Jan 29 2008
Too much vinyl siding
Does anyone else think that these highly saturated, overly colourful commercials that are currently running for Newfoundland tourism are more than just a little bit misleading?
The fact is, in the outport communities that I’ve visited lately (perhaps with just a single exception), the scourge of vinyl siding has totally taken over. It’s even creeping into the city (get your hot beverage first, that’s a long read).
The idea in a previous post of “appreciating the details” is something that I think more people need to do.
We’re loosing something in Newfoundland, and quite rapidly. While the provincial government is actively promoting a certain “look and feel”, the municipal governments are watching, helpless and broke, while it’s all covered in plastic.
Several years ago, I spent a few weeks in the Twilligate area. I was just starting out as a photographer, but I already knew it was a gold mine – there were old houses and history everywhere. When I went back last year to shoot it again, armed with a better camera and knowledge of how to use it, it was mostly gone. If one of those things that I had shot before wasn’t already torn down, it was covered in vinyl siding.
When we bought a house to renovate, it had already been chopped up and put in tupperware. Although it was an old home, it had been renovated so often that there was nothing remaining from the original construction – totally stripped clean of character. We did what we could – rebuilding with as many materials as would originally have been used while making the whole thing energy efficient underneath. Although it’s not within the city’s heritage area, the result is one of the better looking houses on the street, and a property that has tripled in value in five years.
My only hope now is that people have gone the “quick and dirty” route in attaching the vinyl – that they’ve “strapped out” the old to cover it with new. 
If that’s the case, it would be a relatively simple process of pealing back the plastic and scraping off the flakes before appling a new coat of paint. Sorta like the exterior equivalent of taking up the carpet and re-finishing the hardwood.
Hopefully all is not lost.
