Install Siding With a Zip Tool

Remove vinyl siding easily and quickly without any damage

LESLIE: Ed in Maryland is having a siding issue. Tell us what’s going on.

ED: OK. I have three courses of siding that have blown off the bottom of a modular home.

TOM: OK.

ED: And there is no starter strip on this siding. It’s hooked into a piece of 5/16 Homasote and then nailed just across the top of the siding. And so, evidently, over the years, it’d get moist and deteriorated.

Now, I’m going to put a piece of plywood down with a starter strip, with the courses back on. But what happens when I get to the original course that’s still nailed and I’m trying to put a new one in? How do I lift them up and then hook them back together again?

TOM: With a little tool called a zip tool.

ED: A zip tool?

TOM: Yeah. It’s a siding removal or installation tool. It’s a tool that has a handle and sort of a curved blade. It allows you to get in there and either zip or unzip those locking sections of siding together. That’s how you repair it if it’s blown off.

ED: OK. Now, this house had no wrap or tar paper or anything like that.

TOM: Yeah, you know, I’ve seen that before and I think that, technically, according to the code you don’t need it but it makes me very uncomfortable. Except, at this point in time, there’s not really much you can do about it, because that affects the whole house. But I actually have seen houses without a building wrap.

You believe that, Leslie? Where it’s vinyl sided right onto the wood sheathing.

LESLIE: (overlapping voices) That’s amazing that you would even do that.

ED: Yeah. This company is long gone out of business, the modular home, but it does have the high-density styrene, blue styrene.

TOM: (overlapping voices) Yep. Well, that’s good.

ED: Yeah, so …

TOM: So you do have some draft-proofing as a result of that as well.

LESLIE: (overlapping voices) But that should be on top of the paper.

TOM: Yeah, exactly.

ED: Yeah, well, there’s nothing. Alright, well, I thank you very much.

TOM: You’re welcome, Ed. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.