Siding Contractor Software in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania's houses are old, and that is the siding market. The statewide median build year is 1964, the fourth oldest housing stock in the country. The median home in Philadelphia is 93 years old. Under the vinyl on a Pittsburgh or Scranton house there is often aluminum from the 1960s, hardboard from the 1970s, and wood under both. A full tear-off is the normal job, and a partial job lives or dies on matching what is already there. Vinyl owns the market on price and on the freeze and thaw. Fiber cement is gaining in Chester County, the Lehigh Valley, and Cranberry Township, where the newer houses are brick or stone on the front and siding on the rest.

Weather puts siding on claims. The remnants of Ida dropped five to ten inches of rain across eastern Pennsylvania in about six hours in September 2021. Wind works panels loose from Erie to the Poconos every winter. Hail cracks vinyl on the north and west walls of the Philadelphia suburbs most springs. Pennsylvania has no roofing-specific claim law, so siding on a claim runs on the same rule as everything else. That rule is the Home Improvement Consumer Protection Act.

The act reaches every siding company doing $5,000 or more of work a year. Registration with the Attorney General, with $50,000 in liability coverage and $50,000 in property damage coverage. A written contract on any job over $500 with the work, the dates, the price, and the three-day right to cancel in it. On a job over $5,000, a deposit of no more than one third of the price plus special order materials. Philadelphia licenses contractors on top of that, and Pittsburgh registers them.

The Uniform Construction Code applies statewide, and more than 90 percent of municipalities enforce it, so a re-side is inspected nearly everywhere. The season runs from April into November. Vinyl gets brittle below freezing, and the Pennsylvania winter stops a crew for months.