Questions to Ask a Siding Contractor Before Signing

One thing to know going in. Almost every guide to picking a siding contractor was written by a siding contractor, or by the outfit whose panels they nail up, and the advice always lands on “so hire a pro like us.” We hang nothing and we hand your name to nobody, which frees us to say the quiet parts out loud: the certification badge on the truck is marketing, half the country does not license siding at all, and a worker who hurts himself on your ladder can come after your house.

Do the paperwork check before you talk about panels

Everybody wants to walk the house and talk colors. Save that. Fifteen minutes spent checking license and insurance first clears away almost everybody you would later regret letting up a ladder.

Licensing: figure out what your state actually requires

There is no national siding license, and what your state wants ranges from a real exam to nothing at all. California treats siding as its own licensed trade, the C-61 / D-41 “Siding and Decking” classification issued by the state licensing board most people know as the CSLB. Maryland folds siding into the Home Improvement Contractor license the state issues through its Home Improvement Commission. Massachusetts is two separate rules that people jam together, so pull them apart: Chapter 142A section 9(a) requires a Home Improvement Contractor registration for residential contracting with no dollar threshold at all (the narrow exemption in section 14 is for jobs under $500), while section 2(a) is the one with the thousand-dollar number in it, and what it requires is a written contract on “every agreement to perform residential contracting services in an amount in excess of one thousand dollars.” Registration is not tied to $1,000. The written contract is. And a good number of states, Texas and Missouri among the clearest, have no statewide contractor license at all, so whatever rule exists is set by your city or county.

California has one wrinkle worth asking about out loud, because the internet gets it wrong in your contractor's favor. Business and Professions Code section 7057(b) says a general building contractor (a B license) may not take a job in a single trade unless the prime contract involves at least two unrelated trades, “or unless the general building contractor holds the appropriate license classification or subcontracts with an appropriately licensed contractor to perform the work.” Read that second half, because it is the whole answer. A B contractor absolutely can do a standalone re-clad. He just has to hold the D-41 himself or hand the work to somebody who does. So the question is not “are you licensed,” it is “which of those two is this, and if it is a sub, what is the sub's name and number?”

So do not stop at yes. Ask what your state and town actually require for a siding job, and whether this company holds precisely that credential. Pull it up yourself on the licensing authority's website, then check that the license ties back to the legal business name printed on your contract. A number registered to a different LLC, or to a salesman instead of the crew, is worth nothing to you.

There is a reason to care beyond the sticker. Several states keep a fund that pays you back when a licensed contractor takes your money and wrecks the job, and it is the license that gets you in the door. Maryland's Home Improvement Guaranty Fund pays actual losses up to $30,000. Massachusetts runs a Guaranty Fund under Chapter 142A section 7 that reaches up to $25,000. Nevada's Residential Recovery Fund, at NRS 624.510, goes up to $40,000. And every active California licensee has to keep a $25,000 contractor's bond on file under Business and Professions Code section 7071.6(a), which is money you can make a claim against. Hire the unlicensed guy and none of that exists for you.

Insurance: make him put it in writing, then phone the carrier

Two policies matter. General liability pays out if a ladder goes through your bay window or a panel gouges the car in the driveway. Workers' compensation decides who is on the hook when someone falls off a scaffold two stories up during tear-off, and siding work lives on ladders and scaffolds. You will see round numbers thrown around as a minimum a contractor has to clear. Ignore them. There is no floor, and a fake benchmark is one your bidder passes without doing anything.

Here is the real right, and it is better than a benchmark. In California, Business and Professions Code section 7159.3 requires the contractor to tell you in writing, with the bid and again with the contract, whether he carries commercial general liability insurance. He has to disclose it either way. The CSLB's own consumer form is blunt that carrying it is not mandatory: the board strongly recommends it, and that is all. The only licensees legally required to carry general liability are LLCs, which section 7071.19 puts at $1,000,000 of aggregate coverage. So the honest question is not whether he clears a magic number. It is whether he carries any at all, and if the answer is no, understand what you just learned: you are the deep pocket on your own property.

Then comes the step people skip. A certificate of insurance, usually an ACORD 25 form, only tells you the policy existed the day it was printed. Read the named insured and confirm it matches the company on your contract, check that the workers' comp line is actually filled in instead of marked “none,” then call the insurer or agent listed on the form and confirm both policies are live today. Ask to be added as an additional insured while you are at it. If an uninsured worker gets hurt on your property, your own homeowners policy often excludes people you hired to do the work, which can leave their medical bills and a lawyer pointed straight at you.

Californians, one correction to something you have probably read. Senate Bill 216 was written to make workers' comp universal for licensed contractors regardless of crew size, but Senate Bill 1455 pushed that date out to January 1, 2028. As of today the no-employee mandate covers exactly five classifications: C-8 concrete, C-20 HVAC, C-22 asbestos, C-39 roofing, and D-49 tree service. D-41 siding is not one of them. A California siding contractor working with no employees can still file an exemption certificate right now, which is why you have to ask instead of assuming the law already asked for you. And know what that certificate means in practice. It is not proof he is covered. It is a signed statement that nobody is, so if the guy on your scaffold goes off it, there is no policy standing behind him.

A manufacturer badge is not a license

Siding salespeople lean hard on manufacturer certifications, and the badges are real, but understand what they buy you. They are programs run by the company that makes the panels, not by any government, and mostly what they confirm is training, insurance kept on file, and enough past volume to stay in the club.

Three come up a lot. James Hardie runs a tiered contractor network it calls the ALLIANCE, with rungs like Preferred and Elite, where the top tier wants years of Hardie experience, invoices proving volume, insurance on record, and someone watching the installer's reviews. The Vinyl Siding Institute certifies individual installers, not whole companies, through a course or a year of experience plus a written exam, and they have to re-qualify every five years. LP runs a certified-installer tier for its SmartSide product that can actually lengthen the product warranty when a certified crew does the work, because LP knows most failures trace back to bad installation.

That last point is the one to carry with you. Every one of these manufacturer warranties covers the board and not the labor. Hang the product outside its printed spec and the maker can deny the claim, and neither the maker nor a long-gone installer is holding the bill. If you are still weighing materials and what their coverage is really worth, that belongs in the material comparison, not in this conversation. A badge is a fine thing to ask about. It is not a substitute for a license, insurance, and a written workmanship warranty from the person swinging the hammer.

The questions to ask a siding contractor before you sign

Take this list to the walkthrough and lay it on the table between you. A solid installer relaxes when the questions get specific, because specifics are how they explain why they are not the cheapest bid you got, and the gap between two bids on the same house usually comes straight out of these answers. Price itself is a separate question with its own page, so use this list to find out what you are buying and price it there.

1. 1What license does siding work require here, and what is your number so I can look it up?
2. 2If you hold a general license rather than a siding classification, are you doing this work yourself under the right classification, or subcontracting it, and to whom?
3. 3Can I see your general liability and workers' comp certificates, and be added as an additional insured?
4. 4Will your own people hang this, or a subcontracted crew, and who is the lead on site each day?
5. 5Are you tearing the old siding off to the sheathing, or going over it, and why for my house?
6. 6What weather-resistive barrier are you installing, and which brand?
7. 7Who is responsible for the flashing at the windows, doors, and the kickout diverter where a roofline lands on a wall?
8. 8What happens, in writing, if you find rotted sheathing or framing once the old siding comes down?
9. 9If my house predates 1978: is your company EPA Lead-Safe Certified, and can I see the certificate?
10. 10Has the old siding been tested for asbestos, and if it is positive, who removes and disposes of it, and where is that on the bid?
11. 11For fiber cement, are you blind-nailing or face-nailing, and what does my wind zone call for?
12. 12How long is your labor warranty, kept separate from the manufacturer's, and what exactly does it cover?
13. 13What deposit do you take, and how is the balance scheduled against work I can see finished?
14. 14Who pulls the permit?
15. 15Which three siding jobs from this past year can I call the owners about?

Those two middle questions about lead and asbestos are worth more than their length. Where the house predates 1978, anyone you hire to disturb painted surfaces has to be a firm EPA has certified as Lead-Safe, and he has to work to the RRP practices, which means containment, cleanup, and verification instead of a sander and a breeze. Ask for the certificate. Old fiber cement and old asbestos-cement board look alike to a homeowner and get handled very differently, and “we will deal with it” is not a line item. Make it one.

