Siding Installation & Repair in Paterson, NJ

What’s on Paterson Houses Now

With about a third of Paterson’s housing built in 1939 or earlier, many walls have been re-sided two or three times. When we open a wall, we often find several eras stacked on top of each other, and what is underneath decides what the new job involves.

• Original wood clapboard or shingles, sometimes still sound, sometimes rotted where gutters overflowed for years.
• Cement shingles, the stiff, gray, textured shingles used to re-side many older houses in the mid-1900s. Many from that era contain asbestos and should be tested before anyone cuts or removes them.
• Aluminum siding, often dented, chalky and loose at the corners.
• Older vinyl that has cracked, faded or come unlocked from wind.
• Mixed walls, such as a brick or stucco front with siding on the sides and back.

Paterson’s two- and three-family houses are tall and often stand a few feet from the house next door. Siding a side wall can mean working two and a half stories up in a narrow gap, so we plan staging and ladder placement, and talk to the neighbor if we need their side yard.

Our Siding Options for Paterson Homes

We install and repair four types of siding, and each has a place in Paterson:

• Vinyl siding: the most common choice on two- and three-family rentals because it needs no painting. Thicker panels resist wind and dents better. See our vinyl siding page.
• Fiber cement: heavier and more rigid, with a crisp painted look that reads as wood from the street. A strong option on older single-family homes.
• Engineered wood: real wood fibers with a factory finish, lighter than fiber cement, and a good match for houses that were originally clapboard.
• Aluminum: still useful for matching and repairing existing aluminum walls and for trim wrap.

On rental buildings, we talk through the trade-off between upfront cost and upkeep. On older single-family homes, we also look at how the new siding meets window trim, corner boards and cornices, because that is where cheap jobs look cheap.

Siding in Paterson’s Historic Districts

If your house is in one of the city’s historic districts, siding needs extra thought. The Historic Preservation Commission’s FAQ says exterior work that changes existing materials and is visible from the public right-of-way needs approval, and it gives replacing wood siding with synthetic siding as its example.

Permits, Soffit and Fascia

New Jersey treats repair or replacement of existing siding on one- and two-family dwellings as ordinary maintenance, so most re-siding jobs on Paterson’s single-family homes and two-families need no construction permit. Polypropylene siding is the exception. On three- and four-family and larger buildings, only like-for-like repair of up to 25% of the wall area is exempt, so a full re-side on those buildings is permitted work, and Paterson will want the Tax Collector certification before it issues the permit.

Siding Questions from Paterson Homeowners

More Siding and Roofing Help in Paterson

Our Paterson roofing contractor page covers all of our work in the city, and our Passaic County page covers the wider area. For the full range of materials, see our main siding services in New Jersey.

Siding and roofing work together, so you may also want to read about roof repair in Paterson, roof replacement in Paterson and gutters in Paterson.

We also install siding nearby, including siding in Clifton, siding in Totowa and siding in Garfield.