MF Contracting Siding Experts
Exterior cladding is designed to not only protect a home but also define a home’s style and character. It often becomes how we describe a house—the blue house, the house with the cedar lap boards, the wood-sided house with stone veneer, the new house that they’re about to side, for example. What we choose says a lot about our home and us.
Siding is the most popular choice of exterior cladding for a home, and there are plenty of reasons why. For starters, installed properly, it can help reduce energy costs while giving us a home we can be proud of.
Why is siding important?
Exterior cladding is your home’s outermost layer of protection. It shields all the underlying layers of construction from the elements—especially rain, snow and wind—and allows the components to do their jobs.
- House wrap lies beneath the exterior cladding. The wrap is not impermeable. That would cause moisture to accumulate and could be a source of mold and mildew. Instead, house wrap is water resistant, designed to shed water and keep underlying layers of construction dry. It’s intended to work underneath a protective external cladding.
- Sheathing consists of panels—typically plywood—that are fastened to the exterior of a home’s framing. The sheathing gives a structure strength and is a key element in creating an air barrier. Creating an effective air barrier system is vital for energy efficiency.
- Framing holds not only the exterior sheathing but also insulation—also key to an effective air barrier. If insulation becomes wet, it becomes ineffective, compresses and can even become a hazard due to mold.
- Gypsum wallboard or drywall is usually used to finish the interior layer of living space.
Siding’s job is to protect all of this as well as your home’s foundation. So, you want something tough and durable, and you want it to be beautiful too. At MF Contracting, we’re here to tell you that we can do that.
Is all siding the same?
Siding manufacturers offer products in a number of materials—aluminum, vinyl, wood, fiber cement and engineered wood. Each has its pros and cons.
- Aluminum is lightweight, durable, rustproof and immune to pests but can also be vulnerable to fading, scratches, impacts and wind.
- Vinyl is inexpensive but has a limited life due to fading, cracking and brittleness. Color-matching for repair can be difficult.
- Natural wood like cedar is beautiful but requires annual inspection and maintenance and can be expensive both to purchase and to maintain.
- Fiber cement is tough and durable but is also heavy, has more seams and joints, requires specialized tools for installation, and is subject to fractures and cracking.
- Engineered wood lets you have the best of all worlds—a lightweight lap board that truly looks like wood but is a wood composite that’s been engineered to perform better and last longer than wood.
All cladding has the same job to do. How well they do it and for how long is what makes the difference.
What is the best siding for my home?
At MF Contracting, our vote always goes to LP SmartSide engineered wood siding and trim. It’s simply unbeatable for performance, aesthetics, ease of installation, durability and price. It’s a quality product that we take pride in installing because we know we’re delivering the very best cladding on the market to our customers.
If you haven’t heard of LP SmartSide, we’re more than happy to tell you about it and even show you a few samples.
- LP SmartSide is an engineered wood product that looks like cedar and feels like wood. It’s available in both a woodgrain-textured cedar finish and a smooth finish.
- It’s manufactured using the SmartGuard process.
- Aspen wood is turned into strands. Each strand is coated in binders, waxes and zinc borate in an enormous tumbler.
- Then, strands are arranged into layers, each layer oriented differently for strength
- A moisture-resistant overlay is placed on top.
- It’s all pressed together. Compression cures the resin and gives either the distinctive woodgrain embossing or a smooth finish.
- Boards are trimmed, cut to size and primed—ready for installation.
- Because of the SmartGuard process, LP SmartSide is resistant to moisture, impacts, freeze-thaw cycles, excessive heat, high humidity, pests like termites and even fungal decay.
- LP SmartSide “can stand up to tough storms with wind gusts up to 200 mph.”
- It’s lightweight, so boards are available in long lengths—16 feet. That means less waste, faster installation, and fewer seams and joints. The result is a seamless, flawless finish.
- Pick your color. LP SmartSide is available in 16 prefinished colors or primed, ready for your custom color.
- LP SmartSide makes a complete line of products—lap boards in cedar profile and smooth profile, panel and vertical lap boards, board and batten, shakes, trim and fascia, and soffits. Your whole project can be completed in LP SmartSide components designed to work together.
- It comes with a 50-year limited warranty.
- LP SmartSide is eco-friendly and efficient. The source wood—aspen—regenerates quickly from the root for repeated harvests. Even the bark is used. It helps fuel the plant.
So, new construction, addition, remodel or replacement, LP SmartSide has the perfect style and application for your project. Plus, it’s a product we all can get behind and feel good about using because we know it’s engineered and guaranteed to last.
If you’re in the southeastern Missouri area, give us a call, and let us show you all of your options. We serve clients in and around St. Louis itself as well as both residential and commercial customers in areas like Potosi, Farmington, Festus, Fredericktown, Rolla, Cape Girardeau and even Poplar Bluff.
Our clients are always pleasantly surprised when they see how versatile yet durable LP SmartSide products are and how many choices they have. At MF Contracting, we want you to have the home you always wanted, and LP SmartSide is a great place to start.