"Ken" wrote in message
oups.com...

People say vinyl and aluminum are "maintenance free". I prefer to
think of them as "unmaintainable". It gets dmamaged and you are often
SOL. Yes, you just wash down the vinyl or aluminum siding every year
or two, but once it gets damaged, often you are out of luck because
you can't find a matching replacement. They don't make the same vinyl
patterns for 100 years in a row. Around here, we get windstorms every
few years, and it is common to see large pieces of vinyl siding
missing from houses. Doesn't happen to my cedar.

Agreed. I still have some of the original clapboards on sections of my
house, which was built before 1850. Five years ago an old farm was
subdivided down the road, and four new houses were built. They were all
different styles, and colors, but all used vinyl siding. The white one
hasn't faded, but there are vertical stains near one window which look like
rust. I don't know what it is, but I know they've had the house washed and
the stains remain. The other three are very faded, with the blue one looking
particularly awful. My clapboard paint job lasts for 10 years. Can't say
that about the vinyl I've seen, which starts looking awful in about three
years. However, I am firmly in the "all vinyl/aluminum/non-wood clapboards
look hideous" camp, so YMMV.