Siding Replacement in St. Louis

Replace or repair: the test we use

Not every tired wall needs a re-side. If the damage sits in one place, such as a few cracked courses behind the grill or one wall dented by hail, a repair is usually the right call and costs far less than a whole house. Our siding repair page covers that work.

Replacement starts to make sense when the problems are spread across the house, or when a repair cannot be made to match. The signs we look for:

• Soft or swollen boards on several walls, most often at the bottom courses, under window sills and below the corners where a roof meets a wall.
• Hardboard that is cracking, warping or delaminating. Hardboard is wood fiber pressed together under heat and pressure, and several class-action lawsuits were filed over certain hardboard products.
• Paint that keeps peeling on wood or fiber cement soon after a careful repaint. That usually means water is reaching the boards from behind.
• A discontinued product. If the color or profile is no longer made, a patch will never match. After a storm that becomes an insurance question; see hail damage and matching. We inspect, measure and photograph, and give you documentation to send your insurer. The claim stays yours: Missouri law (RSMo 407.725) bars exterior contractors from negotiating a claim for you or promising to pay any part of your deductible.
• Two layers already on the wall. A third layer hides whatever went wrong under the first two.

What a full re-side involves, in order

A complete re-side is more than new panels. Done properly it runs in this order:

1. Set-up. On a house built before 1978 that means lead-safe containment before any painted surface is disturbed.
2. Tear-off to the sheathing, every layer, with the debris handled the way the old material requires.
3. Sheathing check. Soft areas are opened up and photographed, and the repair is priced by the square foot for the rot that is really there, in writing, before work goes on.
4. A new water-resistive barrier. IRC section R703.2 requires at least one layer, continuous to the top of the wall. Felt and house wraps rated to ASTM E2556 run horizontally, upper course over lower, lapped at least 2 inches, and at least 6 inches where two pieces meet end to end.
5. Flashing at every opening and intersection, tied into that barrier (next section).
6. Trim, soffit and fascia, then the siding. The code sets minimum thickness and fastening in Table R703.3(1) and points to the siding maker's installation instructions for the rest, so those instructions are part of the job, not a suggestion.
7. Photos and a final walk. Once the siding is on, nobody can see the barrier again, so we photograph it as we go.

The flashing the code spells out

IRC section R703.4 calls for corrosion-resistant flashing applied shingle-fashion, each piece lapping over the one below, at seven kinds of places:

• window and door openings, detailed in R703.4.1;
• where a chimney or other masonry meets a frame wall;
• under and at the ends of copings and sills;
• continuously above projecting wood trim;
• where a porch, deck or stair attaches to the house;
• at wall and roof intersections;
• at built-in gutters.

At windows, R703.4.1 sends the installer to the window maker's flashing instructions first. Where those are silent, a pan flashing goes under the sill, sloped or sealed so water drains out, with protection at the head and sides. Self-adhered flashing tape has to meet AAMA 711, and the gap around the rough opening gets air-sealed from the inside.

Older houses: lead paint and asbestos-cement

Two rules ride along on older houses, and both change how the tear-off is done.

Lead paint. On a house built before 1978, a paid contractor who disturbs painted surfaces works under EPA's renovation rule. The exterior allowance for small jobs is 20 square feet, and stripping painted wood siding counts as demolition of a painted surface, which that allowance never covers. The rule decides who may do the work, how the area is contained and cleaned, and what paperwork you are given. The full requirements are on our lead paint rule page.

Asbestos-cement siding. The rigid cement shingles on many houses built before about 1980 can contain asbestos. Intact on the wall, the material is classed as non-friable. Breaking, sawing, sanding or power-washing it can change that, and so can the size of the job: Missouri's thresholds are 35 cubic feet, 260 linear feet or 160 square feet. Missouri exempts a single house of up to four units from its regulated-structure process, but that exemption covers paperwork, not the dust. We test suspect siding before anything is disturbed. Covering intact asbestos-cement with new siding is sometimes the better plan, as long as it is your informed choice and you know it stays on the house for the next owner.

Permits: the answer changes at the city limit

Missouri has no statewide building code, so each city sets its own permit rule, and the Illinois towns do the same for permits. The city-by-city table is on our siding and window permits page. A few rules that matter for a re-side in particular:

• Unincorporated St. Louis County treats re-siding, even with a different material, as maintenance that needs no permit, and insulation added under the new siding is exempt too. Damage repair is different. Fixing damage from wind, fire, termites, flood or earthquake needs a permit whatever its size, unless the County inspects first and agrees the work is cosmetic.
• The City of St. Louis exempts new aluminum, steel or vinyl siding when no opening changes, outside its historic districts. Its list does not mention fiber cement or wood.
• Town and Country asks for no permit unless sheathing comes off or goes on, and the architectural criteria its review board applies prohibit vinyl siding and soffits.
• Brentwood sends a re-side to its Architectural Review Board before the permit issues. Clayton requires board or staff review of exterior changes, at published fees of $135 and $85.
• Edwardsville struck the residential exemption list from its code, so a re-side there needs a permit.

What it costs: the 2025 published numbers

We do not publish a price range we cannot source. The most useful independent figures are in Zonda's 2025 Cost vs. Value Report, which prices defined projects for the West North Central census division that Missouri sits in.

Both projects replace 1,250 square feet of existing siding over a continuous water-resistive barrier. The vinyl job includes factory trim at all openings and corners. The fiber-cement job is factory primed and factory painted, with 4/4 and 5/4 trim in fiber cement or cellular PVC. Costs are built from federal price indexes and Verisk's remodeling estimating data, and resale values come from a survey of more than 6,000 real estate agents.

Two things stand out. This region costs more than the national average for both jobs ($17,950 for vinyl and $21,485 for fiber cement nationally) and gets back less at resale (96.5% and 113.7% nationally). And of the four siding and window projects in the report, fiber cement is the one that earns back more than it costs here.

What moves the price on your house

The report's 1,250 square feet is a reference point, not a quote. These are the things that move a real number up or down:

• Wall area and height. A two-story wall or a walk-out basement side needs staging, not just ladders.
• Openings and corners. Every window, door and corner adds trim and flashing labor.
• What comes off. One layer of vinyl comes off fast. Wood under aluminum under vinyl does not, and asbestos-cement changes the plan entirely.
• What turns up. Rotten sheathing is billed at the square-foot rate written into the estimate, for the area that has to come out.
• House age. Lead-safe set-up, cleanup and cleaning checks on a pre-1978 house take real time.
• Material and trim. Steel, engineered wood, fiber cement, insulated vinyl and plain vinyl are all priced differently, and so are aluminum-wrapped, PVC and fiber-cement trim.
• Extras. Soffit and fascia, insulation under the siding, and design review fees where a city charges them.

Windows replaced during the re-side get flashed into the new barrier once, instead of the wall being opened twice. See window replacement.

Common questions about siding replacement in St. Louis

Where we work

Siding replacement across greater St. Louis, from the city and St. Louis County out to St. Charles, Jefferson and Franklin Counties and across the river into the Metro East. Each city has its own page with the permit rule and code edition that apply there: