Vinyl Siding Crew Takes Shortcuts

Vinyl Siding Crew Takes Shortcuts

Here is a letter which illustrates why it is so important to hire a licensed professional, check refrences, etc.. when you have home improvement work done.

By Peter Hotton  |  September 29, 2005

Q. I hired a company whose workers are moonlighting civil servants to put vinyl siding on my house. On the outside it looks nice and I thought it was fine, until the job was being completed. (Yes, I paid the nearly $30,000 bill in full).

But I noticed the lights looked odd as the crew mounted them over the siding. I found out about mounting blocks and ended up having a big fight with the company; they said I didn't need them for the lights or outside electrical outlets. But the outlets kind of dangled on the side of the house and would short out if they got wet. I insisted on getting mounting blocks. (I paid an electrician $400 for a day's work installing the boxes into the siding.) Then the vinyl guys installed blocks to mount the fixtures on.

While I think I'm all set in that area, I'm still trying to get them to install blocks for outside faucets.

I'm also still trying to convince them to cap the corner posts somehow. I can see sky if I look up from the bottom of many of them. That seems odd to me, and most experts I talk to say it shouldn't be that way. What should be done? And one of the posts that's been covered seems to be rotting at least at the bottom.

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Posted on October 31, 2005 14:10 | Siding
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