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Can aluminum siding be removed and then re-attached to a home?
Needing to replace some exterior wall but first must remove the siding, am I looking at an enormously expensive process here and can the same siding be used over once the boards are replaced?
Answer: Yes. I had some rot under the eve and successfully removed the existing aluminum siding, replaced the fascia board and re-attached the siding.
It's not that hard to do. Basically there is a nailing strip at the top that gets covered by the course above. You just carefully remove the nails and it comes right off. You just have to be very careful not to let it bend and think through how you are going to safely store it so it won't get bent/wrinkled while you are doing the other work. Think of it as fragile stuff and treat it carefully and you'll be fine.
Make sure when you re-attach it that you don't drive the nails all the way home. It expands and contracts with heat changes and so it needs to have some ability to flex or it will tear the thin nailing strip over time.
Finally, make sure the dimensions of what you are replacing underneath matches the original exactly. The siding was custom cut to fit over the original wood, and if what you replace is off, even a little bit, you will have trouble when it comes time to re-install it.
Good luck.
P.S. you can paint your aluminum siding when the original finish wears off. I did that a few years ago and it looks great So don't buy the hype you have to replace aluminum siding after 20 years, once the original paint starts to fade and look bad. The stuff is almost indestructible so there is really no reason replace it with vinyl siding.
