Siding Contractor Software in Wisconsin

Milwaukee is a two-family city. The Polish flats and duplexes that fill the south and north sides are two-family dwellings, and that puts them squarely under the state's Uniform Dwelling Code and the Dwelling Contractor certification that goes with it. A siding company that pulls permits on those houses needs the certification from the Department of Safety and Professional Services and a Dwelling Contractor Qualifier on staff, the person who took the 12-hour course and keeps up the continuing education.

The houses themselves are frame under aluminum or asbestos siding from the middle of the last century, with the original clapboard sometimes still underneath. Pulling it off is where the surprises live. The ranches and split-levels built from the 1950s through the 1970s in the Milwaukee suburbs, Madison, the Fox Valley, and Green Bay are the volume market for vinyl, and Dane County's newer subdivisions are fiber cement and engineered wood from the start.

Cold weather changes how the work gets done. Vinyl gets brittle below freezing and cuts badly, so most crews stop by Thanksgiving and start again in April. The freeze and thaw finds every place water can get behind a panel, which is why house wrap and the flashing at every window and door get looked at closely here. The wind off Lake Michigan pulls loose panels off Milwaukee houses every winter.

Wisconsin's home improvement practices code covers the contract. Any job where the company takes a deposit, or where the contract is signed at the house, has to be in writing with a description of the work and the main materials. A contract signed at the house carries a three-business-day right to cancel, with two copies of the notice handed over at signing. Final payment cannot be requested until the work is complete as written.