Our CalCon vinyl siding calculator estimates the number of needed materials and their total cost. If you wonder how many vinyl wall panels you need and how much it costs for you to cover the exterior of your home, this calculator will calculate it all for you. In the continuation of the article, you can find out more information about how the calculator works and the vinyl siding process.
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About vinyl siding
If you do not know how to protect the house’s outdoor area, you can use vinyl siding. It is durable, specifically polyvinyl chloride (PVC) vinyl. Its unique feature is that it is used for siding because it contains additives that help resist color fading and harmful ultraviolet rays coming from the sun. It is advisable to use it due to its high fire resistance, high durability in various weather conditions, and accessibility in terms of shape and size. This material has been in use for about 70 years because it was not accepted as a construction material. At the beginning of the first version, they were very fragile, brittle, and not resistant to weather conditions, which was not ideal. It could help you to use our siding calculator, too.
Over time, with all technology, the material itself was perfected, which led to its expansion in production and demand. You can find vinyl siding in almost all colors, textures, shapes of edges, and all following your wishes. The advantages of installing this type of material are ease of installation, maintenance, durability, and resistance, saving you a lot of money. Types of vinyl are not the same, and you need to know how to fit them to look comfortable at first glance, so you need a professional craftsman who will perform the correct installation in the space where you want. When it comes to the price range of this material, it is much lower than the prices of other materials. Its use grows from year to year, while the most common type you can use for siding is vinyl wall panels.
Trim elements
When installing vinyl panels, you must treat them with care due to the fit of the edges with other elements in the house, such as windows or walls. Currently, you can use several different types of trim pieces to fix all the parts in the appropriate positions. Trim is a finishing accessory that you can place on vinyl siding. It has an aesthetic and functional purpose and it is a wise investment to increase the value of your home. You can use this decorative piece to “hide” gaps, leaving a neat appearance of the edges of vinyl records, which will attract your house’s attention.
The first type of trim we will explain is the starter trim. This is the essential coating you can use when laying vinyl siding. You can use it as a foundation for applying the first row of siding, as it serves to fasten the first batten placed on the cladding.
The second type is the undersill trim below the window, which you can use to support the side vinyl panels. Undersill rounds out the hanging siding and protects the slabs from rainwater to not cause damage.
The J-channel trim is one of the most famous trims when we are talking about vinyl siding. You can usually place it in the area around the door and window or around the corners where the siding joins the roof. Also, they need to be cut and aligned under the window frame. You can also place and align side J channels with the window frame.
Other less used types of trims are H-channel, F-channel, soffit, and fascia.
How To Use Vinyl Siding Calculator?
Our vinyl siding calculator helps you calculate the required amount of material and how much it will cost you. The calculator has simple mode and advanced mode. By choosing a simple mode, it is up to you to enter the values in the provided places for height and width. After that, the following items you need to fill in are the number of doors and windows that your house has. After entering all the above data, the calculator will output the results for the part related to the width, length, and price of vinyl, and how much will be the waste factor.
Based on the entered initial values, the calculator will output the cost of j-channel, undersill, and starter trim parts. Finally, the calculator helps you calculate the total area of your house together with the required number of vinyl pieces and their cost, and the total cost of covering the entire house. By choosing the advanced calculator mode, you have an insight into the values of the lengths and widths of doors and windows, the total area of the walls, together with the individual costs for each type of trim element that you install.
How to estimate material needed?
Before starting work, you need to hire a professional master who will do all the installation work and assess how much material you need. This information will be of great importance to you in determining the total cost of creating a project. There are a few steps to follow.
- First, you need roughly sketch the look of your house, which will be the basis for following the works. Then, you need to take measurements of the height and length of the walls of your house, which you will cover with vinyl tiles. The measure also includes a note of the value for all the rectangular walls integral to your home.
- Second, it is necessary to add the length of the base and the value of the vertical distance between the base and the top of the house. In this way, you will reach the final step of calculating the total area of the walls. Adding another 5 to 10% of the additional siding is necessary due to any errors made during measurement. The rule is that it is always better to have more than to lack material!
- In the end, it is time to estimate the number of trim parts. The length of the undersill trim requires the width of the wall and the sum of all the widths of the window openings. To estimate the starting strips, you need the width of the lower part of the walls. For the length of the j-channel, you can use double the height of the wall and for the width twice the size of all windows and doors.
Conclusion
In addition to the above steps, you can influence the price of vinyl coating by choice of color, quality, thickness, style, texture, insulation, and the like. You can often express the suggested price as per square meter, while we use the cost per unit length for trim parts. It is necessary to pay attention to listing all the required materials and completing all possible repairs to the doors and windows. Taking care of your home from the very beginning will prevent you from potential problems after all the final stages of the project.
Vinyl siding cost – example
In the following example, we can see what the calculation of all measures looks like in practice:
Let’s start with the assumption that you want to cover a wall that is 30 meters high and 40 meters wide. You need three doors and two pairs of windows. The value of the total wall area is 1200m2. Compared to the previous elements, the required door height is 2.4 meters, and the width is 0.9 meters. For windows, the value of the window height is 0.9 meters while the width is 1.5 meters. The cost estimate for the required trim parts is $ 1.57 per meter for the j-channel, $ 1.97 per meter for the undersill, and $ 1.61 per meter for each starter trim installed.
The total cost for vinyl is $ 65,380.63. The required length to cover the entire surface of the house with j-channel trimmings is 90.3 meters, with undersill trims 46 meters and 40 meters of starter trim parts are required. The total cost of cladding a 30×40 house is $ 65,677.42.
