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We were woken up early this morning at 3 am by a very loud noise. My husband explained it was the sound of our siding coming off. A quick peak out the window showed us all of the pieces that had come off. Pictured are just some of them, as there were also some by the front of the house. Below is a picture of the area where the siding came off.
A week or so ago my husband went up there because one small piece had come loose. As he inspected the area he noticed that the builders of the house did not nail down the siding in that area. Unfortunately, the 50 mph winds we had last night did a quick job of ripping this poor siding job and my husband didn’t have time to fix it before it got worse.
We don’t remember what our insurance deductible is, but we will probably end up paying for this out of our own pocket anyway. Thank God for an emergency fund. A good reason why I am glad we didn’t use it to pay for the new car.
March 11th, 2009 at 11:26 AM
I’m so sorry about your house, but I do know someone who could take care of that for you!:) The winds got up to 50+mph last night!
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Mercedes Reply:
March 11th, 2009 at 11:29 AM
Thanks Marcia,
We already called the person you know
Mercedes
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March 11th, 2009 at 11:39 AM
how long ago was your house built?? can you go back to them and say HEY, fix what you didnt do right in the first place???
i would try something like that first.
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March 11th, 2009 at 11:55 AM
Sorry to hear about your house? How old is it? Can the builder still be responsible? I mean, they’re supposed to nail siding to walls, aren’t they?
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March 11th, 2009 at 12:09 PM
Oh no, that’s terrible! The joys of being a homeowner, eh?
I don’t know the situation, but I would seriously consider filing a complaint with your local contractor’s state license board. If this is a recent job and the contractor refuses to fix it, the board has the power to order them to rectify it. Again, I don’t know the circumstances, but this is something to bear in mind.
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March 11th, 2009 at 12:18 PM
WOW! We had a little siding come off our only 5 year old house a few weeks back with the big winds we received in Indiana.
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Mercedes Reply:
March 11th, 2009 at 12:41 PM
The house is 7 or 8 years old. SO this shouldn’t be happening? We will look into every possibility to cover this expense but I am not holding my breath.
Mercedes
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March 11th, 2009 at 1:00 PM
Sorry to hear about your house. As a wife to a contractor I can tell you that most people have a statement in the contract that states so many years warranty but does not include high winds and other things like that. FYI you can cross that out of the contract and initial it both and that can save you some money in the long run.
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March 11th, 2009 at 1:35 PM
Yuck! I’m glad you can pay for it, at least. And I’m sure whoever you hire will be grateful for the work!
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March 11th, 2009 at 2:01 PM
Man, that stinks! Hold on to your little dog, Dorothy, high wind and tornado season aren’t over yet! Thank goodness you can use all that money you are NOT spending on groceries to fix your house. Who’s the smart mama? Mercedes.
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March 11th, 2009 at 2:13 PM
We have had terrible winds the past couple of days too. I am just waiting for the siding to blow off. Last year,our neighbors blew off and hit our house putting a couple of holes in our siding that we have yet to fix. Luckily we have a box of extra siding in our garage from when our house was built. My hubby was out in the back yard this morning picking up some down spouts and garbage cans, nothing major.
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March 11th, 2009 at 2:32 PM
Do you know if your house is still under warranty? Depending on your builder it could be covered up to 10 years.
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March 11th, 2009 at 2:33 PM
Usually certain things are covered under a 10 year warranty from the builder. Definitely something to check into before you pay for it out of pocket.
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March 11th, 2009 at 7:01 PM
Unless your original contractor can show you the nails that pulled out, which I really doubt happened in just 50 mph winds, then he didn’t nail each row of siding to the house. That is such poor construction practice that I can’t even begin to believe this guy actually is able to sell what he builds!
I’d definitely report him to your state licensing board.
And, it should REALLY make you wonder what other shortcuts he took. Are your trusses nailed or strapped down to your top chord? If not, your entire roof could come off if you ever have 75-80 mph winds. You may seriously want to consider a whole-house inspection to see if other areas are up to code.
You may want to check with the building inspector in your town/county to see if they’d send someone out – they, too, might not want this guy building in their jurisdiction any longer!
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March 11th, 2009 at 7:08 PM
Wow, I have never seen that happen before. I bet it was loud. Glad you were prepared, it does take a lot of stress out of emergencies.
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Mercedes Reply:
March 11th, 2009 at 7:43 PM
Thank you so much guys for all of the ideas. My neighbor who is a contractor and does specifically this type of work, came to look it over and he thinks it was nailed but not very well. The people who built this house def. cut some corners and we have already had to improve a few things. This is proof of the big difference between being frugal and cheap. if they had been frugal they would have gone with value over price.
Mercedes
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June 24th, 2009 at 9:45 AM
[...] section of our siding was blown off: Final Cost [...]
December 11th, 2009 at 4:19 PM
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