The answer to these questions depends entirely on the cost of labor in your location so it is unlikely that anyone will be able to come within 40% of the cost except by chance.

I'm in the northeast...near Boston

I rarely post here but I occasionally lurk and had to comment on your posting. I apologize in advance for this being so long. We're not far from you in Central MA and also have old aluminum siding on our 1950's little ranch house. We purchased our little home at the upper-peak of the market hoping to bump up the roof and convert it into a 3bed/2bath cape, from a 2/1 ranch. The economy took a nose dive and we're now underwater by an easy $25k. So we're stuck living in our tiny home and can't afford to sell or expand, so we need to turn this little lemon into lemonade!

Our alum siding was a chalky, faded shrimp pink color with dark brown trim. We could see that there is wood siding underneath that was the original fabulous '57 Chevy green - gag! We were too afraid to tear off the alum siding to see what the wood condition was. Here's what we ended up doing, and we did it DIY last year over Memorial Day weekend.

Thurs eve: Scrubbed all of the siding to remove as much chalkiness as we could and cleaned off any algae, dirt etc. We scrubbed the siding with a brush that's designed to wash a car. We were afraid that a pressure washer might damage the siding or force water underneath. I can't remember what product we used but we purchased all of our supplies from our local ACE Hardware Store. (Warning.... after the siding dried, it looked even worse than before! I think we washed off a layer of chalk AND paint!)

Fri afternoon/eve: We caulked around all of our windows and doors - anywhere that needed it. (We had some peeling areas on the wood soffits that we had scraped and sanded a few weeks prior.)

Sat: Priming day. We used a high end 100% acrylic latex ACE Brand exterior primer. I don't remember the exact name but it certainly wasn't cheap. $45-50 a gallon if I recall correctly?! Applied with a sprayer. 2 coats in some areas, only one in others. It was amazing how porous the aluminum siding was on the sides of the house that receive more sun! (We sprayed the trim also.)

Sun: Siding color sprayed on - only 1 coat needed. Trim was done by brush. Siding paint was the most expensive per gallon Ace Exterior latex, satin finish. Trim and shutters are same brand, semi-gloss.

I think we spent close to $400 on all materials including the cost of paint. DH and I did it ourselves and we still have some touch-ups that I plan to tackle soon, now that the weather is getting nice.

All I can say is it's an amazing transformation! The house looks as if it's been completely resided and it actually has the feel of vinyl. Since it's aluminum it does have some dents here and there but it's acceptable to us.

Our house is a single level ranch of approximately 900sf and we used twice as much paint as we thought we would need. One of our friends is a pro painter so we were able to borrow his equipment. He too couldn't believe how much paint the siding absorbed. He also was surprised at the quality of the ACE Primer. He gave it a 'scratch' test and said that the adherence was exceptional. He initially tried to talk us out of painting it but we just couldn't afford the other alternatives and it made me nauseous looking at the old color.

So the gist of my response to you is painting will be the cheapest way to go but you don't exactly have a giant house compared to some in our area. It's certainly easy enough to DIY painting it yourself.

If you double our expenses you have a base cost for you to start with. That would be roughly $800 in supplies alone: caulk, siding wash, asst. brushes, primer, siding color, trim color, shutter color. Possibly add in the cost of renting a paint sprayer and compressor (Unless you have some available to use.)

Words of caution regarding painters in our area. Get at least 8 estimates and make sure they are detailed to the paint sheen, brand and number of coats - also application method - spray or brush. Ask about workers comp and liability insurance. More than 1/2 of the painters in our area don't carry it! Also if you do hire someone to do this, make sure you are home when they do the work! Brush application is more costly than spray but some painters will bid the brush work, but spray the job.

I also recommend joining Angie's List if you are not already a member. I think it's roughly $80 a year subscription? The recommendations are definitely worth it. Contractors can't advertise themselves. Only customers are allowed to rate contractors.

And no, I'm not a contractor. I'm a software engineer, married mother of 2 that really enjoys DIY work on our house. There's lots of info on painting aluminum siding if you do a Google search.

Good luck with whatever path you chose!

I just popped over to this thread to browse. I'm building, not remodeling, but I figured y'all would be talking about some interesting stuff.

I don't know what aluminum cost compared to hardi board as an alternative to the aluminum, but because it's impervious to insects and weather and will last many, many years and not suffer damage as aluminum will, I'm mentioning it to you as an alternative. It also looks like wood siding and offers much more insulation than aluminum.