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Featured Stories

The Outlook on Exteriors

The high price of oil isn’t just pushing up prices at the pump; it’s changing the look of our houses. According to local professionals the Twin Cities market for vinyl home exteriors has always been huge. But as petroleum prices rise, higher grades of vinyl are reaching the price points of upper-end exterior options causing Minnesotans to think outside of the “vinyl is final” box.

As Americans continue to ride the pride in ownership wave, there is an increased emphasis on achieving that high quality look. “Believe it or not, homes are actually getting smaller,” said architect George Cundy of Cundy Santine & Associates and this is affecting exterior trends. As square footage shrinks, it becomes easier to upgrade an exterior without blowing the budget.

“There are a lot of fun products out there which are bringing back texture and color,” said Cundy. “People want an exterior that will make their house look like a million bucks, while keeping in line cost and maintenance. And whatever product you put up, no matter what anyone tells you, there will be some maintenance.”

If departing from easy, breezy vinyl gives you flashbacks to youthful summers lost to scraping and painting, fear not. Today’s exterior is made for the long haul. “We pre-finish all our siding products right in the factory,” said Kevin Begin of Cedar Siding Incorporated, which specializesin cedar, fiber cement and engineered-wood products. “We flood coat the material, mill it and then oven bake a finish which will last from 15 to 25 years,” depending on the product and the number of finish coats applied.

These pre-finished sidings are very popular in other markets, “Ninety percent of the homes in the Chicago-land area use a factory-finished [non-vinyl] product and only about 5% of homes here in the Twin Cities have it,” said Begin. But that number is growing as Twin Cities homeowners continue to deal with the vinyl siding extensively damaged from last summer’s storms. “Hail damage has encouraged people to go in new directions as they have had to replace their home’s vinyl exterior. They’re taking the money they got from the insurance company and spending up for a better product. Pre-finished products aren’t bullet proof, but it’s as close as you can get,” said Begin.

Begin also believes that as more people view their home as a long-term investment, they’re more inclined to seek higher performance siding as a way to protect that investment. “The medium price of a home today is $239,000. People are taking more pride in the exterior as a way to gain equity and they’re finding out that wrapping it in plastic doesn’t do the trick.”

Another re-emerging trend is a return to stucco. “There were a couple years with a major drop in stucco demand,” said Brad Sorensen of Simplex Construction Supplies. That decrease was triggered by a well-publicized moisture scare, which wrongly blamed the stucco material.

The problem was actually with the building practices involving flashing and window installation, “but stucco got hammered,” explained Sorenson, “Now contractors have figured out how to build with stucco, no problem.”

This traditional Minnesota building material provides a tighter seal against swift prairie wind compared to a vinyl or aluminum siding. However a “tight house” can lead to moisture problems, but stucco has a solution to prevent such problems. “Something we’re really starting to see a lot of is building in a drainage plane,” said Sorensen. This new technique prevents moisture build-up by placing a matt under the stucco stone, which allows water to safely exit at the exterior’s bottom.

The good news for the industry is the re-appearance of stucco on model homes, a move attributed to designer’s love of the product versatility. Stucco can set a home apart from others by varying the texture, application technique or incorporating decorative keystones. “It adds a lot of curb appeal because with stucco it isn’t just a flat house,” said Sorensen.

Tom Audette, president of Renaissance Exteriors, said his company is actively educating homeowners about the James Hardie brand of fiber cement board and Integra Steel Siding.

HardiPlank® is a composite of fiber cement, adhesives and wood fiber, which looks and feels like wood and is low maintenance. “The difference,” said Audette, “is that wood expands and contracts with temperature changes causing paint to chip and crack; HardiPlank doesn’t.” A pre-finished version of the plank siding comes with a 15-year paint warranty and a 50-year product warranty.

And from the “all that’s old is new again” department, is the return to steel siding. “Steel was the precursor to vinyl in the 60’s and 70’s and now it is back with lots of improvements,” said Audette. One of the biggest advancements is the incredible color durability. “You can put up barn red in steel this year and it’ll be the same color 20 years from now.” Steel is also tougher than vinyl and less susceptible to hail damage and cracking.

Both the steel and fiber cement products also come in cedar-look shakes and with specialty trim and accents to give architects more opportunity to create eye-catching exterior details. This is important as many new home developments restrict homeowners to certain products. “People don’t want their homes to look like every other house on the block. They’re adding details like staggered or straight-edged shakes under a gable roof to enhance the home’s architectural elements,” said Audette.

Labor used to be large cost factor in shakes, but now they arrive pre-applied to a sheet and pre-finished. “I’m seeing a lot more use of shaker shingles, both the fiber cement and the real shake,” said Cundy. However, expect to pay three times more for a shake style over a standard plank.

Another way to add distinction to a home is to apply stone accents. John Evans of Anchor Block Company said, “The manufactured stone industry is a very hot market right now and its use is widespread.” These accent stones are often used on the front elevation as a feature to coordinate with siding or a stucco façade. Other popular uses include between garage stalls, a gable end or even elaborate front entry columns. While manufactured stone use started out on luxury homes, “now you see it across the board and in nearly every housing price point,” said Evans.

Certainly consumers appreciate that manufactured stone comes in at a lower price than real stone, but its popularity mainly comes from its availability, color and style choices and ease of installation.

“Another plus is the manufactured product doesn’t require as skilled a labor force to install,” said Evans. It goes up more readily on wood frame structures, because the product is made from a thinner, lightweight material and doesn’t require the extra support needed for real stone.

Locally natural stone choices tends to flagstone and granite ranging in colors from buffs, off-whites and yellows, but the manufactured product presents design possibilities like river rock and boulder looks.

What’s especially exciting in the exterior trends with their new, longwearing finishes is the home industry’s brilliant return to color. “We’ve started out timidly,” said Cundy remembering when every home interior was painted off-white. “Now there are all these deep rich colors and we’re asking ourselves, what about the outside of my house?”

“We’ll do any color under the sun,” said Cedar Siding Incorporated’s Kevin Begin. His company will take any swatch, scientifically match it and then keep the formula on file, “in case the client expands or renovates the home, they can get the exact same shade of exterior from us.”

With stucco’s new acrylic finishes, one’s color scheme is unlimited. “If you want candy apple red stucco, I can do that. You want white-white-white stucco, I can get you that too,” assured Simplex Supplies’ Sorensen.

Responding to this new color wash is the window industry. “[It] used to be that the color palette for window frames were white and beige. Now they’re starting to expand and make more colors. I see that trend continuing,” explained Cundy.

Not to be overlooked in exterior treatment is the garage door. Although the look of a solid wood door is beautiful, the material doesn’t perform well in our cold climates. Today designers can choose metal insulated doors with real wood applied to the front and repeat elements taken from the home’s entryway to make it a more integral part of the house. “The garage has become a more predominant element in a house and we make it warmer and treat it as an enhancement to the architecture,” said Steve Kleineman of SKD Architects. “We go to great lengths to hide the sections and place design details in the right place so one can’t see the joints. We create a product that works for the feel of the house,” said Kleineman. “Whether it is the front door of the entryway or the garage door, it’s just as important to me.”

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