House Siding Options Compared: Vinyl, Fiber Cement & Wood

Siding is the biggest single surface on your house and the most expensive part of its skin. The material you pick locks in a cost today and a maintenance schedule for the next 20 to 50 years. On a typical 2,000 square foot home, vinyl runs about $6,000 to $10,000 installed, fiber cement about $10,000 to $16,000, and cedar about $12,000 to $24,000. All three cover the same walls. The gap between them is not just price. It is how often you repaint, how well the house survives a hailstorm, and what the next buyer sees from the curb. > **Find your square count first:** Use our [free siding calculator](/siding-calculator/), enter wall dimensions and openings, and get the squares and installed cost for vinyl, fiber cement, wood, and metal in seconds. --- ## What the Choices Actually Cost Siding is priced by the square, a unit equal to 100 square feet of wall area. A 2,000 square foot single-story home with a simple rectangle footprint needs about 18 to 22 squares after you subtract windows and doors and add waste for gable ends and corners. The totals below assume 20 squares. | Material | Material per Sq | Installed per Sq | 20-Square Home Installed | |------|:--:|:--:|:--:| | **Vinyl** | $50-100 | $300-500 | $6,000-10,000 | | **Engineered wood** | $90-150 | $400-600 | $8,000-12,000 | | **Fiber cement** | $150-250 | $500-800 | $10,000-16,000 | | **Metal (steel / aluminum)** | $150-300 | $500-900 | $10,000-18,000 | | **Cedar wood** | $200-350 | $600-1,200 | $12,000-24,000 | The spread inside each row reflects region, labor rates, and how cut up the house is. The spread between rows is the material decision, and it is the one you control most directly. ## Vinyl Siding: The Low-Maintenance Default Vinyl is the most common siding in America for a simple reason: it is the cheapest installed and it asks almost nothing of you afterward. A power wash every year or two and it is done. No painting, no staining, no sealing. Panels are light, cut with tin snips, and clip together with a built-in locking edge, which is why it is the one material a handy homeowner can install across a whole house in two or three weekends. The tradeoffs are real. Vinyl expands and contracts with temperature, so it is nailed loose, not tight, and it can warp and buckle on walls that face the afternoon sun in hot climates. In deep cold it grows brittle and cracks on impact, a thrown shovel or a hailstone can punch through. The color is molded into the plastic, so it fades over 20 years and cannot be repainted to refresh it. If the faded color bothers you, the answer is replacement, not a coat of paint. Modern vinyl is a long way from the shiny panels of the 1970s. Insulated vinyl adds foam backing that stiffens the panel and adds R-2 to R-3 to the wall, and the better profiles have deep shadow lines that read as real wood from the street. It will not be mistaken for cedar up close, but from the curb most people cannot tell. ## Fiber Cement: The 50-Year Option Fiber cement, sold most famously as HardiePlank, is cement reinforced with cellulose fibers and pressed into planks that imitate wood lap siding. It costs about twice the material of vinyl, but it carries the longest track record of any cladding at its price point: 50 years or more when it is installed and painted properly. Its strengths are the things that destroy wood and cheapen vinyl. It does not rot, does not feed termites, and it is non-combustible, which matters in fire zones and earns a discount on some insurance policies. Hail bounces off it. It holds paint far longer than wood because the substrate does not move with humidity, though the paint itself still fades and needs a recoat every 10 to 15 years. The costs beyond the sticker price are labor and handling. Fiber cement weighs about 2.5 pounds per square foot, roughly double vinyl, so the walls have to be framed to take it and the crew has to haul it. Cutting it with a saw throws silica dust, a serious lung hazard, so the installer needs wet cutting or a dust collector. Contractors quote it at a premium for that reason, and the material price gap to vinyl is only part of the installed gap. ## Wood Siding: The Look That Costs Maintenance Real wood siding is the benchmark every other material is imitating. Cedar lap, shiplap, and board and batten have a grain and depth that no manufactured plank reproduces, and on a historic home or a high-end build nothing else looks right. The maintenance is the catch. Wood moves with every change in humidity, so the paint film cracks and peels and has to be redone every 5 to 7 years. That is a recurring cost vinyl never sends you. Wood is also the favorite food of carpenter bees, woodpeckers, and, in humid regions, rot where the laps trap moisture. The details matter: proper flashing over every joint, 1/8-inch gaps between boards for expansion, and primer on all six sides before install. Cut those corners and a cedar house looks aged and frayed within a decade. Stain or paint, you are committing to a ladder and a paintbrush on a schedule, not as a one-time event. ## Metal and Engineered Wood: The Middle Ground Two materials sit between the vinyl default and the wood premium. **Metal siding** in steel or aluminum brings fire resistance, a 40 to 60 year lifespan, and zero rot or insect risk. Aluminum never rusts but dents easily, a ladder leaning against it leaves a crease. Steel is stronger but needs the coating kept intact, a scratch to bare metal starts rust in a wet climate. Modern vertical-panel metal in