Siding Repair in Portland and Southern Maine

After a nor'easter

Coastal storms are the siding story here. On December 18, 2023 the Jetport logged several gusts of 58 mph or more, and the National Weather Service noted how long the damaging winds kept blowing. After a storm like that, the damage we see most:

• Vinyl unlocked and blown off in strips, usually starting at a corner, under a window or along the top course.
• Cedar shingles split, lifted or missing on the windward walls.
• Trim and corner boards pulled away, opening the wall at the joint.
• Damage from falling limbs, which often reaches the sheathing behind the siding.

Photograph everything first, with the date, then cover any opening in the wall to keep water out. The storm damage guide has the full after-a-storm list.

Repairing vinyl

Vinyl is the easiest siding to repair when the panels can still be found. A hooked siding tool releases the lock on the panel overhead, the broken one is pried free, and its replacement is nailed through the centers of its slots, left free to slide, and snapped back under its neighbor. Intact panels that blew loose go back up the same way.

The hard part is matching. Vinyl colors fade, and lines are discontinued. The steps we take:

1. Identify the maker and profile from the back of a panel or the original paperwork.
2. Check current color availability against the faded wall, not a brochure.
3. If the color is gone, borrow weathered panels from a back wall or the side of the garage for the front, and put the closest new color where nobody looks.

Cracked panels near walks and driveways, where ice and snow removal hit the wall, are a common winter repair here.

Repairing cedar shingles and clapboards

Wood siding can be repaired one piece at a time, which is one of its virtues. Split or cupped cedar shingles are slid out after the nails are cut, and new ones are slipped up under the course above and nailed where the next course covers the heads. New white cedar weathers to match natural shingles within a few seasons; stained or painted walls get finished to match.

Rotted clapboards are cut out back to sound wood, the sheathing behind them checked, and new boards scarfed in with lapped joints so the seam sheds water. On a pre-1978 house that is painted, the work is done lead-safe under the federal rule, because removing painted siding is one of the things the rule's small-job exemption does not cover.

If many shingles on a wall are failing at once, the wall behind them is usually staying wet, and that is the thing to fix.

Trim, corner boards and flashing repairs

A lot of what gets called a siding repair is really trim. Corner boards split where they were nailed too close to the end, window sills rot where paint failed on the flat top, and the frieze board under the eaves softens where ice dams kept it wet. Each of those lets water in behind siding that may itself be fine.

Repairs here follow the same order as the wall itself: the rotted piece comes out, the sheathing behind it is checked, flashing is added or corrected where the old detail let water in, and the new trim goes on with its end grain sealed and a gap left where it meets the siding. Window sills get a slope that sheds water and a drip edge on the underside.

On a house built before 1978, cutting out painted trim is lead-safe work, the same as removing siding, so the ground is covered and the dust contained even for a single sill.

Finding the cause, not just the damage

Rot in siding almost always has a source a few feet away. The usual suspects on houses here:

• A missing kickout flashing where a roof edge ends against a wall, dumping water behind the siding below.
• No head flashing above a window, so water running down the wall goes behind the casing.
• Ice dams pushing meltwater beneath the shingles at the eaves, from where it finds its way into the top of the wall.
• Snow and splashback at the bottom courses, worst beside driveways and under decks.
• Interior moisture from a bathroom or kitchen without a working exhaust fan, which peels paint from the inside out.

We open enough of the wall to see the source and fix that first. A repair that skips this step looks good for a season.

When repair stops making sense

Repair is the right call when damage is limited to one wall or a few areas, the material can still be matched, and the wall behind is mostly sound. A full re-side earns its cost when:

• Several walls are failing at once, or new problems keep appearing each spring.
• The siding can no longer be matched and the mismatch would show on the front of the house.
• Testing finds asbestos-cement siding that would have to be disturbed piecemeal anyway.
• The window flashing is failing around most openings, which can only be fixed with the siding off.

We will tell you which side of that line the house is on, including when a few hundred dollars of repair beats a whole new wall. What a full re-side involves.

Permits and insurance

Small siding repairs need no permit in most towns that publish a rule: Kennebunk says repairs such as replacing loose siding need none, and Kittery treats siding repairs as maintenance with a $25 application and the cost-based fee waived on the first $10,000. Once rot reaches the sheathing or framing, structural repair needs a permit in nearly every town.

If the damage came from a storm, the claim is yours to make. Maine licenses insurance adjusters, and anyone paid to work a claim on a homeowner's behalf needs that license; a siding contractor does not have one. Our part ends at the facts: we take measurements and dated photos, note the maker and profile of the siding, and write up a scope of work that you are free to forward to your insurance company. The deductible is between you and your insurer, and no offer about it will come from us.

Common questions about siding repair in Portland

Where we work

Siding repair across greater Portland and southern Maine: Cumberland, York and Sagadahoc counties, from the islands of Casco Bay to the Sebago Lake towns and the New Hampshire line. Each city has its own page with the permit rule and code edition that apply there: