Installing Windows the Right Way

Most of the windows that we replace are aluminum or vinyl, but the way builders use to install windows 5 – 15 years ago, all you see is four or five nails and the windows are not sealed at all. When we install new windows for a customer the type we put in is going to be a double-paned window. We prefer to use the Milgard Tuscany because they come with a lifetime warranty for glass breakage. When we pull out the old window, before the new window goes in, we weatherize the bottom sill with a four inch membrane flashing which adheres to the sill. Then your window gets caulking around the entire window. Next, your window gets placed in the frame and the caulking helps seal the window in for air tightness. After that, the sides of your window get the same membrane which goes onto your flange then the weather barrier goes over top which you have on your house. Then on the top, you put the membrane flashing which goes over the plywood, the top flange and side flashings. The weather barrier that’s above the window goes over that flashing. This will prevent the water from getting into the window or run it off so that it doesn’t get into the physical window; it will take that water and drain it out on the sides. That makes your window airtight and in returns very energy efficient. We’ve seen people save 15-20% on their energy bill, regardless of if it’s heating or air conditioning.

Maintain Your Windows for Improved Air Quality

To help maintain your windows, make sure if you have a lot of vegetation around your home, that you clean the outside of your window sills. Moss has a tendency to grow on the bottom of the window sill as a result of the vegetation. You should clean the bottom of your sills every five years to prevent your family from breathing in mold or fungus when you open your windows up. Keeping your windows clean will also help keep the double-panes from separating which can cause major leaks in your windows.

Reduce Energy Costs with New Windows

If you have metal windows, and change out to vinyl windows, it can make your home a lot more energy efficient and add additional value to your house. New windows can enhance your curb appeal, reduce your energy bill by up to 20% and resolve heating and cooling issues. If you’re interested in having your current window systems evaluated give us a call at 503-925-0124 or request a free estimate.

Three Signs Your Siding Needs TLC

There are three main points of interest you should examine to ensure your siding is in good working order. These points of interest include the caulking, especially in the corners and around your windows, your midfield joints and paint. Your home is naturally going to move due to the weather. During the summer the heat allows things to expand and then contract when winter comes around. This normal movement is the primary reason why you need to make sure your caulking is in good working order. It will naturally wear out and must be updated to prevent your siding from cracking or pulling away from the windows.

If your siding was put on more than five years ago then most likely your midfield joints were caulked. What we recommend, and use, is a rubber flashing behind your midfield joint. This ensures you don’t ever have to caulk your midfield joint again and is the best way to protect against wind driven rain from getting to your house wrap. An older siding project needs to have its midfield joints properly caulked to ensure water getting behind the siding.

The last point of interest to keep updated is your paint. It’s certainly cheaper to use only one coat of paint on your siding, but it will severally hamper your siding’s lifespan. 75% of the home we see don’t have two coats of paint. Two coats of paint help protect your siding from the sun during summer and downpours during winter. Using high quality paint allows rain and dirt to run off your home with ease instead of nurturing the growth of algae, mold or mushrooms which can cause cracks or rotting. A simple rinse of your siding during the siding can help refresh the look of your paint, especially if you have a satin finish, to look like new.

Keeping Your Siding Looking Good

If you paint your house right, with two coats of paint, and use the right caulking, we use Sonolastic 150 which is a commercial grade lifetime caulking; your siding will look good, work right and last longer. With our process, and the way we paint and caulk a house, you need to check your siding every 10 years, but the paint we use is lifetime paint so it’s guaranteed. It will be about 12 to 15 years before you’ll start to see any fading by using lifetime paint. What the lifetime warranty states is the paint will not crack, peel, or bubble. The process entails applying one coat of paint, letting it fully dry and then applying a second coat of paint. As long as the painting process is done correctly, through prepping the house, caulking the house and applying two coats of paint, your exterior will look great for a long, long time.

Karen had her entire house, including her door, painted with a lifetime warranty paint. At 1st Oregon Exteriors, we always put two coats of paint on your house. This is a required step by Sherwin Williams in order to get their lifetime warranty on their paint. You wont see peeling or cracking in your paint as a result.

If you like the way Denise’s house looks, and you’re thinking of having your home exterior painted, 1st Oregon Exteriors is the company you want to call. Call us at (503) 925-0124 or fill out our form for a free painting estimate.

Jeff chose a cedar finger joint material for his siding replacement and then we painted the siding with Kelly Moore Satin paint. We used the Kelly Moore Acry-Shield line of paint which is a 100% acrylic exterior paint. The oil/latex stain base is deigned to enhance the natural beauty of exterior wood while resisting color-fade caused by the sun’s UV rays.

If you like the way Jeff’s house looks, and you’re thinking of having your siding replaced, 1st Oregon Exteriors is the company you want to call. Call us at (503) 925-0124 or fill out our form for a free siding estimate.

