Vinyl siding came in second again to stucco among the primary types of exterior wall materials put on new U.S. single-family houses in 2020.

Even though the number of houses built increased to 912,000 — up from 903,000 in 2019 — little else changed in this year's survey of construction by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Once again, stucco clad 27 percent of the new houses compared with 25 percent for vinyl siding, which had enjoyed a 25-year run as the top exterior material until 2019.

Fiber cement remained the third-most-popular exterior wall material, gaining a percent of use to 22 percent of new homes while brick remained in the fourth spot, dropping a percent to 19 percent.

The fifth-most-popular material, wood, has been installed on 5 percent of new homes since 2013. And other materials, such as concrete block, stone and aluminum siding, were used as the primary material on 2 percent of newly built homes.

Use of vinyl siding peaked in 2002, when it was the primary material installed on 40 percent of 1.325 million new houses for single families.

Depending on the area, vinyl siding is growing at or just below the market average so the rate of its share erosion has slowed, according to Casey Olson, a senior industry analyst at Principia Consulting LLC.

The Malvern, Pa.-based firm puts vinyl siding's share of exterior wall space by volume in 2020 at just over 27 percent, taking into account installations as a primary, secondary and replacement material, the latter of which includes the hot home remodeling market.

By volume, vinyl siding still leads among exterior materials, followed in descending order by fiber cement, engineered wood, brick, stucco, wood, masonry veneer, polymer composites and others, Olson told Plastics News.

"Vinyl's share erosion is expected to slow slightly through 2023 as remodeling and construction activity pick up in the Midwest and Northeast," she added. "Vinyl has [a] strong share in these regions."

To maintain and increase installations, vinyl siding manufacturers have been introducing new colors, profiles and composites as well as addressing environmental issues related to its recyclability and sustainability.

A pilot program called the Northeast Ohio Vinyl Siding Recycling Coalition was launched this month to increase post-consumer recycling of the building product in Cuyahoga County, according to Matt Dobson, vice president of the Vinyl Siding Institute, an Alexandria, Va.-based trade group.

"We're trying to get our manufacturers and their distributors to work in concert with recyclers in this area, which has both strong industry and strong recycling programs," Dobson said in a phone interview. "We will do this for a year and what we learn may become a model to show how people are successfully working together."

The manufacturers most involved in the coalition include some of the biggest companies in the industry: Cornerstone Building Brands Inc. (formerly PlyGem), CertainTeed Corp. and Alside Inc.

With $2.29 billion in profile extrusion sales, Cary, N.C.-based Cornerstone ranks No. 2 among North American plastic pipe, profile and tubing extruders.

Malvern, Pa.-based CertainTeed ranks No. 7 with estimated extrusion sales of $700 million.

And Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio-based Associated Materials LLC, the parent company of Alside, ranks 15th with estimated extrusion sales of $335 million.

About 25 businesses and groups have joined the Ohio coalition to date, but Dobson said recruiting continues for siding manufacturers, distributors, installation contractors and recyclers, or grinders, as he calls them.

"Our industry and board wants us to figure out how we can be more successful in recycling," Dobson said. "Our goal is to find folks willing to collect the waste product and then foster relationships between collectors and recyclers."

Other siding manufacturers involved in the effort include Royal Building Products, KP Building Products Ltd., ProVia, Style Crest Inc. and Boral Building Products.

Royal Building Products is owned by Houston-based Westlake Chemical Corp., which ranks No. 4 with extrusion sales of $1.4 billion.

Holly Springs, Miss.-based KP Building Products ranks No. 17 with estimated profile extrusion sales of $265 million.

And Booneville, Miss.-based ProVia ranks in a tie for 57th with estimated profile sales of $60 million.

The coalition network will have a website with a map to show consumers with vinyl waste where to take it to make sure it gets into the recycling stream for new building products instead of the landfill.

Two of the participants, Lowe's and the local waste management district, also will promote the coalition effort to consumers and contractors in the area.

"They won't collect vinyl siding as a waste product, but they will create awareness that this is happening. We're excited about it," Dobson said.

The coalition hopes to solve some of the logistical hurdles to recycling vinyl siding at the end of its service life in northeast Ohio and then elsewhere.

"If you have a tear off of vinyl siding from an apartment building, you will have a significant amount of waste because of the size of the building. It's easy to collect enough product to make it viable as a commodity," Dobson said. "But one house has maybe only 100-200 pounds of waste. It'll take 100-200 homes of waste to make a viable commodity. That's one of the logistical issues."

VSI also is promoting vinyl siding as a sustainable option compared with masonry, fiber cement and even cedar, which the trade group says consume more material and energy.

"Vinyl siding is resource-efficient and durable," Dobson said. "There's very little material yet it provides protection against all the elements. It's a great product from that perspective."

VSI is looking forward to the next published report of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which developed software called Building for Environmental and Economic Sustainability to measure the life cycles of different types of cladding.

The BEES analysis shows fiber cement, brick and mortar have a higher human health impact than vinyl siding and points out the manufacturing process generates virtually no waste and emits significantly lower toxins than other cladding options.

"When you look at vinyl siding through the lens of LCA [life cycle assessment], it is better than other products, including cedar, maybe because of changes to the wood manufacturing process," Dobson said. "The last few years we've been saying vinyl siding is almost as good as cedar, but in the last round of LCAs, which isn't fully published yet, it actually does a little better."

Vinyl siding manufacturers are protecting and increasing their market share with new products.

