Wood Siding Replacement done honest.
Rotted, cupped, or peeling wood comes off. What goes back up is your choice: new wood, engineered wood, or something tougher.
Old wood siding fails from the edges in. A bottom course wicks water off the grade, a window with tired flashing feeds a stain that becomes a soft spot, a north wall that never dries grows a green film and then a problem. By the time paint is peeling in sheets or a probe sinks into a board, the real question is how far the moisture traveled behind the wall.
Wood siding replacement with us starts by answering that question properly. We tear off, we chase every soft spot to solid wood, we fix the sheathing and framing where water got in, and then we rebuild the wall with a proper barrier and flashing before the first new board goes on. Covering damp, damaged wood with fresh siding is how a cosmetic problem becomes a structural one, and we won’t do it.
We replace wood siding across Lansing, East Lansing, Okemos, St. Johns, Grand Ledge, Owosso, and the surrounding mid-Michigan counties. Licensed, insured, never subcontracted. And if your wood siding just needs a repair and a re-coat instead of replacement, we’ll tell you that and save you the bigger check.
What our wood siding replacement covers.
- Full tear-offOld boards off, hauled away, yard swept clean
- Rot tracing & repairSoft spots chased to solid wood and rebuilt
- Sheathing & framing fixesThe structure fixed before it’s covered
- New moisture barrierA fresh weather-resistive layer, wall by wall
- New flashing & clearancesThe details that stop the next rot cycle
- Your choice of sidingNew wood, engineered wood, or fiber cement
Replacement done right stops the rot cycle for good.
The mistake we see most on wood siding jobs is treating replacement as cosmetic: strip the ugly boards, nail up pretty ones, collect the check. Six years later the new boards are failing in the same places, because the thing that killed the old siding, water getting where it shouldn’t, was never fixed.
So we work in the right order. Tear-off first, then a real inspection of every wall. We probe, we photograph, and we show you exactly where water traveled and what it damaged. Sheathing and framing repairs happen while the wall is open and honest.
New boards over old problems is just rot with a fresh coat of paint.
Then the water management gets rebuilt better than it was: barrier, flashing at every opening, and correct clearances at roofs, decks, and grade so the new siding never sits in moisture the way the old siding did.
Only then does new siding go up, hung by our own crew. Same people who quoted it, same people who found the rot, same people who stand behind it. That continuity is why the details hold together.
Done the honest way.
Chase it to the end
Rot never stops at the board you can see. We follow it to solid wood and fix everything in between.
Fix the cause
The rot came from water. New flashing, barrier, and clearances make sure the new wall doesn’t inherit the old wall’s disease.
Your material, your call
Back to wood, up to engineered wood, or over to fiber cement. We price all three straight and let you choose.
Replace with wood again, or switch materials?
If you love what wood siding does for your house, replacing wood with wood is a fine answer, and the new wall will outlive the old one because the water details will finally be right. Go in knowing the deal: stain or paint on a cycle, and a watchful eye on the bottom courses and window lines.
A lot of our wood replacement customers land on engineered wood instead. LP SmartSide keeps the deep lap look and paintability, adds serious resistance to moisture, impact, and insects, and stretches the maintenance cycle out. We’re certified installers, and from the sidewalk even wood purists have to walk up close to tell.
Fiber cement is the third road: the most weatherproof wall of the three, completely uninterested in insects and woodpeckers, fire-resistant, and available in crisp lap profiles that suit colonials and farmhouses. It’s the heaviest lift at install and we’re certified on it too, so it gets priced honestly alongside the others.
There’s no universal right answer, just the right answer for your house, your plans, and your patience for ladder weekends. The free look is where we figure that out together, with samples in hand and real numbers on paper.
From recent jobs.
Real Anchor work across mid-Michigan, the standard your wood siding project gets. More in the gallery.
Wood siding replacement across mid-Michigan.
The wood we replace around here fails in familiar places: bottom courses splashed by grade and gutters, window lines with tired flashing, and the north walls that never dry out. We see it across the whole area, from Lansing’s older neighborhoods through the century farmhouses around St. Johns, Ovid, and Elsie, out to lake-adjacent places near Ionia where humidity does extra work.
Because we’re a roofing company as well as a siding company, we read the whole water picture: gutters, drip edge, rooflines, and grade, not just the boards. Wood siding rot almost always has an upstream cause, and fixing it is the difference between a replacement that lasts and one that repeats.
Anywhere in our nine counties, the free look gets you the same thing: probing, photos, a straight answer on repair versus replacement, and firm numbers on going back with wood, engineered wood, or fiber cement.
Straight answers about wood siding replacement.
No hedging. Here’s the plain version of what homeowners ask us most, and you can see finished work in our gallery.
How do I know if my wood siding needs replacement or just repair?
Isolated soft spots, a few split boards, or peeling on one exposure usually mean repair and re-coat. Widespread rot, cupping across walls, chronic peeling within a year of painting, or damage at many windows means the wall system is failing and replacement is the better money. We’ll probe it and tell you straight.
What happens if there’s rot in the wall behind the siding?
We chase it. Bad sheathing gets cut out and replaced, damaged framing gets sistered or replaced, and everything is photographed so you see what was wrong and what we did. Then we fix the flashing and barrier so the rot doesn’t come back under the new wall.
Do I have to replace wood siding with wood?
No. Tear-off is the natural moment to switch materials if you want to. We install real wood, LP SmartSide engineered wood, and James Hardie fiber cement, and we’re certified on the latter two. You’ll get all three priced side by side with an honest read on each.
How much does wood siding replacement cost?
It depends on home size, how much hidden damage the tear-off reveals, and what you put back up. We give you a firm written price after the free look, and if the open wall reveals more than expected, you get photos and a conversation before anything changes.
Can you replace the siding on just one side of my house?
Yes. Weather rarely wears all four walls evenly, and replacing the worst exposure while repairing the rest is often the smart move. We’ll blend the coating so the house reads as one color, and tell you honestly when a full re-side makes better sense.
How long does wood siding replacement take?
Most homes run four to seven days depending on size and how much repair the tear-off uncovers. Wood trim carpentry takes longer than vinyl work, and we don’t rush it. You’ll get a real schedule with your price, kept by our own crew.
Will the new wall need less maintenance than the old one?
If you go back with wood, the coating cycle stays, but the wall behind it will finally be dry, which is what makes coatings last their full life. If you switch to engineered wood or fiber cement, the maintenance drops substantially. Either way the rot cycle ends here.
My paint keeps peeling within a year or two. Is the siding done?
Chronically peeling paint is usually a moisture message: the wall is wet from behind or water is getting in at flashing lines. Sometimes the fix is flashing plus a proper re-coat; when moisture readings are high across whole walls, replacement is the honest answer. We’ll measure it rather than guess.
Other things we do.
Serving Lansing, East Lansing, St. Johns and the surrounding counties. See our service area → · Questions? Contact us or call (989) 900-0018.
Let’s find out what’s under that old wood siding.
Call the crew for a free, no-obligation look. If a repair and a re-coat will hold, that’s exactly what we’ll tell you.
(989) 900-0018