Denise had her entire house painted including the garage door, fascia, and gutters with a lifetime warranty paint. By applying two coats of Sherwin Williams Resilience Satin Paint, Denise wont have to worry about her home exterior for many years to come.

Additionally, the caulking we used can only be found with major commercial contractors. The Sonolastic 150 VLM is an amazing and wide range application that is trusted because of its superior stability and durability. It comes with a 20 year warranty so long as a 1/4 inch space is maintained around the entire house between the siding.

Denise chose SW6180 oak moss for the home’s body color and SW 2859 beige for her home’s trim color. Additionally, her deck was painted with a coat of Sherin Williams Woodscapes to guarantee no tanmin bleed on the nail head, knots and butt ends.

If you like the way Denise’s house looks, and you’re thinking of having your home exterior painted, 1st Oregon Exteriors is the company you want to call. Call us at (503) 925-0124 or fill out our form for a free painting estimate.

Charles and Pat chose our Sherwin Williams Duration Satin Paint; the absolute best paint you can buy. After a thorough pressure wash and priming of the bare wood areas, we were ready to begin the transformation process. In addition to having their home painted, Charles and Pat had us install a new gutter system including corrugated downspouts to prevent clogging.

A picture tells 1,000 words… Charles and Pat now have a great looking home that is backed with a lifetime paint warranty.

If your home exterior is looking a little ratty it might be time to paint your home. 1st Oregon Exteriors is ready to provide and serve you with the best paint job in the Greater Portland area. Call us at (503) 925-0124 or fill out our form for a free painting estimate to learn more information about our painting options.

The painting process included a three step process of pressure washing the entire home, priming the cedar siding, and then applying two coats of Sherwin William Resilience Satin Paint. 1st Oregon Exteriors uses Sherwin Williams Resilience Satin Paint because it’s backed by a lifetime warranty.

Additionally, the caulking we used can only be found with major commercial contractors. The Sonolastic 150 VLM is an amazing and wide range application that is trusted because of its superior stability and durability. It comes with a 20 year warranty so long as a 1/4 inch space is maintained around the entire house between the siding.

Karen had a wide selection of colors to chose from. In the end she chose oat bran for the home’s body color, belle grove light amber for her home’s door color, roasted sepia for her home’s window color, and stone manor for her roof line and belt color.

If you’re having your house painted this summer 1st Oregon Exteriors is the company you want to call. Call us at (503) 925-0124 or fill out our form for a free painting estimate.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Are you ready for a free estimate for your next siding, windows or painting project?

P.S. We also made a new video for our Portland roofing company, Roof Life of Oregon. Have a look at our Roof Life of Oregon video when you’re done here.

At 1st Oregon Exteriors, we don’t install vinyl siding…and I’ll tell you why.

When the re-siding frenzy started and the class-action lawsuits were in full stride, it was interesting to see what all the homeowners began to choose. At first it was a mix of 40% choosing cedar siding, 50% going with fiber cement siding (like Hardie Plank) and 10% opting for vinyl siding. During the heyday of the siding market, at 1st Oregon Exteriors, we had 8 siding crews and only one that did vinyl. We chose as a company to only use the best, highest-grade siding products in each category. For vinyl that meant Wolverine’s thickest, toughest siding available. In Portland, everyone else was using some of the thinnest, cheapest stuff that I have ever seen. I am aware that the rest of the nation was in love with vinyl and expected the craze to arrive here but it never did. There were a handful of builders that used it but soon stopped after 5 years and Wolverine doesn’t even make the good stuff anymore.

So far, the problem with most vinyl siding is that it looks cheap forever. The seam…I personally cannot get over the seams, they just stare at you. For years, vinyl was used to hide problems; like old growth cedar siding painted with lead-based paint. Told that it was too costly to remove, folks in Portland were convinced to just cover it up. You can’t do that with the OSB products, because the siding products themselves were rotting and had to be removed.

Most of the vinyl siding in Portland was installed to make a profit for the siding company. It was not installed to look good, work right, and be a homeowner’s lasting solution to their siding needs. The end result is that in a very short period of time it looks seriously shabby. The color will fade on the southwest sides and the mold and mildew will grow on the northeast sides. And that’s for the siding that stayed on! Just try and match one or two siding pieces in a wall after the manufacturer decides that your style and color is to be discontinued. You cannot paint it, so you’re stuck.

The wind is also a factor in Portland. Just ask anyone whose 3-year-old vinyl panel ends up down the road. Most likely on inspection, it is determined that your vinyl siding was not nailed to the studs. If your home’s siding was nailed incorrectly, it will continue to blow off. Finally, when you can’t find the wind- blown piece, your contractor tells you that your color has been discontinued.

How about in your ourdoor entertainment areas? Loads of people put their barbecue too close and melt a piece of vinyl! Have you ever seen a new piece of siding in a field of old vinyl? No offense, but redneck comes to mind!

