Several Questions About Residing a Home

Question(s)

I live in a ranch-style home built in 1978 which has T-1-11 exterior siding. It was a rental property for several years, and neither the tenants or previous owners gave much thought to maintaining the exterior of the structure. The siding on the western and southern walls have deteriorated due to the sun, weather, and the lack of protection (the solid color stain on it is probably the original application). The top surface layer of theT-1-11 is flaking off in small splinters with a few bigger pieces in places.

While this is visually unattractive, the siding material appears structurally sound. Because scraping and re-staining this siding amounts to a large job, I was considering re-siding over the top of the existing walls using a hardboard sheet siding product (4’x 9′ sheets) which looks very similar to the original T-1-11.

I’d like your opinion regarding this situation and hearing the answers to the following questions:

1. Can I re-side directly over the top of the existing T-1-11 using it as the underlayment or does it need to be removed? The T-1-11 is nailed directly onto the framing studs with no other underlayment.
2. Should I seal the surface of the T-1-11 before I reside over it?
3. Should I use an infiltration barrier (such as Tyvek) on top of the T-1-11 before re-siding?

My helper and I plan to do the work ourselves and have already replaced the existing aluminum framed windows on the other sides of the house with some very nice casement wood windows. I’ll also replace the windows on these two sides of the house at the same time I do the re-siding job. Thanks for the help!

Dan

Answer(s)

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