Top-Rated Siding Contractors | Newman Homes
Every siding contractor bidding your house is pricing something they can’t see: the wall beneath the old siding.
- 25+ years in construction, building as Newman Homes since 2017
- Over 200 projects completed in Central Maine
- Affordable work, two-year written warranty
What a full re-side costs in Central Maine, priced by wall area rather than floor area, with the material choice laid out from vinyl at $6.00 a square foot up to cedar at $20.00.
Siding is the one trade where the honest bid and the cheap bid look identical on paper. Nobody knows what the sheathing under the old siding looks like until it comes off, so a quote with no allowance in it for rot is a quote that will change later. Newman Homes writes the allowance down in front.
Openings drive the labor more than square footage does. Two houses with the same wall area price differently if one has twice the windows, because trim and flashing are per-opening work. That is the fact to carry into any siding conversation.
What a Full Re-Side Includes
- The old siding comes off. All of it. Siding over siding traps water, hides damage, and voids most manufacturer warranties.
- The sheathing gets inspected and counted. You get told what we found and it is priced at the unit rate already in your contract.
- A weather-resistive barrier over the whole wall. House wrap, lapped shingle-style, taped at the seams. A surprising number of houses here have never had one.
- Every opening reflashed. Sill pan under, head flashing over, wrap lapped in the correct order. Openings are where walls leak.
- Trim priced by the piece. Corner boards, frieze, casing, and water table are labor, and on a Victorian they are most of the labor.
- Insulation, if you want it. A re-side is the one moment in a house's life when the outside of the wall is open. Rigid board over the sheathing is the cheapest R-value that house will ever get.
What homeowners say
Read more reviews- ★★★★★
Due to multiple issues we had last summer with a contractor, we started looking early for a company to side our home. Newman Homes came right out and gave an estimate.
Jess P. - ★★★★★
Great company to work with. Very communicative and quick with the work.
Michael M. - ★★★★★
Brandon was always very fair with any adjustments to our fixed price contract, and we were quite happy with the outcome.
David K.
How Much Siding Costs in Central Maine
Siding is priced by wall area, not floor area. A 2,000-square-foot, two-story house has roughly 2,200 square feet of exterior wall.
| Material | Per square foot of wall |
|---|---|
| Vinyl, mid-grade, insulated backer or double-4 | $6.00 to $9.00 |
| Engineered wood (LP SmartSide), primed and finish-coated | $8.00 to $11.00 |
| Fiber cement (James Hardie), prefinished | $10.00 to $15.00 |
| Cedar shingle or clapboard, stained | $14.00 to $20.00 |
For a house with 2,200 square feet of wall, vinyl runs about $13,200 to $19,800. Fiber cement runs about $22,000 to $33,000. Our floor for a full-house re-side is $12,000. Staging and disposal carry fixed costs, and the first crew week costs about the same whether the house is small or large. These are planning bands based on hundreds of estimates. A real house will usually fall above or below a band, not neatly on it. Openings drive labor more than square footage does. Two houses with identical wall area price differently if one has twice the windows, because trim and flashing are per-opening work. Our siding cost guide explains wall area and openings, then covers what tear-off can uncover.
Related Services
Choosing the Material
Vinyl is the value answer and a good mid-grade product with an insulated backer performs well here. Installation practice matters more than brand, and the expansion allowance that keeps a long wall flat is set out by the vinyl siding institute.
Engineered wood is the most common upgrade we sell. It cuts and nails like lumber, holds a finish far better than it should, and reads as a painted house from the street.
Fiber cement is heavy, slow to cut, and lasts. Buy it prefinished. Clearance at grade and fastening are what the warranty depends on, and both are published by the manufacturer.
Cedar is the top of the range and it is a hand-laid product. On a coastal house the fasteners have to be stainless, because a galvanized nail in salt air stains a wall within a couple of seasons.
Lead-Safe Work on an Older House
Most housing in this service area predates 1978. Removing painted siding is an activity covered by the federal renovation rule.
On a pre-1978 house, the work requires ground containment and sealed openings, followed by HEPA cleanup and documented verification at the end of each day. The EPA publishes the rule.
It isn’t optional.
Lead-safe work is a real line on an estimate. A bid for an 1890 house without that line comes from someone who either hasn’t read the rule or doesn’t plan to follow it.
What a Siding Contractor Owes You in Writing
Maine has no state licensing standard for siding contractors or general contractors. The state issues no credential, and no board reviews who works on your walls.
The agreement has to do that job. Six items belong in yours:
- A unit price for sheathing replacement, per sheet.
- The weather barrier named by product, and whether the seams get taped or only lapped.
- Which flashings are new, opening by opening.
- What happens to the trim, wrapped or replaced, and in what material.
- A fixed price recorded under Maine's home construction contract law, which holds the first payment to one third.
- A written workmanship warranty. Ours runs 2 years and our BBB file is A+.
Insurance is the credential you can verify. Get the liability and workers’ compensation certificates, then confirm them with the carrier.
How We Run a Re-Side
We walk the whole house.
Every elevation, every opening, and the sheathing wherever anything is already loose enough to look behind.
One written price with the allowances named.
Material, labor, trim, staging, disposal, and unit costs for sheathing, sills, and framing.
One elevation at a time.
The house is never open on more than one side, and whatever is opened is wrapped before the crew leaves.
Flash, install, trim.
Openings first, field second, trim last, in that order for a reason.
Clean and walk it.
Ground cover pulled, plantings checked, and a walkthrough with you against the written scope.
Photos twice a week. And a 2-year workmanship warranty in writing when the job is done.
Why Every Honest Siding Bid Has Allowances
Nobody knows what’s behind the siding until it comes off. So we put the uncertainty in writing.
Sheathing replacement, sill repair, and any necessary framing work each get a unit price in the contract before demolition starts. One rate per sheet.
Another per linear foot.
Any unused allowance comes off the final invoice. The allowance is a ceiling, not a fee.
That distinction is why it’s written down.
This also turns a change order into arithmetic instead of an argument. You approve the rate first.
After that, the only variable is a count you can check yourself.
How the bid handles that unknown tells you almost everything. Frankly, a number without an allowance line isn’t cheaper.
It postpones the hard conversation until week two.
Newman Homes has operated from Augusta since 2017 under Brandon Roberge, who spent more than 25 years building in Florida and Massachusetts before coming to Maine.
Our files show that 94% of projects finish on the original schedule and at the original number. We recount that figure every month.
It’s why we price the unknown instead of hiding it.
Common Questions
It can and we will not do it. You cannot inspect a wall you never opened, and the wall is the entire question on a re-side.
Most houses run one to three weeks depending on wall area, opening count, and how much repair the tear-off turns up.
Only if insulation goes in behind it. Siding itself is a rain screen, and the R-value comes from what you add while the wall is open.
It gets replaced at the unit price already in your contract, counted and shown to you. Nothing gets discovered and then invented.
Get a Siding Estimate
Call (207) 480-7700. The line is answered around the clock, usually by Brandon himself.
You can also write info@newmanhomesme.com or go directly to a free estimate.