About Siding Contractors Portland
A carpenter since 1993. Nothing but siding since 2009.
Siding Contractors Portland is run by Paul Sawyer, a Portland carpenter who looks at every wall himself before a price is written. Siding replacement is the only work the company takes on.
- Siding is all we do
- Free estimate requests
- Portland and 18 nearby towns
How Did Paul Sawyer Learn the Trade?
Paul Sawyer started on a Portland framing crew in 1993, and most days his first job was nailing off sheathing. Within a few seasons he was framing whole houses and additions, from tight lots on the peninsula out to Gorham and Windham.
Framing taught him that the outside of a house works as one system. The sheathing, the wrap, the flashing and the trim share a single job, and that job is keeping water out of the wall.
He also learned what happens when one piece of that system gets skipped. A window with no flashing over it can look fine for a few winters while the sheathing underneath goes soft.
Why Does Paul Replace Siding and Nothing Else?
Paul replaces siding and nothing else because the hard part of a re-side is the wall behind the boards. After years of framing, he found himself opening up more old walls around Portland each season than he was building new ones.
Behind tired clapboards he kept finding the same damage: rot that started where a window or a roof edge had never been flashed right. In 2009 he stopped taking framing work and made siding replacement the whole job.
Doing one kind of work every day sharpens the eye for it. The siding is the part of the house everyone sees, and the wall under it is the part we answer for.
What Will We Tell You Before We Re-Side?
Before we re-side a house, we tell you what the walls actually need, even when that is less work than you planned. Sometimes one wall facing the weather needs new boards and the other three have good years left.
Other times the vinyl you had in mind will not pass historic review on your street, or the soft spot by the back door runs deeper than the siding. You hear about it on the walk around the house, long before any old siding comes off.
We will not call a wall sound when it is not. Rot sealed behind new siding shows up later as a stain on an inside wall, and by then the fix costs far more.
How Do We Price a Siding Job?
We price a siding job from the walls themselves, never from a phone call or a photo. Paul measures every wall in squares of 100 square feet and counts each window and door that will need new flashing.
The written price names the siding you chose and the trim that goes with it. It also spells out how rotted sheathing would be handled if the tear-off finds any, so you know that cost before work starts.
You hold the whole price in writing before the old siding comes off. Nothing is ordered and nothing is scheduled until you decide to go ahead.
What Should You Know Before You Hire Us?
Siding is the one job we take on. Roofs and decks go to other trades, while the housewrap and flashing behind the new boards are part of our work on every wall.
No Maine license exists for siding contractors, and we never pretend otherwise. The state licenses trades such as electrical and plumbing work, and you can check those through the Maine Office of Professional and Occupational Regulation.
Your price comes as a signed, written contract. Maine's home construction contract law requires one, signed by both sides, for any home job over $3,000, and a full re-side is well past that line.
What Does a Siding Job With Paul Look Like?
A siding job with Paul starts at your house, with the two of you walking every side of it before anything is priced. Next comes the written price, and we pull the town permit wherever one is needed.
The old siding comes off one section at a time, and the wall underneath is repaired and wrapped before new boards go up. The old material is hauled away as the work moves around the house.
When the last board is on, you walk the whole house with Paul and look at every corner and window together. The job is finished when you have seen all of it.
Which Walls Are Worrying You?
Tell Paul about the house and the siding on it now. He will set a time to walk around it with you.