High-quality composite wood siding can elevate the aesthetic beauty of your home, strengthen protection of its structure and increase your property value. Overall, composite woods have become the most competitive long-term solution for exterior home siding, compared to regular wood and vinyl alternatives. But, what makes composite wood siding stand out from other types of exterior siding as a better value? Here's some information to help you in your comparison of siding materials for your home.
What is Composite Wood Siding?
Composite wood siding is made of wood scraps. The small wood pieces are compressed, bonded using resins, and formed into boards. The wood composite boards are treated with chemicals to protect against fungal growth and insect infestation. Wood composite sidingis highly durable, providing exceptional structural protection for a home against weather for decades. In fact, composite wood siding can be expected to last as long as 30 years.
5 Things that Make Composite Wood Siding a Superior Choice for Your Home
There are actually many benefits of composite wood siding that altogether make it an exceptional choice for today's home building or improvement project. Here are a few of the key reasons that composite wood is such a great choice among the modern options for exterior siding:
1. Authentic Beauty
Whether your home is a traditional or ultra-sleek modern design, few siding options compare to a stunning wood look, for creative possibilities and timeless beauty. Wood composite siding offers all the aesthetic quality of real wood, but with many practical benefits that real wood cannot offer.
Wood composite siding boards are available already primed for painting, or even already finished with one of the numerous gorgeous, rich styles, textures, and colors that can be indistinguishable from real wood. Various composite board widths are available as well as styles resembling virtually any type of wood you care to use, from Pines to Oaks, to Redwoods, to stunning custom options. There are no unsightly seams on homes with wood composite siding, as composites are attached individually with clips, instead of by hanging sheet-like planks across the exterior wall expanse.
You can create unique designs using conventional horizontal board placements, or exciting vertical arrangements to accentuate the height of your structure. Or, you can even install in a diagonal formation, for spectacular contemporary curb appeal.
2. High Performance
Composite wood siding offers superior structural protection for your home. It also provides superior insulation value, compared to vinyl siding. Contrasted with regular wood siding, composite wood is more resistant to splitting over time due to extremes of hot and cold outside temperatures. Composite wood siding doesn't crack after long-term exposure to severe temperature changes, and it doesn't swell after exposure to high-moisture environments over time. Composite wood siding is UV resistant, and it is stain and mold resistant.
Composite wood siding out-performs other popular siding types in protecting against these serious risks to the structural integrity of your home, while sustaining its beautiful aesthetic quality for decades. Composite woods also provide superior insulation value. All-weather grades of composite siding can withstand extreme temperatures over many years.
3. Durability
For long-term durability in home siding applications, composite woods are among the most practical and cost-effective options. Composite wood siding is resistant to mold, rotting, insect boring, swelling, fading, cracking, and splitting. As mentioned, composite wood siding material is also fade resistant. All-weather grades of composites are the most durable in extreme climates.
A spectacularly strong external capping layer adds virtually impenetrable protection from damage to core composite board materials, blocking moisture and insects, maintaining the integrity of the composite boards and thereby better shielding the home's structural components from risk due to siding damage and deterioration over time. Due to its more substantial, stronger material constitution than vinyl siding, and its superior resistant qualities, compared to regular wood, composite wood siding provides a greater long-term value than either of the other two options.
4. Low Maintenance
No routine staining, oiling, or repainting is necessary with composite wood siding, unlike regular wood siding. By contrast, composite siding only needs repainting about every five to ten years or so, depending on climate conditions and other factors. Easy cleaning with soap and warm water can keep wood composite siding looking beautiful and refreshed over many years. Because of composite wood's superior resistance to fading, cracking, splitting, swelling, and insect damage, there is little to do to keep it looking beautiful year after year.
In very mild long-term conditions, vinyl siding is less susceptible to the kinds of climates that cause cracking or swelling, leading to leaking and potential structural damage. Much more time-intensive maintenance is required to keep regular wood, or even vinyl siding in more severely variable weather conditions long-term in good shape. By contrast, composite wood siding offers a very competitive solution for low-maintenance siding for your home.
5. Cost-Effectiveness
Composite wood siding presents a cost-effective option, compared to regular wood or vinyl siding. It's less expensive to purchase and install than regular wood. Composite wood siding cost ranges between $7,000 and $13,000 and up, based on the size of the total area of exterior surface you need to cover, which is roughly in the same price range as vinyl siding, though installation is likely to cost somewhat more. But, it does not need an added layer of insulation, as vinyl does. It also is not susceptible to rotting or expanding and contracting when exposed to high-moisture environments, unlike wood and vinyl, making it a superior choice of capital investment in your home.
Its durability and advanced protective qualities, compared to wood or vinyl, make wood composite siding more reliable over time to sustain a home's structural stability. This promising long-term protective dependability can make composites significantly more cost-effective over the lifespan of the home.
Wood Composite Siding Pros and Cons
The above descriptions of the Pros that composite wood siding provides together show that the material offers exceptional long-term value for new builds or for homeowners updating their home's exterior. As for the composite siding Cons, in contrast to wood, there don't really appear to be any in terms of cost, performance, aesthetics or other area of comparison. In contrast to vinyl siding, wood composite siding may cost a little more than vinyl, and it does take somewhat longer to install. It also requires eventual repainting, unlike vinyl, to which painting is not applicable.
Advanced Window Products, Salt Lake City, Utah
Advanced Window Products is Utah's leading manufacturer and seller of Wood composite siding, windows and doors. We sell factory-direct, allowing us to save our customers on cost and eliminate risk of warranty issues for them. We are a green business, producing energy-efficient, high-quality building products at fair prices. All Advanced Window Products installers are all Energy Star®, lead-safe, AAMA, and NFRC certified. We are committed to providing every customer with excellent service. Additional benefits we offer our customers include:
- Satisfaction Guarantee
- Double Lifetime Warranty
- 0% interest financing with 0 down, for approved credit
- Part of the Buy Local First Utah initiative
Thanks to our customers, we are able to support many charities, such as Habitat for Humanity and Make a Wish Foundation.
For More Information About Wood Composite Siding for Homes
We're here to help you determine the best siding option for your home. For more information about high-grade composite wood siding, you can just search "Composite Wood Siding Utah" or call Advanced Window Products, Salt Lake City at1-800-246-9355, to speak to one of our home siding experts. Or, come in and browse our showroom in Salt Lake City.