A Real Colorado Siding & Gutter Project, Broken Down Line by Line

Most cost content gives you a vague range. This is the opposite. This is one real home, one real number, and a complete breakdown of where every dollar went, including the one thing we found mid-project that changed the total. No vague ranges, just the real pricing on a real project.

Video coming soon.

The Home and What Was Failing

This is a big, simply shaped two-story home in the West Pleasant View neighborhood of Golden. Long straight walls and full gable ends, which means a lot of siding, about 2,402 square feet of wall to wrap.

The original siding was an older wood composite, and it was done. The big problem was water. It had been getting in behind the siding for years. The material was breaking down, and the damage had gone far enough that it was starting to affect the structure at the base of the home. That water intrusion is the thread that runs through this entire project. The soffit, fascia, and gutters were all failing at the same time.

The homeowner did not want another patch. They wanted the whole exterior done right, once, and never to think about their siding again. On a home this size, with this much going on, the numbers add up fast, which is exactly why understanding the breakdown matters.

Where the Money Goes, Line by Line

Here is where the money goes on a project like this, shown as a share of the whole.

The biggest piece, about 66 percent, is the James Hardie siding itself. That is the Evening Blue lap, the Cedarmill trim, and everything that goes into installing it: the full tear-off and disposal of the old siding, the HardieWrap moisture barrier, and the flashing at every opening. A full tear-off is real labor, plus the dumpster and the disposal fees, and it is the only way to see what you are actually working with underneath.

And remember, this home failed because water got in behind the old siding. So that moisture barrier and the flashing are not extras. They are the whole point of doing this right.

From there, replacing the soffit and fascia is about 7 percent. Cladding the bare south eave and repairing the framing at the garage openings is another 6 percent. New 5-inch seamless gutters and downspouts are about 4 percent. And the building permit rounds it out at about 1 percent.

That covers the work we could see and price up front. But there was one more piece we did not know about until the walls were open, and it is the most important part of this whole story.

All figures are the final, all-in shares for this specific project. Total installed cost: $66,357, or about $27.63 per square foot across 2,402 square feet of siding.

What We Found Under the Old Siding, and What It Added

Here is the part most contractors do not talk about openly. Before a project like this, we do a core test. We check what is underneath the old siding so we know what we are really dealing with before anyone is committed.

On this home, some of the original siding had already blown off during our pre-construction walkthrough, which actually worked in our favor. It meant we could see the substrate without running a core test. What we found was Celotex, a particle board product. Particle board is not a suitable mounting surface for James Hardie. It flexes, so you end up with a visible wave in the finished siding. And on older homes where the studs are not always 16 inches on center, there is no reliable surface to nail into between studs. OSB or plywood gives our installers a solid, consistent surface to fasten into, no matter what they find behind the wall. So a full re-sheath was the right call here, not optional.

Here is how we handle that at WestPro. We do not quietly bury it in the price, and we do not cut the corner and side right over bad sheathing, which is exactly how you end up with failures a few years later. We document it, we show the homeowner, and we put it in writing as a change order before we do the work.

That re-sheath, along with rebuilding the framing and jambs at the garage openings where the water damage had reached the structure, added about 16 percent to the project. All in, it came to $66,357. That is the honest way to price a project: the scope you can see up front, and anything we find documented and approved before we proceed.

Why James Hardie Fiber Cement Was Right for This Home

So why James Hardie fiber cement for this home? Start with the actual problem we were solving. This home failed because of water. The old wood composite siding let moisture in for years, it broke down, and it had gone far enough to start damaging the structure at the base of the home, which is why we had to rebuild the framing and jambs at the garage openings. That is how far it had gotten.

So the number one job of the new siding was simple: never let that happen again. And the homeowner had already come to the same conclusion. They had done their research, and they wanted James Hardie specifically because they decided it was the best siding for this climate. They were not going to put anything else on the home. They did not want to worry about their siding again for as long as they own it.

Fiber cement is built for exactly that. It resists moisture far better than the wood-based product that just failed here, it handles our freeze and thaw cycles, and it does not burn, which matters in a state that thinks a lot about wildfire.

On the look, the homeowner did not want to change the character of the home, a blue body with white trim, so we matched it: James Hardie lap in Evening Blue with Arctic White trim. The old siding had a wide 11-inch exposure, and they were open to updating that, so the new 7-inch lap reads cleaner and more current while still feeling like the same home.

You pay more for Hardie up front. But on a home that already lost a siding system to moisture once, it is the difference between solving the problem and repeating it.

Before, After, and What You Can Learn

Same home, same colors the homeowner loved, now wrapped in a durable system built to last.

If you take anything from this project, take these three things:

• Look at the whole exterior at once. When your siding is failing, look at the siding, the soffit, the fascia, and the gutters together, because they fail together and they are cheaper to do together.
• Plan for what you cannot see. On any older home, plan for the possibility that there is damage under the siding you cannot see yet, and work with a contractor who will show you what they find and put it in writing before they charge you for it.
• Compare scope, not just the bottom line. When you compare bids, compare what is actually included, not just the final number.

At $27.63 per square foot, this project ran above our typical range for a siding replacement. That is not a problem, it is the whole point. This home needed a full re-sheath and structural framing repair that a clean project does not. The transparency is the value: you are seeing what a real, complicated exterior replacement actually costs, and why.