House wrap and flashing: the questions a cheap crew hopes you skip

Everything holding water out of your walls gets buried under the finished siding, which is exactly why a rushed bid saves money there. You cannot inspect it once the panels are up, so you have to ask about it before they go on.

Kickout flashing is the one to name out loud. Picture a small angled diverter tucked in where a sloped roof runs out against a wall, and its only job is to fling rainwater sideways into the gutter rather than letting it pour in behind the panels. Whether re-siding by itself forces one in is a local question, not a national one. Minnesota wrote the trigger into its own code (Minn. R. 1309.0903, R903.2.1.1) precisely because the model code does not say it, and everywhere else it is your building department's call. So call them, or ask your bidder to. Then comes the blame gap everyone in the trade knows about: the roofer figures the siding crew sets it, the siding crew figures the roofer already did, and it lands on nobody's list. Ask your bidder point-blank whose scope it falls in. A skipped kickout is one of the surest ways a wall rots from behind.

Same logic for the weather barrier and the window flashing. The wrap and the flashing tape have to lap like shingles, each upper piece over the one below, so water riding down the wall sheds outward instead of getting funneled in. A crew that can describe that lapping without being coached has done it right before. A crew that waves it off as “we will wrap it” is telling you where their corners get cut. If vinyl is what is going up, the install details are worth reading before the truck shows up, because you will only get one look at the wall.

The deposit: should you pay half before they start?

No. And in a few states a big one is not just a bad idea, it is against the law, and the law that caps it hands you several other weapons at the same time.

California is the strictest. The most a siding contractor can collect up front is the lesser of 10 percent of the contract price or $1,000, under Business and Professions Code section 7159.5(a)(3). On a $40,000 re-side, that ceiling is a thousand dollars, not four thousand. The statute spells DOWNPAYMENT as one word, and section 7159(d)(8) forces that exact sentence onto the face of your contract in 12-point bold type, so you can run your finger down the page hunting for it: “THE DOWNPAYMENT MAY NOT EXCEED $1,000 OR 10 PERCENT OF THE CONTRACT PRICE, WHICHEVER IS LESS.”

Now the parts nobody prints. Blowing past that cap is a misdemeanor under section 7159.5(b)(1). It carries a fine running anywhere from $100 to $5,000, as much as a year of county jail time, or both at once, and after a declared disaster the court has to hand down the maximum fine. Section 7159.5(a)(5) goes further and says he may never ask for or take a payment worth more than the work he has already finished, which is also a misdemeanor. And section 7159.5(a)(6) gives you the lever you can actually pull without a lawyer: you may withhold all further payments until he hands you lien releases for work you have already paid for. There is one lawful exception, in section 7159.5(a)(8). A contractor who furnishes an approved performance and payment bond, or works under joint control, is out from under the cap and may take payment before the job is done. That is a checkable claim, so make him produce the bond.

Nevada caps it too, but read the fine print, because it is narrower than you have been told. NRS 624.970 protects “the owner of a single-family residence who occupies the single-family residence.” Your rental and your second home are not in it. For the house you live in, the deposit is held to 10 percent or $1,000, whichever is less, and the escape is not a performance bond. It is a bond “solely for the protection of consumers in the amount of $100,000” filed with the Contractors Board, or relief granted by the Board itself under NRS 624.270(5). Wave a performance bond at a Nevadan and you have handed him the wrong document. The same statute keeps going: he can never collect more than 100 percent of what the finished work is actually worth, the contractor is the one who pulls the permits (your question list asks who does, and in Nevada the statute already answered), and any clause asking you to waive these rights is void. Best of all, a contract that does not comply is voidable by you.

Massachusetts caps deposits as well, and almost nobody says so. Chapter 142A section 2(a)(6) holds the deposit to the greater of one-third of the total contract price or the actual cost of materials of a special order or custom nature, and section 17(16) makes taking more a prohibited act. Plenty of other states set no cap at all, which is why you look up your own rather than trust a figure a salesman recites.

Wherever you live, a real siding company orders your panels on a supplier account and does not need your cash to do it. Keep the deposit small and tie the rest to milestones you can stand in the yard and verify: material delivered, tear-off and wrap done, siding hung, final payment after you have walked every wall.

