to write to announce something I’ve been super excited about for a few months…

We’re in the process of getting all new windows and siding on our house!

Let me give a little background. This house was built in 1979, with 2-pane Andersen casement windows, and this MDF type “siding”. I’ll get to that in a minute, but plant this seed in your mind now: MDF SUCKS.

In fact, so do casement (crank-out, vertical) windows. The only air conditioner we could find for that type of window was made by Montgomery Ward, and was likely made in the mid-70s! We had to put up that pink insulation board stuff to fill in the rest of the huge window, and it was just awful looking (and nevermind so very NOT cost/energy efficient!)

The outside of the house has been looking pretty shabby for a number of years now. It’s been in dire need of stain, protection, new decorative cross boards, you name it. It was rotting out at the bottom (because MDF, if not completely sealed and re-sealed, absorbs water like a sponge) and just was so completely awful. I was getting worried about insects and pests being able to get in, but moreso that the siding was simply just going to fall off the side of the house.

Allow me to illustrate in photos:

Now, you may have gotten a glimpse of the new windows in there, but I’m going to save that for tomorrow’s post. Yep, I’m sneaky like that.

The thing here is that the outside of this house is clearly in dire need of some new siding and windows. You can’t deny it. And the best part of the whole project is that we WILL be saving on energy/heating costs, because the house is going to literally have another layer of insulation (behind the new siding) as well as the fact that it’s all going up OVER the MDF (after they clear away the really rotted stuff) so that too will help with insulation since it will be protected by the new siding.

We chose form-fitted insulation for the siding, as we didn’t want the air gaps between the siding and the insulation. Pardon the crude illustration, but here’s what I’m talking about (The insulation is grey, the house wall is the black block, and the siding, well, that’s the curvy lines. The air and moisture is the blue sprinkly dots. I’m such a great artist on the fly!)

So there you have the “before” photos. As of this writing, I’ve got all new windows, new siding, and the masons are putting up some cultured stone. No, this isn’t a “cheap” project by any means, but it’s so worth it. We’ve already had two people pull into the driveway to ask about the colors and everything, it’s really become an eye-catching home!