matte wood-grain finishes looks nothing like barn metal and is a legitimate design choice on contemporary houses. **Engineered wood**, sold as LP SmartSide and similar products, is wood strands bonded with resin and treated against rot and insects. It cuts and installs like OSB, which keeps labor reasonable, and it holds paint better than natural wood because it does not move as much. It costs a little more than vinyl and well under fiber cement, and its 30 to 50 year lifespan puts it in the middle of the pack. It is the strongest competitor to fiber cement at a lower price, with the caveat that cut edges need to be sealed or they can wick moisture. ## Match the Siding to Your Climate The right material depends more on where the house sits than on the budget. Hot, sunny climates punish vinyl: the panels bake, fade, and can warp on south walls. Fiber cement and metal shrug off the sun and reflect heat better. Cold, freeze-thaw climates are hard on paint and moisture, so vinyl's zero-maintenance wins, or fiber cement if you want the fire and hail resistance. Wet, humid regions with heavy rain favor materials that do not feed mold and rot, fiber cement and vinyl lead, wood trails. In wildfire zones, fiber cement and metal are the only two options that make sense, both are non-combustible. A coastal house within sight of salt water deserves special care. Salt spray corrodes aluminum fasteners and steel panels, and it dries out and fades wood fast. Fiber cement and vinyl hold up best right on the coast. ## How to Count Your Squares Before any material quote means anything, you need the square count, and it starts with the walls, not the roof. Measure each exterior wall's width and height, multiply for the gross area, then subtract every window, door, and garage door. A standard window runs about 15 square feet, a door about 20, a single garage door about 120. Add waste for gable ends and cutoffs, 10 percent for a simple rectangle, 15 percent for a house with many corners and gables, then divide by 100 for squares. A 50 by 40 foot single-story house with 10-foot walls has 1,800 square feet of wall before openings, and about 16 to 18 squares of siding after. The [siding calculator](/siding-calculator/) runs this for up to four walls, subtracts openings, and applies the waste factor and the material price in one pass. If the house footprint is not a simple rectangle, the [square footage calculator](/square-footage-calculator/) handles L-shapes, triangles, and circles first. ## The Hidden Lines in a Siding Quote The siding panels are 40 to 50 percent of the project. The rest is the part you never see in the sales brochure. House wrap behind the siding, $0.50 to $1.00 per square foot, is required with every material and often has to be replaced when old siding comes off. Trim, corner posts, J-channel, and starter strips add 10 to 15 percent on top of the panel cost, and they are brand-specific, so you cannot mix manufacturers. Removing old siding runs $1,000 to $3,000, and old asbestos-cement siding, common on 1940s to 1960s homes, adds $3,000 to $10,000 for licensed abatement. Once the walls are bare, rotted sheathing reveals itself, so budget for two or three sheets of repair unless you know it is sound. A detailed quote names these lines. A cheap one hides them and collects them as change orders. ## 5 Siding Mistakes That Cost Thousands ### 1. Ordering Too Little to Save Money Siding sold short stalls the whole job mid-install, and the second order never matches the first, same manufacturer, different dye lot. Measure twice, add the full waste factor, and round up. The square count is the one number you cannot afford to be wrong. ### 2. Nailing Vinyl Too Tight Vinyl must float. Nailed snug, panels buckle and ripple when the wall heats up and the material expands. Drive the nail through the center of the slot and leave it a hair loose, that is what the elongated nail slot is for. ### 3. Skipping the House Wrap Siding sheds most water but it is not waterproof, and wind-driven rain gets behind it. House wrap is the second line of defense. Installing new siding over torn or missing wrap turns every leak into a rot problem inside the wall. ### 4. Forgetting to Seal Cut Fiber Cement Fiber cement is painted at the factory on the faces, but every cut edge on a window or corner is bare cement. If the installer does not field-paint or caulk those edges, they wick moisture and the plank swells at the end. Check the cut ends, not just the faces. ### 5. Picking a Material You Will Not Maintain A wood siding quote looks beautiful until year five, when the paint is peeling and the carpenter bees move in. Be honest about whether you will repaint on schedule. If the answer is no, buy vinyl or fiber cement and skip the romance. --- Ready to compare prices on your exact house? Use our [free siding calculator](/siding-calculator/) to get squares and installed cost for vinyl, fiber cement, wood, and metal from your wall measurements. Need the footprint measured first? The [square footage calculator](/square-footage-calculator/) handles any shape, and the [paint calculator](/paint-calculator/) sizes the exterior trim paint that goes with a wood or fiber cement job. The siding sits on the same house as the roof, so pair the estimate with our [roof replacement cost guide](/blog/2026-08-17-roof-replacement-cost-guide/) for the full exterior budget, and if you are building out a new deck at the same time, the [deck building cost guide](/blog/2026-08-01-deck-building-cost-guide/) covers materials and labor there.