Siding
Vinyl and James Hardie siding for Calgary homes. Straight answers on which material fits your house, written quotes before work starts, and help with the insurance side when hail is involved.
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Siding here has one job beyond looking good: surviving Calgary.
Hail off the foothills, chinooks that swing a wall through a 40-degree temperature range, and summer sun that fades cheap panels a shade at a time. Not every product sold in Alberta is up to that, which is why we install two systems and only two: vinyl and James Hardie fibre cement.
Both are good products. They cost different money and they fail differently when a storm rolls through, so read the comparison below before you sign anything, with us or with anyone else. Already decided? The vinyl and James Hardie pages go deeper on each.
The comparison
We install both, so we have no reason to steer you. Here is where each one earns its keep.
The value pick
The lowest installed cost of any siding we hang. Colour runs through the panel so scratches stay invisible, and maintenance is a garden hose. The weak spot is hail: standard vinyl is hollow-backed, and a cold-day storm can crack panels across a whole wall. Thicker premium profiles take more punishment, but vinyl is the material you pick for price, not for storms.
More on vinyl sidingThe tough pick
Fibre cement board: dense, heavy, and non-combustible. It takes hail that cracks vinyl, holds a factory finish for years, and has the thick boards and crisp shadow lines that vinyl tries to imitate. You pay more up front, for the material and for the labour to hang it properly. On a street that has been through two hailstorms, the math starts to look different.
More on James Hardie| Category | Vinyl | James Hardie |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Lower. The least expensive siding to buy and to install. | Higher up front, on both material and labour. |
| Hail resistance | Fair. Hollow panels crack, especially in cold-weather hail. | Strong. Dense fibre cement stands up to most Calgary hail. |
| Fire | Softens and melts near heat. | Non-combustible. |
| Maintenance | Rinse it. No painting, next to no caulking. | Inspect caulking, repaint eventually. Factory finishes push that out years. |
| Look | Good from the street, thinner up close. | Thick boards, deep grain, crisp shadow lines. |
Hail claims
Calgary sits in Hailstorm Alley, and vinyl walls show it faster than roofs do. You can see the cracking from the sidewalk.
The August 2024 storm did about $3.29 billion in insured damage across the city. If your street was under it, you already know what hail does to siding. A claim usually covers the elevations that took the hit, and that is where matching becomes the whole conversation.
We chase down colour and profile matches so a partial replacement doesn't read as a patch job. Here is the honest part: siding lines get discontinued constantly, and a panel that has spent ten years in the sun will not match fresh stock even when the line survives. When no reasonable match exists, we photograph it and put it in the file, because that fact belongs in front of your adjuster. We don't decide what your policy pays. We make sure the paperwork tells the truth about your walls. The full process, from first photo to final invoice, is on the hail damage page.
Roof + siding
The storm that wrote off your shingles hit your siding on the way down. When both are damaged, doing them together means one claim, one schedule, and one company responsible for the flashing where roof meets wall, which is exactly where two-contractor jobs spring leaks.
We quote roofing and siding as separate line items, so you can see what each costs and drop either one without renegotiating the other. Start on the roof replacement side, or book one visit and we'll look at both.
How it works
We measure every wall, note the trouble spots, and listen to what you want the house to look like when we're gone.
Material, wall area, trim and prep, each on its own line. The number you approve is the number you pay.
Old siding comes off and the sheathing gets inspected. If we find rot, you see photos and a price before anything gets covered up.
Panels or boards go on, trim and caulking get finished, and the yard is cleaner than we found it. Warranty paperwork lands in your inbox.
We don't publish a typical price for siding the way we do for roof repairs, because the honest spread is too wide to be useful. The cost depends on the material you pick, the wall area we're covering, and how much prep the walls need once the old siding comes off. Vinyl and Hardie sit at different price points. A two-storey walkout carries far more wall than a bungalow. Hidden rot gets priced when we find it, not padded into every quote in advance.
So the promise is this instead: a written, itemized quote before anything comes off the house, no allowances buried in fine print, and a final invoice that matches the quote. The installation carries our 15-year written workmanship warranty on top of the manufacturer's product warranty, and you can ask about payment options when we quote.
Questions
If budget decides, pick vinyl and we will not talk you out of it. If hail and fire performance decide, Hardie earns its price, especially if you plan to stay in the house a while. The comparison on this page is the same one we walk through at your kitchen table.
Sometimes. We track down colour and profile matches when they exist. But siding lines get discontinued all the time, and panels that have faded in the sun for a decade rarely match fresh stock. If a clean match is impossible, we document that with photos instead of installing something that almost matches and always bothers you.
If hail caused the damage and your policy covers hail, siding is normally part of the claim alongside the roof. We photograph every damaged elevation and identify your product line and colour so the file is complete. The decision sits with your adjuster, but a complete file settles fairer than a guess.
It depends on the size of the house, the material, and how much prep the walls need once the old siding comes off. You get a schedule in writing with the quote, and if it has to move, you hear it from us before it moves.
Two layers. The manufacturer covers the product itself, and our 15-year written workmanship warranty covers the installation. If a panel fails because of how it was hung, that is ours to fix, in writing. The plain-language version lives on our warranty page.
Free estimate
Tell us about the house, or send photos of the hail damage. You'll have an answer within one business day.
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