Gain Value And Curb Appeal For Your Home

(NAPS)—Good news for many homeowners who want to do something to update the look of their houses, even in a tough economy: You can still benefit from a home remodeling project. Smart investments, such as sprucing up your home's exterior with vinyl siding, can pay off in value and curb appeal. With today's wide range of vinyl siding profiles, architectural trim and accessories, plus color options to meet a variety of architectural styles, vinyl siding can deliver beauty and durability at a great value. Here are five reasons vinyl siding is a great home improvement investment: • Lowest installation cost • High return on investment • Easy to maintain • Superior green building performance • Wide range of design and color options Lowest Installation Cost and High ROI Vinyl siding has the lowest total installed cost of any exterior cladding, yet offers among the highest returns on investment. Installing vinyl siding on your home is one of the top home improvement projects in terms of added value that is recouped at resale. In fact, vinyl siding, unlike painting, can qualify as a capital improvement, providing breaks on capital gains taxes when you sell your home. Simple Maintenance Vinyl siding also requires little maintenance. While a painted exterior needs to be repainted every few years, requiring time and money, all vinyl siding requires is cleaning with mild soap and water. What's more, vinyl siding is engineered to resist heat, cold, moisture and high winds, which means it provides beautiful looks that last. It's Green When it comes to being green, vinyl siding is a surprisingly smart choice. Looking at its entire life cycle, vinyl siding outperforms other exterior cladding options on a host of energy and environmental performance factors. Insulated vinyl siding, in particular, has been shown to save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Great Design and Color Options

You can be confident that vinyl siding is a good investment but that's only half the story. Vinyl siding also offers many design options that increase the curb appeal of your home. Today's vinyl siding comes in an increasingly diverse selection of profiles, architectural trim and accessories. Color options now range from neutral tones to deep reds, blues and greens. "Vinyl siding is now available in bold colors. It can suit a sweeping range of architectural styles and design tastes from historic to contemporary," says Jery Y. Huntley, president of the Vinyl Siding Institute (VSI). "In addition, vinyl siding offers more color options than any prefinished cladding on the market today, 350 of which are certified for color retention."

Vinyl siding manufacturers offer a wide range of choices and colors to create diverse architectural styles, such as Craftsman, Cape Cod, Georgian, French Colonial and Folk Victorian. The good news is designing with vinyl siding is easy and within reach for the average homeowner. One available tool for builders, architects and homeowners is "Designing Style: A Guide to Designing with Today's Vinyl Siding." It was developed by VSI and can be downloaded free at www.vinylsiding. org/design. According to Huntley, "Designing Style is a great way to identify the style of a home or select a new look to create. It helps contractors and homeowners choose specific profiles, architectural trim and accessories to achieve an authentic look."