3 Ways To Maintain Your Siding For A Long Life

3 Ways To Maintain Your Siding For A Long Life

3 Ways To Maintain Your Siding For A Long Life

The changing seasons bring us outside in all kinds of weather, and each time, you probably glance at your Twin Cities home’s siding and wonder, “Does siding require any maintenance? Does my new siding need a little TLC?” Like everything else related to your home, maintaining the siding rewards you with years of great service from it. 

1: Spick and Span 

Your home’s siding benefits from a thorough, gentle cleaning once or twice a year. Gentle cleaning means putting away the pressure washer. Siding comes in many types, but none of them should be pressure-washed. 

The siding — steel, fiber cement, engineered wood, or vinyl — itself can stand the force of the water. The seams between siding pieces cannot take direct, horizontal blasts of water at 60 psi. That water infiltrates through the siding into the insulation and building wrap beneath, leading to mold and mildew within the walls of your home. 

Instead of the pressure washer, use a gentle scrub brush on a wand, a bucket of ordinary dish detergent or soap, elbow grease, and plenty of water from the garden hose, directed downward. Spread the work out over a few weekends to save aching arms, and be careful climbing ladders! You can also hire a cleaning service. 

2: No Spills

Your home is an integrated system of parts. Your roof ends at your gutters (some homeowners have a hard time with this concept, but it’s true), and your gutters connect to your siding. If your gutters are clear, clean and free-flowing, they escort water off your roof and out into your yard. 

If your gutters are clogged, water spills over them and dribbles down your siding, taking with it all sorts of staining organic matter. Instead of lovely Colonial Yellow siding, you have green and brown streaks down the dingy yellow facade of your Twin Cities house. Yuck!

3: Whack it Back

Keep all your landscaping at least six inches away from your home’s siding. Sure, a leaf does not have much effect (other than leaving unsightly stains — ugh!), but the branches can scrape against the siding. Your siding takes enough of a beating from Mother Nature’s weather without also being scraped by bushes and branches. Maintain your home’s value by keeping landscaping under control and your siding pristine. Midwest Roofing Siding & Windows provides impeccable exterior services for your Twin Cities home. Contact us today to learn more about our full range of services, including siding, roofing, windows, gutters, and more.

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