Warning signs, and the storm-chaser at your door

Some of these are worth one more question. A few mean you are done.

• Knocked on your door within a few days of a hail or wind storm and wants a signature today. Siding gets storm-chasers exactly like roofing does.
• Offers to “eat your deductible.” See below, because that offer is more complicated and more dangerous than either of you thinks.
• Wants a large deposit, cash only, or a check made out to a person instead of the company.
• Out-of-state plates, a brand-new phone number, and no verifiable local address after a storm.
• Can't say who is installing the kickout flashing, or which weather barrier goes on your walls.
• Won't put the workmanship warranty, the scope, or the sheathing-repair terms in writing.
• A number that sits far below the other bids with nothing to explain the gap.
• Asks what your insurance adjuster wrote the claim for before he has measured anything.

That last one deserves a sentence of its own. If a hailstorm put you into a claim, sit on your adjuster's figure and your budget ceiling until after you have picked somebody. Say the number out loud and every bid you get lands on top of it instead of on top of your house, and you will never learn what the work was actually worth. Hand each contractor the identical scope and make him price it cold.

The deductible offer, and why “fraud” is the wrong first word

The pitch sounds generous. He will “waive” or “eat” your $2,500 deductible, so the job costs you nothing out of pocket. Understand the mechanism before you decide how you feel about it. Your insurer pays the claim minus your deductible, on the understanding that you paid that piece. If the contractor quietly writes it off but the paperwork that goes back to the carrier still shows you paid it, that is a misrepresentation to the insurer, and it is the misrepresentation, not the discount, that can pull you into it. That only reaches you if you knowingly go along with a false statement. And it only exists at all when the job is being paid from an insurance claim. A cash job with a discount on it is just a discount.

Where it is flatly illegal depends on your state, and the flat “that is fraud everywhere” line you will read elsewhere is not right. Florida statute 489.147 makes it insurance fraud punishable as a third-degree felony. Minnesota bans it in statute 325E.66 and goes one better by handing you a weapon: the insured or the insurer “may bring an action against the residential contractor” for damages. Colorado, Oklahoma, and New York ban the practice too, but those statutes are written for roofers by name and do not reach a siding-only job on their face. The practical read is the same in all fifty states. A contractor who opens with a plan to mislead your insurance company has told you exactly how he will handle the parts of your job you cannot see.

Pitched at your kitchen table? You get at least three business days

The in-home siding pitch is built to get a signature before you have slept on it. Federal law gives you an out. It is the FTC's Cooling-Off Rule, written into 16 CFR Part 429, and it reaches a sale of $25 or more signed at your residence, or $130 or more signed anywhere else that is not the seller's own storefront. A kitchen-table siding pitch is squarely in it. You get three business days to walk, no reason owed to anybody, and “business day” there means any calendar day except Sunday and federal holidays, so Saturday counts against you.

The seller has real duties at signing. He has to hand you a completed cancellation form in duplicate, captioned “NOTICE OF RIGHT TO CANCEL” or “NOTICE OF CANCELLATION,” and your contract has to print this line in 10-point bold right beside your signature: “You, the buyer, may cancel this transaction at any time prior to midnight of the third business day after the date of this transaction.” If he made the pitch in Spanish, the notice has to be in Spanish.

Now the correction, and nothing else on this page is worth more to you, because you are going to read the wrong version of it on a dozen other sites. Plenty of guides will tell you that if he never gave you the notice, your three days never started running, so you can cancel weeks later. The federal rule does not say that. The clock runs from “the date of this transaction,” full stop. Skipping the notice is illegal and the FTC can go after him for it, but it does not buy you one extra hour. Lean on that myth and you will sit past a deadline that was quietly running the whole time. Count from the day you signed.

California is the exception, and it is generous. Under Business and Professions Code section 7159(e)(6) the clock there does start when you receive a contract containing the notice, so the tolling idea is true in California and only in California. Section 7159(e)(6)(A) gives seniors five business days instead of three. And section 7159(e)(7)(A) gives you seven business days on any contract written to repair or restore a home damaged by a sudden or catastrophic event for which a state of emergency has been declared. Read that one twice, because it is the exact fact pattern the door-knocker is standing in: hail came through, the state declared, and now a stranger wants your signature tonight. In California, on that job, you have a full week.