HOMETIME HOW TO, Siding – Installing Vinyl Siding

There are two basic steps to installing vinyl siding: installing the trim pieces and installing the siding itself.

Choosing and Installing Trim Pieces

Every place where vinyl siding joins something elsea window, a door, another wallrequires the appropriate trim piece. The trim pieces loosely hold the siding in place, cover any cuts, and provide a small space where the siding can expand and contract. All lines of vinyl siding come with several standard trim pieces, plus some extras.

Most of the time the bottom of each piece of siding locks into the piece below it. But for the first row on a wall, the bottom locks into a special trim piece called a starter strip.

An outside corner post is used for outside corners. There is a channel molded into each side of the post to receive the end of the siding.

There are several options for trimming out inside corners. The easiest is an inside corner post. It's also possible to use two piece of J-channel installed back-to-back to create the same effect.

Many professional siding contractors bend a piece of vinyl or aluminum flashing for the inside corner and then use a single piece of J-channel. However, this requires a sophisticated tool called a brake.

J-channel is the most common piece of siding trim. Besides being used for inside corners, it's used for trimming around windows and doors. It is also used where siding meets a soffit or roof at an angle.

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HOMETIME HOW TO, Siding - Installing Vinyl Siding