Alside
Vinyl siding and vinyl replacement windows
Alside makes both halves of a vinyl job (panels and replacement windows), which is why
it lands on so many whole-house re-sides. One supplier means one colour card and one
warranty packet instead of two that disagree about what "clay" means in full sun.
Vinyl carries colour through the panel, so there is nothing to strip and repaint. What
it wants in return is room to move: the nail leaves the panel loose on the shank, and
butt joints are gapped to a spacing that looks wrong in July and right in January.
Nailed tight, it buckles by the second summer.
- Suits
- Full re-sides on 1990s and 2000s tract stock, rentals, budget-led jobs
- Warranty
- The manufacturer's own written limited warranty, handed over with the estimate
Andersen
Windows and hinged or sliding patio doors
Andersen builds across several series (wood, wood clad with an exterior skin,
composite and vinyl), and the series matters far more than the badge. "Andersen" on a
quote with no series name beside it is not a specification, and we will not send you one
that reads that way.
Toward the top of the range you buy a narrower frame in the same rough opening: more
glass, less frame, and an interior that takes stain instead of a moulded white. What you
pay is the highest material cost of the six, and on made-to-order configurations a
longer wait.
- Suits
- Street-facing elevations, stained interior trim, rooms where sightline is visible
- Warranty
- Manufacturer's limited warranty, by series; the series is written on your estimate
Codel
Entry and patio door systems
Codel is a door line and not a window line: steel and fiberglass slabs, frames,
sidelites, and the glass inserts that go into them. It is what we reach for when a door
has to be built to an opening rather than shaved to fit one.
Fiberglass does not dent the way steel does or move the way a wood slab does, which
matters on a west entry taking full afternoon sun. Steel costs less and takes a knock
better on a garage-to-house doorway. The price moves most on glass, though: the insert
swings the number further than the slab material does.
- Suits
- Entry replacement, out-of-square openings, pet doors set into a glass insert
- Warranty
- Manufacturer's limited warranty on the door system as supplied
James Hardie
Fiber cement lap, panel and trim
Fiber cement is a board of cement, sand and cellulose fibre, and it behaves like
neither wood nor plastic. It does not rot, it does not feed insects, and it holds a paint
finish through the UV load a south wall takes at this elevation. It is the line HOA
architectural committees most often write into a specification.
The trade-offs are physical and they land on the crew before they land on you. It is
heavy, so staging and crew size change. Cutting it releases silica dust, so it is shears
or a dust-collected blade and respirators, not a chop saw in the driveway. And the
fastener schedule is not advisory: blind-nailed, at the manufacturer's spacing, into
structure.
- Suits
- Sun-loaded south and west walls, HOA specs written around a painted board
- Warranty
- Manufacturer's limited warranty; terms are the manufacturer's, in their document
Jeld-Wen
Windows and doors across vinyl, wood and fiberglass
Jeld-Wen earns its place for range rather than for any one product. A 1970s house with
four opening sizes that no longer exist, a slider that has to match the unit beside it,
a radius head over a stair: those get solved out of a broad catalogue, not out of two
stocked sizes.
That breadth is also the thing to watch on a quote. A Jeld-Wen line item can mean a
builder-grade vinyl unit or a clad-wood one, and those are not comparable at any level.
It is the easiest place for two bids to look like the same window and not be, so we
write the series and the glass package on ours.
- Suits
- Non-standard openings, mixed orders, matching a unit that stays
- Warranty
- Manufacturer's limited warranty, which varies by series and material
LP SmartSide
Engineered wood lap, panel and trim
LP SmartSide is engineered wood: strands bound with resin and treated, then pressed
into lap boards, panels and trim. It cuts with ordinary carbide and comes in long
lengths, so a wide elevation ends up with fewer butt seams than the same wall in a
shorter board. That is a visible difference on a two-storey front, not a technical one.
It is lighter than fiber cement, which shows up as a smaller crew and a faster
elevation. What it asks for is paint discipline: the finish is doing real work, and every
field cut has to be sealed before the board goes on the wall. Skip it on a cut end near
grade and you will see it there first.
- Suits
- Wide elevations where seam count shows, a wood look without cedar's upkeep
- Warranty
- Manufacturer's limited warranty; finish coverage depends on the finish supplied
Alside, Andersen, Codel, James Hardie, Jeld-Wen and LP SmartSide are the
trademarks of their respective owners, named here to identify the lines we order and
install. Their logos are not reproduced on this page.
