While an "upgrade" is nice...also keep in mind the prices of houses in your area and the benefits of this upgrade. Why put a more expensive (installation...material...upkeep) siding on a house in a neighborhood with vinyl sided houses. I have a brick home with vinyl siding on the gables and a wide dormer. While it would be nice to have HARDI-PLANK...it would be an improvement that would never pay for itself and in all honesty, the average person would never notice anyway.

Berkshire80, my windows were single pane aluminum inserts in the original wood frames, which where pretty beat up. Nothing to save there, so I ripped them out entirely and reframed the openings and put in vinyl with low-e glass. I resized the windows to standard 6" increments to save quite a bit of money. The inside walls (plaster!!!) are now a mess, but that will be fixed in "phase 3." For the corners just run the housewrap long a foot or so and tack it around the corner with roofing nails. It will hold until you get to that wall. I had one corner go like that all winter without problem as I sided a small area around the back door last summer when we replaced the roof, which by the way also had three layers of roofing on it. If you think three layers of siding is bad, try two layers of comp over cedar shingles. What a mess that was getting that off. Good luck with the project. I'm about two-thirds done. I should finish the east wall this week and that leaves only the north wall for the hottest part of our summer here. I started on the west wall this spring and worked around to the south wall. I generally only have the evenings and Saturday to work on it, so I tried to keep the sun away from where I was working as much as possible. I'll be very glad when I finish as this has been a real grind; however, the entire outside of the house will be new. Then I get to start on the inside.

Thanks for your comments. Question 3. above refers to having the rusted z-flashing in place, but covering the rusted z-flashing with a trim strip caulked at the top, so no more rusting. That shouldn't take that much caulk, and caulk is cheap compared to residing (which uses caulk, too *smile*). The trim strip cover for the existing z-flashing is the least labor and materials intensive approach, and I'm stongly considering doing it as an interim thing to see how well and how long it works. I do have a quote out for replacing the T1-11 in this one bad spot with new T1-11 and z-flashing and priming and painting it. I'll see where that comes in, to see if it makes more sense than the interim solution I'm considering. I also have a quote coming for vinyl re-siding, but I'm expecting that to be quite expensive. Although I may decide to go that way for the long term, even though it isn't wood *smile*. Thanks again.

I made the post to learn which has been limited to speculation, not experience. For those of us in the East, what 150 million, traffic suggest more, vinyl is very popular and is used in new construction. One neighbor is considering replacing his 30 year old vinyl with Hardie, just for a change... . I've lived in NJ longer than that and have never experience hail damage... Colorado? hail is a concern, not here. Still I don't like the touch of vinyl and from what I have found in other searches is the insulation applied as part of the manufacturing process does indeed make the siding much firmer to the touch, straighter and flatter. I have not yet gotten any quotes, but was told insulated vinyl is about 40% less, and due at least in part to requiring less than 1/2 the man hours to install Hardie an none of the hazardous to saw material (cement board) precautions. I am getting quotes on covering my trim with vinyl for either vinyl or Hardie siding. I'm also considering replacing my gutters and down spouts with the 6" size to mostly illuminate the the need to clean leaves out of the gutters. I've been doing that for over 25 years and am just too old to get the second story gutters, especially the one at right angle to a very steep garage roof, not a roof to walk around on. Again, I have a lot of still good cedar clapboard siding and estimate I need to do only two sides of the house in Hardie (say).. that cuts the cost more than in half as I also plan to do the 1 story garage walls myself. It is the vertical board and baton I believe it is called. I may just pull it all off and use Plywood with the same vertical pattern. .. absent all the joints and cracks. Edit: I see another concern was raised while I was bloviating above. The process that was described to me, I think both for cement board and vinyl, insulated or not: remove the existing siding, install a new vapor barrier. I believe both vinyl and and Hardie is then installed using a hanger type .. screwing to studs and the like. This says to me as far as vapor is concerned, neither protects against vapor from inside that gets through the interior vapor barrier and the vapor barrier installed over the sheathing - plywood in my case. As the insulation on the vinyle is nothing more than something filling the lap spaces, just as Hardie does because of its thickness and stiffness. However, the insulation has a much higher R value than does the Hardie, which I'll be is close to zero. Cement and even wood are poor insulators.