Your home’s curb appeal really starts to stick out once the calendar flips from winter to spring. Everything around your home looks fresher and the day’s sunlight shines on your home longer. Trim boards around windows, doors, and corners are one way to add long lasting curb appeal to your home. Luckily there are great options out on the market to choose from.
Let’s take a look at a few product lines:
Boral America Trim
Boral offer’s trim pieces that are part 70% recycled materials and part fly-ash. Fly-ash is ash left over from burning coal. The combination of the two elements creates a sturdy, rot and crack resistant material. The trim pieces can be painted to suite the aesthetics of the home and the pieces can be cut to fit anywhere.
AZEK Trim
AZEK trim from AZEK Building Products, which produces anything from beadboard to outdoor decks, is a PVC alternative to the other trim pieces available on the market. According to AZEK since the trim is made from PVC it makes it impervious to moisture and insects. It also leaves the trim looking new regardless of the weather and outside elements it faces year after year. The trim is low maintenance and easy to clean.
James Hardie Trim
James Hardie company is known for its fiber cement siding. Fiber cement is composed of sand, cement and cellulose fibers to create a long lasting building product. This material allows home owners to have trim and siding that resemble the look of wood grain, or a smooth flat finish. Fiber cement has a high resistance to moisture and unlike real wood, which can have its occasional issues with termites and other critters, fiber cement is unattractive to pests.
LP Smartside Trim
LP Building Products is an exterior building product company that produces engineered wood siding and trim. The engineered wood is made from strands of real lumber, wax, and resin. It gives you the look of real wood without the maintenance. It’s a very durable material; in fact they’ve had a NASA study done showing the strength of LP siding versus fiber cement through various tests including hurling a baseball at the siding.
No capping
All the products mentioned above are great materials to use for you homes trim but require full replacement of the existing trim. There are options out there to “cap” your current trim with aluminum or vinyl to make the trim look new. However, we don’t recommend this practice as capping can trap moisture in between the layer of old trim and new trim. If your old trim is worn down, cracked or rotting, covering it with another material might make it look more aesthetically pleasing on the outside but could lead to further issues behind the scenes.
It’s important to choose a product that has a strong warranty. These companies offer product warranties anywhere from 15 to 50 years, add that in with Exteriors by Mosby’s 10 year workmanship warranty and you’ll have the peace of mind knowing you’ve made a smart investment. If you’re interested in scheduling a free consultation to talk about your home’s exterior, call 314-909-8383, or click here.