Siding Contractor in Alpharetta, GA Built for Humidity, Red Clay & HOAs

Water gets behind the siding at window corners, deck ledgers, or roofline intersections and soaks the OSB or plywood sheathing. Over time the sheathing softens and the rot spreads into the studs and rim joists, often while the paint on the outside still looks fine.

With summer dew points near 70°F and more than 50 inches of rain a year, wet sheathing in North Fulton rarely gets the chance to dry. Many 1990s homes were built without kick-out flashing where the roof meets a sidewall, so the roof runoff goes straight into the wall. Tall basement walls on sloped lots catch extra splash-back. By the time anyone notices, a full tear-off usually turns up damage that was never visible from the yard.

• Soft or spongy spots when you press on siding or trim
• Paint bubbling below roof-to-wall intersections
• Interior drywall stains near exterior walls
• Musty odor in rooms or basement corners
• Siding pulling away from window edges
• Carpenter ants or termite activity near the wall base

We see it constantly below roof kick-outs on two-story Windward and Crabapple homes, at deck ledgers on Johns Creek basement walls, and at window corners in Horseshoe Bend. North-facing walls under a heavy canopy are the worst.

We open the wall, replace the rotted sheathing and framing, install a new water-resistive barrier and kick-out flashing, and only then put the new siding on.

Masonite-type hardboard and LP inner-seal OSB siding are made from wood fibers pressed together with resin. When moisture gets past the paint, the boards swell, the edges mushroom out, the surface blisters, and eventually the boards crumble.

Builders across North Fulton used these products heavily from the mid-1980s through the late 1990s, and both were later the subject of class-action lawsuits. Constant humidity, red clay splash on the lower courses, and freeze-thaw cycles break down whatever paint film is left. Now that the boards are 25–40 years old, repainting can't save them. The fibers have already absorbed water and lost their strength.

• Swollen, flared bottom edges on lap boards
• Blistering or wafer-like texture under paint
• Boards that crumble when probed
• Nail heads sunk or popping
• Fungus or mushrooms at butt joints
• Paint that won't stay on despite repainting

This is common on the sides and rear of brick-front homes in Alpharetta, Duluth, Suwanee, and east Roswell swim/tennis subdivisions from roughly 1986 to 1999. It's usually worst on the lowest three courses.

The real fix is full replacement with fiber cement or LP SmartSide engineered wood, along with sheathing repair wherever the tear-off turns up rot.

Finger-jointed pine trim, fascia boards, and window sills soak up water through their end grain and open joints. They rot from the inside out, so the paint can hide the damage until a corner breaks off or a gutter pulls loose.

The builder-grade trim used during Alpharetta's boom years had no defense against weeks of near-100% humidity. Gutters that overflow with oak and pine debris dump water right onto the fascia. Window sills facing south and west take the strongest UV and crack, and then the summer storms soak them. Freeze-thaw cycles widen the joints every winter.

• Peeling paint at trim corners and joints
• Soft wood under a screwdriver test
• Gutters sagging or pulling from fascia
• Gaps between trim and siding
• Visible wood decay on window sills
• Bird or squirrel entry holes at soffits

Under tree canopy in Milton's White Columns area and Sugarloaf Country Club, we see it most at gable returns, garage door jambs, and the bottoms of door casings. It nearly always shows up alongside rot in the siding next to it.

We replace the rotted trim with PVC or fiber cement trim, seal the joints correctly, and add gutter replacement where overflowing gutters are what caused it.

EIFS (synthetic stucco) is a foam board with a thin acrylic finish. Early barrier-style systems had no drainage plane, so water that got in around windows or penetrations stayed trapped against the sheathing.

Builders put EIFS on a lot of upscale North Fulton homes in the 1990s. The system relies on perfect sealant joints, and Georgia's heat cycles and soil settling crack those joints within a few years. Water then soaks the wall behind the foam, where nobody can see it. Wet sheathing behind EIFS can go years before it shows up inside the house.

• Stains streaking below window corners
• Cracks in stucco near windows or rooflines
• Hollow or soft areas when pressed
• Bulging or delaminating finish
• Failed caulk at penetrations

We find it on 1990s estate homes in Country Club of the South, St. Ives, and older Alpharetta golf communities. It's often confined to the rear and side elevations, and the worst spots are usually under windows.

We remove the EIFS, assess and repair the sheathing, then install fiber cement, stone veneer, or engineered wood over a proper drainage plane.

Hail can crack and puncture vinyl siding and leave dents in aluminum. Severe straight-line winds can lift and tear off siding panels, and falling limbs can crush whole sections of wall.

Hail and severe thunderstorm wind hit metro Atlanta periodically, mostly in spring. The mature oak and pine around North Fulton homes means a single storm can bring limbs down onto walls and gutters, as happened in the January 2014 ice storm. Vinyl gets brittle as it ages, so it cracks more easily, and storm chasers from out of town usually show up within a few days.

• Cracked or holed vinyl panels
• Dents on aluminum siding or trim
• Missing or flapping panels
• Spatter marks on the windward side
• Damaged gutters and downspouts

Vinyl-sided homes in Cumming, Sugar Hill, and Woodstock's Towne Lake usually show it on the west and north elevations, since that's where spring storm fronts come from.

We document the damage with photos for your insurance claim, then match and repair the affected sections or replace the full elevation if a match isn't possible.

Green or black biological growth covers shaded siding, and red clay splash leaves stains on the lower courses. On its own it's mostly a cosmetic problem, but it keeps the surface wet and speeds up how fast the paint and wood break down.

Shaded north walls under dense canopy hardly ever dry out in a climate with summer dew points around 70°F. Cecil-type clay soil splashes up during every heavy rain. Porous wood and composite siding absorbs the iron-rich stain, and pressure washing often can't get it out.

• Green film on north-facing walls
• Black speckling on trim
• Orange-red stains on bottom courses
• Moss at shaded corners
• Persistent damp feel after rain

It's typical on wooded lots in Milton, Roswell's Horseshoe Bend, and Riverside in Sandy Springs. It's especially bad where landscaping beds sit right against the siding.

We clean the siding, correct the clearance between soil and siding, and, at replacement time, specify fiber cement with factory finishes that resist staining.

Kick-out flashing steers roof runoff away from the wall where a roof edge meets a sidewall. When it's missing, or when window head flashing has failed, water gets funneled straight behind the siding.

Kick-out flashing wasn't consistently required or installed when most North Fulton homes went up. Two-story homes with lots of rooflines have many of these intersections, and Alpharetta's heavy convective storms put a lot of water through each one. Today Georgia's amended IRC sets flashing requirements for any new installation.

• Vertical stain streaks below roof edges
• Rot directly under roof-wall junctions
• Water stains on interior window trim
• Caulk-only joints at window heads
• Peeling paint beneath gutters' end caps

This shows up on almost every complex-elevation home we inspect in Alpharetta, Johns Creek, and Suwanee, particularly where garage roofs meet two-story walls.

We install code-compliant kick-out and window flashing, then repair the rot it caused. We can do this on its own or as part of a full siding replacement.