Easy Siding Repairs Starts With Caulking

If you live in a home that has siding, there's a good chance that you might need to apply some caulking to it every once in a while. One of the easiest repairs any homeowner can do is to fill any cracks, gaps or holes in your siding with caulking.

If you have a whole larger than a dime in your siding, you might want to fill it with some type of epoxy or wood putty, depending upon which type of siding you actually have. Obviously this wouldn't work on vinyl siding and might not be recommended for cement fiberboard siding.

These types of siding repairs should be made at least once a year, because some types of home siding expand and contract. As a matter of fact, I can't think of one type of siding that doesn't expand or contract during severe temperature shifts. In other words, as the weather gets warmer, most home siding will expand and when the temperatures start working their way towards freezing, they will contract.

The more often that these materials expand and contract, the more problems you will have with your siding joints. In other words, your exterior siding might have problems in the future and will require regular maintenance like caulking and filling in large gaps.

I don't recommend purchasing the cheapest caulking you could possibly get, to fill these gaps in your siding. The more expensive caulking seems to expand and contract a little better than some of the cheaper ones.

Most important tip of all that I could give you about purchasing any type of caulking for your home siding is to make sure that it's paintable. Some silicone caulking can't be painted.