There may be hope for Pittsburgh's 100 year old aluminum sided houses (Paint: hardwood floors, tile)

[Hopes]

In the home forum, someone posted a random Pittsburgh of an old aluminum sided house and challenged people to make it look better. To my amazement, someone did. Below is the picture of the house, along with the drawing done to the picture.

[PreservationPioneer]

The way to make it look better would simply be to remove the siding, scrape and paint the original clapboard (wood) siding underneath, and restore the wood window and door trim surrounds. Also, the aluminum fascia near the roof needs to be removed, and the wood restored underneath. Obviously, you would want to remove the boards from the windows and replace the windows and door with high quality wooden replacements.

The finished result would look something like this:

https://maps.google.com/?ll=40.45602...,268.83,,0,0.4

[hinsey86]

Although an improvement it Looks too New Orleans like to me.I like the example PP gave..doesn't change the original design.

[I_Like_Spam]

Originally Posted by PreservationPioneer

The way to make it look better would simply be to remove the siding, scrape and paint the original clapboard (wood) siding underneath, and restore the wood window and door trim surrounds. Also, the aluminum fascia near the roof needs to be removed, and the wood restored underneath. Obviously, you would want to remove the boards from the windows and replace the windows and door with high quality wooden replacements.

Appearance isn't the only factor of course.

Energy efficiency has to be considered as well as the cost of maintenance are also aspects that need to be considered particularly as the residents of this particular home and the thousands like it aren't likely to be very affluent.

[SlurmsMcKenzie]

There are degrees of "better". Sure, a full restore is preferable. But I'm sure the original design Hopes posted would be far cheaper. It just looks like new windows, door, trim, shutters, flower boxes, light fixture. Someone with a little DIY ability could probably turn that conversion around in no time at all.

[szug-bot]

Originally Posted by PreservationPioneer

The way to make it look better would simply be to remove the siding, scrape and paint the original clapboard (wood) siding underneath, and restore the wood window and door trim surrounds. Also, the aluminum fascia near the roof needs to be removed, and the wood restored underneath. Obviously, you would want to remove the boards from the windows and replace the windows and door with high quality wooden replacements.

The finished result would look something like this:

https://maps.google.com/?ll=40.45602...,268.83,,0,0.4

why use the aluminum siding in the first place? was the point be to protect a rather fragile clapboard surface?

i much prefer brick homes, but im asking because i honestly dont know.

[PreservationPioneer]

Originally Posted by szug-bot

why use the aluminum siding in the first place? was the point be to protect a rather fragile clapboard surface?

i much prefer brick homes, but im asking because i honestly dont know.

It's for lazy homeowners who don't like to paint. Same with vinyl siding.

[PghYinzer]

Originally Posted by szug-bot

why use the aluminum siding in the first place? was the point be to protect a rather fragile clapboard surface?

i much prefer brick homes, but im asking because i honestly dont know.

This spring I plan on tearing off the aluminum trim that was put all over the outside of my brick house. They covered what little ornamental trim work on my porch with siding, which now needs replaced. Painting wood every few years is much easier on my wallet then replacing all of this alluminum and will add a little bit of character back to my house....

All of this after I am done refinishing the original hardwood floors I found buried under 1990's beige tile in my kitchen and breakfast room this weekend....

[Moby Hick]

So many people are pulling off aluminum siding that I'm thinking of starting a group to preserve what is left and thus keep our region's history alive.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by PreservationPioneer

It's for lazy homeowners who don't like to paint. Same with vinyl siding.

The thing I really don't understand is why people paint brick houses. I mean, it's one thing if you need to do major brick repair and the patched in brick doesn't match. But pointing, if done right, lasts for 50 years. If you paint you can seal in the mortar for awhile, but then just like a wood house you need to scrape and paint every 5-10 years. And it's thousands of dollars for the next homeowner to remove.

Regarding the original house, I'm not so sure it's 100 years old. Judging by the squat proportions and fairly short windows, it could have been a tail-end frame house from the 1920s. On the other hand, it could have been a really, really early house I suppose, because the pre-Victorians often had proportions like that as well.

The one good thing about a remuddled frame house is they're comparably easy and cheap to fix. On the other hand, if someone screwed up a brick house (badly patched windows, bricking in a porch, etc), it's basically going to look bad forever, given it would take tens of thousands to repair, and even when you're done it still wouldn't look right unless you took brick of the back of your house to fix the front.