Spray-On Siding

Find out why you should do some research before deciding to go with spray-on siding. Learn about a website, SpraySiding.com, where you can read countless consumer complaints about poor preparation, poor application, product failure, and warranty

LESLIE: Next up we have a call from Pat in Tennessee who’s got a question about house siding.

Pat, tell us what you’re interested in.

PAT: Well we have an 87-year-old bungalow home and we’re in the middle of trying to decide whether to paint it or to use a product called spray-on siding.

TOM: Yes, I have heard about it and I have heard a lot of complaints about it. In fact, there is a website that is totally devoted to complaints about spray-on siding. And you know what it’s called? It’s SpraySiding.com. SpraySiding.com. You’ve got to go there and read through these complaints. They have complaint after complaint after complaint about that product. It doesn’t sound good. And conceptually I’ve heard about it for a long time but I’ve always had a problem with it.

Leslie, are you familiar with this stuff?

LESLIE: I have never heard of this but you were saying it’s like a paint that looks like vinyl? Well wouldn’t that just be like a latex paint?

TOM: They claim it’s not a paint but it looks like paint, it runs like paint, it drips like paint from the photographs I’ve seen. It looks to be like a paint that they claim to be siding and they claim to kind of encapsulate your whole house in the stuff and you don’t have to repaint it. But the problem is that when you encapsulate a house like that, you’re trapping a lot of moisture in and that’s going to lead to peeling. And I’m looking at photographs here from three owners – one in Georgia, one in Illinois, and another one in Illinois – with photographs of poor-quality workmanship. They’re complaining about poor prep, poor application, product failure, and warranty claims.

LESLIE: Do you think that it’s just the way it was installed in their cases or do you think this is generally a complaint for the product?

TOM: I would have to say, based on everything that I know, that I’m really uncomfortable with this product. So I would be very, very, very hesitant to consider it whatsoever and I think you’re probably better off with paint. If you do paint properly, you’re going to get a good paint job that’s going to last you eight or ten years; and I mean by scraping and priming the surfaces and then properly painting it, probably having the paint applied by spray but not spray-on siding.

PAT: OK. That’s what I needed to know.

TOM: Alright. Well check that website out, SpraySiding.com, and take it from there. Alright, Pat, thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT, 888-666-3974.