The area behind your gutter and under your roof is called a soffit and fascia. At the ends of your roof- line are gables. What do you do with those areas? These areas are big profit centers for the vinyl industry.  Here’s how it works: They show up with their crew to do your siding and tell you that you will need to have a painter pre-paint everything not covered in vinyl. (As if you have a painter on standby!) The fact is you’re asking the painter to do the gutters, soffits, facia, and barge rafters. All of these are high cost and low profit centers to the painter, because everything you’re requesting is tedious work with little chance for profit because it holds little value to the homeowner in the big picture of things. You can make the request and get a lot of response but once the painter finds out what you want done he will not likely submit a bid. If he does give you a quote, it will be high because he doesn’t want to do it.

Now you’re ready for the close: You decide to have the vinyl company close in the soffits, and wrap the fascia and barge rafters in vinyl-coated lead. This is a huge profit center. Personally, I find the entire charade a bit too slick for laid-back Portland.

How about those box elder bugs and the bees? They love vinyl siding; they get under and behind it with little effort and then find their way into the interior of your home. I have replaced many a home’s siding for this very reason. The vinyl siding industry claims “hey it’s not the siding product; it’s the installer that caused that.” I think it’s all a package. Remember, along with those east coast siding experts comes the “Tin Man” sales guy into your home with the slick sales pitch. No thanks!

The actual vinyl product is very inexpensive and the installation process in the fastest in the arena of all siding products. All of the profit in vinyl siding is made in the sales. You are paying a guy a lot of money to give you an inexpensive product with low costs of installation that will actually cause you grief for a very long time.

These are the facts for vinyl siding in the great Northwest. You are now an informed consumer!

Sincerely, Patrick D. Morin, President and Founder of 1st Oregon Exteriors, since 1996.

PS…We’d love to side your home. Just don’t ask us to use vinyl. Call us or get a free estimate.

When your home was built, just after the framing went up, they installed your roof. In new production type homes this roofing service is given to the lowest bid roofing contractor in town. (Over at Roof Life of Oregon, we never bid on new construction because we can’t bring ourselves to cut those kind of corners.) Unfortunately for home owners who need to replace their roof, a lot of replacement roofing contractors follow the same line of thought. Sell the re-roof for a cheap price and then cut every corner in the book. Fast is the standard rule for these guys, and most times, important details are overlooked for the sake of the almighty dollar.

This one concept is very important for you to realize, as it is a mistake made over and over by the vast majority of homeowners. It ends up costing them more than they could ever imagine. It reminds me of a saying by a great man named John Ruskin who said “Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort.“

On a roof, some of these overlooked items seem like such small things. These small details from the ground are huge deals when you’re on the roof. If neglected and/or overlooked in the original installation it will cause a homeowner thousands in repairs. Especially if the oversight is in the transition areas of the roof. Other common examples, neglecting to use neoprene screws on exterior flashings, kick out flashings left out, allowing water down or into the sidewalls of your home. Most of these oversights and few others go unnoticed until a storm with wind and rain is hitting your home at just the right angle.

It has always paid dividends to pay more “up front” for the correct installation of a roof; a roof that is installed following a set procedure by a company whose policy is to check on that procedure daily. Accountability is available at Roof Life of Oregon where we deliver Portland’s best and safest choice in roofing.

If your siding won’t hold paint any longer and you find yourself forever painting with no longevity there are only a few possible reasons. The first issue might be that the siding went up unprimed, dooming it to never hold paint. On older homes it may be that the walls are not insulated and the warmth of the home is escaping through the walls, lifting the paint as it transfer through to the exterior. A third possibility is that multiples layers of lead based paint are not giving the new latex based paint good adhesion. The only solution to an improperly prepared wall is to burn off the paint or reside. If you have an older home with little or no insulation we can remove the siding and underlayment and insulate the walls, then reside. When you insulate you’ll experience a huge difference in energy loss.

A lot of homes in the Portland area were sided with a defective siding. (LP, Weyerhaeuser, or Masonite) These types of siding will rot right on your wall, acting as a sponge, and when they fail it can cause a lot of inter- wall damage. This type of siding also warps and expands! When this happens, the caulking systems fail on the corners, windows, and transition areas. Wind driven rain enters the home in these areas. If you have this type of siding the only solution is to replace it a.s.a.p.

In Weather Woes: Part 1, we talked about cedar lap siding. It’s good siding, but not when the siding contractor (in an effort to save time and money) stretches the reveal of every row. This saves him 7-12 rows all the way around the house. It goes undetected at first because there is so much other stuff to be concerned with as you move into your new home. On the southwest sides of his home it starts to crack, warp, wear out faster, and leak in high wind situations. (Winds of just 30 mph will blow rain up a wall.) If the siding does not have the proper overlap it will not protect the underlayment from continual soakage. You’ll see water coming in the windows and other transition areas.

For solutions to any of your weather wall concerns call 1st Oregon Exteriors at 503-925-0124 or request a free estimate.