Hardi-Plank in Houston (My experience, Part 1)

How I found out that Amazing Siding is Amazingly expensive, and that you have to ignore the radio commercials to get a good price in this town.

UPDATE: After reading this, Read Part 2 here.

Well, like it’s owners, our house is starting to show some age. We are trying to keep it up, and have recently installed new vinyl windows (from Gulf Coast Windows), got the foundation fixed (through Olshan Foundation Repair), and got a sprinkler system installed (through Envirotecs). BTW, I was happy with each of the companies and their respective jobs.

It was originally built with cedar vertical siding, which has rotted in a few places, and is warping in a lot more. The fascias have lots of rot on them too. So we knew it was time to get siding put on the house. Actually, we knew that months ago but couldn’t bring ourselves to a) spend the money, and b) deal with the salespeople.

Well I finally started making calls. The first company I called was All-Tex Exteriors. Travis Jenkins (the guy from the commercials) came out himself. He was a great guy, and gave us a lot of great information. Then the quote came. $24,647. I was floored! I thought I knew what to expect, and his quote was twice what we were expecting.

I decided then and there that this was not an investment I was going to take lightly. So I got on the phone and started calling companies. And I kept calling, and calling, and calling. Some companies never got back to me. Some made appointments and never showed. Some were late, and others were REALLY early.

In the end, I got 9 solid quotes from area companies, so I have decided to share what I learned so maybe I can save you some time.

First off, here are the quotes I got from the different companies for approximately 15 Squares of Hardi-plank, 8 windows w/ trim (not windows, just trim), 370′ soffit and fascia, 96′ Frieze, and Paint.

All-Tex was also going to put lights and power plugs in the soffits, so subtract about $1-2K from their price, and they are still by far the most expensive quote.

I could go on forever about Amazing Siding, and most of it would be bad. First off, Bill (our sales monkey) said that they install both Amazing (Vinyl) siding and Hardi, but as soon as he walked in the door he was bashing Hardi-plank. He told me how horrible it was, how it won’t hold paint, he even told me that he knew of Hardi that sat in salt water for a few days and when they tried to move it, it had turned into mush. Of course this was just to get us to buy their product, the Fabulous, Incredible, Amazing, uh Amazing Siding! Now don’t get me wrong, I think the Amazing product is great, but I’m not installing it over our old, warped cedar. And here’s the kicker: all he quoted me for was to place the Amazing siding on top of the old siding, and then clean up and paint our existing fascias and soffits (replacing any rotted wood). And his quote was STILL almost $20K. That is ridiculous. Especially when I had specifically told him I wanted a quote to completely wrap the outside of the house. But truthfully, after I saw his first quote, I just wanted him out of the house. I can’t even imagine what they would want to completely replace our wood. All this from the company who’s slogan is “Never ever paint your house again.”

Colony Builders seemed like an OK company, but the guy wouldn’t give me any references. When we asked for references, he says “If you look around the neighborhood, we’ve done work all around. There’s a lady a couple of streets over that we did lots of work for.” No names, no addresses, nada. We were a little stunned at that.

Now there were some good companies also, with good prices. CTS, Allied, and Pay-less were all responsive, professional, and gave us fairly good pricing.

In the end we had a very easy decision to make. Kevin Spriggs is the owner of Pay-less Siding. He was courteous, helpful, and didn’t waste our time with a 2 hour presentation. He did explain the difference between his company and the others. He has 1 team of 10 - 12 guys. That’s it. They work on 1 job at a time, and usually finish in about 5 days. Most companies have teams of 3-5 guys, and take a LOT longer to finish a job. Also,since he is a small company, he has a great office manager named Sandy who immediately knew who I was when I called in. She is competent and courteous as well.

He brought with him a HUGE, RIDICULOUSLY LONG list of references. We called quite a few, and everyone had good things to say. We visited some of his jobs, and they looked good. He also brought a packet of information that he left with us that had:

1. His proof of insurance
2. His Better Business Bureau Gold Star Award
3. His James Hardie Gold Dealer Certificate
4. Some personal testimonials

That was impressive. Some of the other sales guys brought certs, etc. but didn’t leave them with us to check. He wanted to get the job done before Christmas, so he cut us a great deal, and we took it. He came over last night to get the check, and will start work (weather permitting) on Friday.

The “before” pictures are below. Click the thumbnail to see more. I will take some while they are working, and also I will try to take the exact same pictures once the job is done so you can see the (hopefully) dramatic change in our house!

Read Part 2 here!