How to Prevent Siding Leaks With These INSIDER Tips

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In this article, you will learn how to prevent siding leaks from coming into your home. Within this article, I have layed out a process that Mr. Happy House does in order to FULLY prevent leaks from coming into any house.

Here are the steps to prevent siding leaks:

Fill in Gaps in Siding Correctly

The most important and often neglected part about preventing leaks in your home is to seal up the gaps & cracks of your siding.

Now I’m not talking about cracks in the middle or cracks in old siding, (you should seal those up as well) I’m talking about the gaps the are underneath every board, between each board and the gaps where the siding connects to the corner of the house.

It’s important to seal up those gaps so that there will be no random leaks coming into your home. I’ll show you how you can do that with these simple steps:

1) Get Some Paint, Caulk, Gloves, & Rags

In order to fill in the gaps for exterior jobs, you need paint caulk.

I’ve seen homeowners who put silicon to fill in the gaps between the siding of their homes and they look really bad and normal exterior paint doesn’t stick to it, so don’t get silicon.

Find the right color and type of paint for your home is very important, you do not want to get oil based paint when painting siding because it will not last very long, it’s best to go with latex paint for exterior paint jobs, but if your painting any metal than oil based paint would be a good option.

Now if you want to have clean hands and a clean area, I suggest wearing painters gloves and getting some rags.

All these items can be found in Home Depot or Lowes.

2) Apply One Finger to the Top of the Tip of the Caulk Gun

By putting your finger on the tip of the caulk gun, you are allowing the caulk to go into the gaps with ease.

Wipe off the excess caulk left on your finger onto a rag if needed.

3) Pull the Trigger Slowly and Apply into the Gap

4) Go Down Slowly with a Finger at the Top

You don’t want to start rushing yourself when doing this, because it could lead to a big mess, so it’s better to take it easy and focus on the quality.

5) Use a Rag to wipe off Excess Caulk

6) Let it Dry

Let the caulk dry for a few hours so that it could stick to the siding.

7) Paint

You could buy caulk that matches the paint for your home, but most of the time the colors are very general, so if you end up getting regular white paint caulk, then buy a can of paint that matches your home and apply it to the areas you have caulked.

With All of this in mind, I hope you learned how to prevent siding leaks, and as always, I we will be posting more content in the future, so make sure to stay tuned for that!