Unlike some Gestapo communities where they dictate landscaping, fence height, house color and style, this little check in the system is pretty harmless. It is slightly unfortunate though. It means that as a homeowner you may end up sinking money into "appearance" related items that might not seem pressing as opposed to spending money on items that might matter - like new storm windows, insulation, safer electrical systems, efficient mechanical system, etc.
This year we were in violation for the soffits on our garage. I admit - they are a complete mess and need replacing. I'll also admit that I've been procrastinating on fixing out garage since we got the place. Overall, the structure is fine but the cladding is a mess. The terrible choice in siding and paint colors aside, there is no proper drip edge, various types of siding at each height, deteriorating soffts, etc. The base of vinyl siding definitely goes in the "what the hell were they thinking" department.
I purchased enough wood to replace all of the deteriorated soffit and will be doing a remove and re-locate job on the siding to at least get the siding on the alley side to look all the same (for our Neighborhood Walk Survey). I'll also be putting in a drip edge. 
I am priming all sides of the wood with a couple coats of oil-based primer and will be painting it all once it is in place. I hope to paint the entire garage with our new house colors this fall. It was another spectacular day in Chicagoland so I set up shop in the back yard and got to work. I'll begin installation next week. 
5 comments:
Ha! a little patch of vinyl at the bottom. It's almost cute. Almost. I bet it came about as a result of the previous inspection 4 years ago.
The bigger problem is what do I do with the vinyl? Thow it away? Can we send it back to the manufacturer and make them deal with it? I was going to go on a rant about vinyl in buildings but maybe I'll wait until I start removing larger quantities of the stuff.
Looks like you have your work cut out for you. I had a similar job on our attached garage about a year ago. The more I dug into the problem, the bigger my problem became. I began to find some small structural issues that needed to be addressed. Do you have anything like that? How is the framing. I would love to see the results. Enjoy the weather and thanks for the post! Scott
The problem is primarily cosmetic. The PO didn't install any flashing or drip edge and the first course of shingles are not staggered or cut so water runs right over the sheathing and fascia. All of the fascia is shot on all sides and the joists and sheathing on the north side are rotted so I'll need to add blocking to attach new fascia and soffit to. It appears that someone did this once before but still didn't put in a drip edge. I also have an overall cladding problem in that no one carries this beautiful pressboard siding anymore. Still not sure how I'll deal with that - likely relocate some from the other side.
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