Cedar shingle and shake, fiber cement, engineered composite and clapboard across Bergen County, New Jersey — installed with the housewrap, flashing and drainage detail that decide how long the front of it lasts. Full tear-off as standard, because the sheathing is the part nobody can see.
There is no best siding. There is the one that suits the house, the exposure and how much maintenance you are actually willing to do.
The right answer on shingle-style and older colonial houses, and the one that ages best if it is allowed to breathe. Stainless fastenings, and a rain-screen gap behind it on exposed elevations. If the roof is cedar as well, cedar shake against asphalt shingle covers that side of the decision.
Cedar or pre-primed pine, back-primed on all six sides before it goes up. Repairable board by board, which is why hundred-year-old clapboard houses are still standing here.
James Hardie is the name most people mean by it. Dimensionally stable, non-combustible and holds paint far longer than wood. Heavy, and unforgiving of a bad cut — the finish quality is entirely down to the crew.
Vinyl, including insulated profiles, and engineered wood. The sensible budget choices, and vinyl never needs painting, provided the trim, corners and J-channel details are treated as carpentry rather than as trim-out.
For most Bergen County houses it comes down to maintenance against character. James Hardie fiber cement holds paint for twelve to fifteen years, will not rot or feed insects, and usually costs less than cedar to install and to keep up. Cedar shingle is the better answer on shingle-style and older colonials, provided it goes on over a rain-screen gap.
| System | Cost band | Service life | Maintenance | Best on |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| James Hardie fiber cement | Middle — lower than cedar installed and over its life | 40–50 years | Repaint every 12–15 years; will not rot or feed insects | Full re-sides where the look of painted wood is wanted without the cycle |
| Cedar shingle & shake | Higher | 30–50 years | Wash and re-treat periodically; leave to silver, or stain | Shingle-style, coastal exposure, older colonials |
| Cedar clapboard | Higher | 50–100 years | Repaint every 7–10 years; repairable board by board | Historic and center-hall colonials, anything with original trim worth matching |
| Vinyl | Lowest | 20–40 years | Wash; never painted, though color can fade and a cold-weather impact can crack a panel | Budget-led re-sides, rear elevations, rentals |
| Engineered composite | Lower | 25–40 years | Wash; factory finishes carry long paint warranties | Budget-led whole-house replacement, rear elevations, rentals |
Cost bands are relative to each other, not quotes; we price every re-side after measuring the house. Service life assumes correct installation with a working drainage plane behind the cladding. Siding installed tight to sheathing with no way for water to get back out fails in a fraction of these numbers, whatever it is made of.
How the four systems suit particular towns: siding in Ho-Ho-Kus, where wood, brick and stucco often share a house; siding in Franklin Lakes, for big walls on wooded, lake and hillside lots; siding in Glen Rock, for commuter-era trim and close-set houses; siding in Wyckoff, for the breaks in split-level and ranch walls; and siding in Edgewater, for hillside houses and walls facing the Hudson. In Demarest, most walls belong to postwar ranches, capes and split-levels, and a re-side is the time to fix what the first one hid.
Every wall in this county will get wet. A wall that works is not one that keeps water out — it is one that lets the water that gets in find its way back out. These six layers, in this order, are the whole job.
The part you chose from a sample board. It sheds most of the water and takes all of the weather, and it is the least important layer for whether the wall survives.
A furred rain-screen cavity on exposed elevations and behind cedar. It lets the back of the cladding dry and gives trapped water somewhere to run down to rather than sideways into the sheathing.
Housewrap or building paper, lapped shingle-fashion so that every upper course sits over the one below. Lapped the wrong way it functions as a funnel, and it is the most common defect a tear-off exposes.
Sill pan under each window, jamb flashing lapped over it, head flashing lapped over that and over the housewrap. Tape alone is not a sill pan.
Inspected across the whole elevation once the old siding is off. Rot gets cut back to sound framing and replaced in kind — priced separately and only charged if it is there.
The one time in the life of the house when the outside of the wall is open. Sealing penetrations and adding continuous exterior insulation costs a fraction now and is effectively impossible later.
Corner boards, frieze, water table, window casings and the return at the eaves. Get those wrong and a hundred-thousand-dollar job looks like a wrap. We match the existing profiles rather than defaulting to whatever comes in the siding manufacturer's trim kit.
Siding rarely fails all at once. It fails at the bottom course, behind the gutters and under the windows, and by the time it is obvious from the street the sheathing has usually been wet for a while.
Only one area damaged? Our guide to replacing one section of siding covers when a partial repair is practical and what decides the match.
Press near the bottom course and around sills. If a screwdriver goes in, that is rot, and paint over it is money spent on a delay.
Even weathering is sun. Blistering in patches, especially below windows, is moisture pushing out from behind the board.
Persistent algae on one elevation usually means the wall is staying wet — poor drainage, a leaking gutter above, or no gap behind the cladding.
If the inside face of an exterior wall is noticeably cold, the problem is air sealing, and the cheapest time to fix it is with the siding off.
Siding is one layer of the house's weather envelope, and it is rarely the only one due. Roof, siding, windows and gutters as one envelope explains why we would rather sequence them together than sell them one at a time.
Yes. Vinyl, including insulated profiles, is the budget-led choice and never needs painting. It goes on over the same housewrap and flashing as any other cladding, and the trim, the corners and the channel details are where a vinyl job looks either clean or cheap, so they are treated as carpentry rather than a quick trim-out.
We do not recommend it and we do not price it as standard. Going over the old siding buries the existing flashing, hides whatever rot is underneath, and leaves you with a wall whose drainage plane nobody has ever inspected. It also adds thickness that pushes trim and window returns out of proportion. Tear-off is the only way to know what you have bought.
An average colonial is usually two to three weeks for full tear-off and re-side. Cedar and houses with a lot of trim detail run longer. The two things that move the date are weather and rot repair — and we would rather tell you on day four that the rear elevation needs sheathing than quietly cover it.
The siding itself, barely — it is a rain screen, not insulation. What does make a measurable difference is what happens while the wall is open: sealing the penetrations, correcting the weather barrier and adding continuous exterior insulation. That is worth doing, it is cheap relative to the rest of the job, and it is effectively impossible to do afterwards.
Yes, and we would rather do them together. Trim is where a re-side either reads as original or reads as a wrap. It is also where water gets in, particularly at the eaves return and where the gutter meets the fascia — which is a good argument for doing gutters in the same visit.
If the windows are due, replacing them during a re-side is significantly cheaper and produces a far better result, because the openings can be properly flashed and integrated with the weather barrier rather than worked around. See windows and doors.
Openings flashed into the weather barrier properly while the wall is open.
Window & door replacement →Fascia, soffit and gutter as one detail rather than three separate contracts.
Seamless & copper gutters →The roof-to-wall junction gets flashed once, by one crew, in the right order.
Roofing →Free written estimate with photographs, anywhere in Bergen County. If the siding is sound and the problem is a gutter, we will say so.