"Fiber cement has made significant share gains since its introduction roughly three decades ago and now rivals vinyl as the leading siding product," Olson said.

Also, engineered wood, which is made from wood strand chips pressed with adhesives, had really strong growth in 2020, Olson said, and overtook brick for wall share volume.

Engineered wood sales have been dominated by Louisiana-Pacific Corp. and its LP SmartSide siding.

"LP has been converting oriented strand board mills to SmartSide so there's lots of capacity to support continued growth," Olson said.

Alside is taking aim at fiber cement and premium sidings with this year's rollout of Ascend composite cladding in 20 colors. Ascend combines a glass-reinforced polymer with graphite-infused polystyrene to produce a Class A fire-rated cladding that also resists strong winds and impact.

Ascend was named Most Innovative Building Material during the virtual 2021 International Builders' Show organized by NAHB.

More recently, Cornerstone's PlyGem brand introduced a Class A fire-resistant hardboard siding called Elements that comes in 23 colors, six profile widths and two textures: smooth or cedarlike. The company says it engineered a water-resistant, lightweight and flexible lap siding using natural materials, including sand, with patent-pending technology.

"Polymer composite siding products are a small share of overall volume, but they are seeing strong growth with vinyl manufacturers launching new siding products like Elements and Ascend," Olson said.

In June, Cornerstone posted a LinkedIn video that says Elements is about half the weight of fiber cement so one person can carry multiple boards in a trip, which makes for faster, lower-cost installation.

Elements also resists water absorption unlike fiber cement and engineered wood, which are prone to swelling and structural damage, the video says, and it is impervious to termites and achieved a Category 4 wind rating.

The product is currently available in Raleigh and Charlotte, N.C., and Pittsburgh.

VSI made strides in Tennessee Legislature this spring. Since 2015, the trade group has been on a state-by-state lobby against what it calls unfair and unreasonable aesthetic design bans that prohibit use of its members' products.

Vinyl advocates speak out against giving cities aesthetic control through zoning ordinances and point out the potential savings for new construction.

In Tennessee, VSI called attention to communities around Nashville that have brick-friendly ordinances and convinced lawmakers to enact change through a coalition of homebuilders, chamber of commerce groups and other nonbrick material manufacturers.

"This will make it harder to implement brick ordinances because on its face the new law prohibits the banning of approved materials in Tennessee," Dobson said. "They can still do it through a complex public process, which isn't ideal, but it's otherwise a good step forward."

VSI also has succeeded in the state legislatures of North Carolina, Texas, Arkansas or Oklahoma. North Carolina lawmakers limited local governments' control of architectural requirements and materials while the other states recognized building codes as the regulator of building materials.

"The building codes are fair and science-based on product standard evaluations for appropriateness of use vs. these architectural bents in zoning ordinances that say a house must be 50 or 100 percent brick or have a front porch or three-car garage," Dobson said. "We're saying if something is allowed in the building code, it should be allowed in the built environment. It's that simple."

Zoning steps add to home prices, and that can help communities build their tax base, but it also keeps home ownership out of reach for many.

"These local officials put no thought into housing affordability. That's unfortunate," Dobson said. "Housing is a huge way to root families and establish wealth."

Regulatory costs for an average home built for sale went from $84,671 in 2016 to $93,879 in 2021 — a 10.9 percent increase, according to the National Association of Home Builders.

Regulatory costs related to architectural requirements imposed through zoning are "overreaching," Dobson said.

"We're trying to make sure we can fairly compete and we're working in a broader sense on creating more affordable settings for home ownership. That's what it comes down to," he said.

The next states on the group's radar are Georgia, Indiana, Minnesota and Virginia.

In addition to losing status as a protected material, brick is struggling in the residential market for a number of reasons.

"Brick performs well but costs a lot more for both the product and installation since masonry labor is required — so it has lost share," Olson said. "Brick use per house has also declined. You commonly see brick on the front of new homes and other materials on the other three walls. There is also an increasing tendency to view brick as an accent material these days, which is why thin brick has emerged."

Brick tops the list of primary exterior materials only in Southern states, where it was installed on 32 percent of 506,000 new homes built in the region, according to the federal construction survey.

In the South, brick was followed by stucco (26 percent), vinyl siding (20 percent) and fiber cement (19 percent).

However, in the Northeast, where 57,000 single-family houses were constructed, vinyl siding holds its lead, though it slipped. The material clad 70 percent of new homes — compared with 74 percent in 2019 — followed by wood (11 percent) and fiber cement (10 percent).

And, in the Midwest, where builders finished 126,000 single-family homes in 2020, vinyl siding was installed on 61 percent — up from 58 percent in 2019 — followed by wood at 18 percent and fiber cement at 11 percent.

In the West, of the 223,000 houses built, 52 percent had stucco exteriors, 37 percent fiber cement, 5 percent wood and 4 percent vinyl siding, which is up from 3 percent in the previous survey.

Do you have an opinion about this story? Do you have some thoughts you'd like to share with our readers? Plastics News would love to hear from you. Email your letter to Editor at [email protected]

Please enter a valid email address.

Please enter your email address.

Please select at least one newsletter to subscribe.

Staying current is easy with Plastics News delivered straight to your inbox, free of charge.

Plastics News covers the business of the global plastics industry. We report news, gather data and deliver timely information that provides our readers with a competitive advantage.

1155 Gratiot Avenue Detroit MI 48207-2997