Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 20, 1995 TAG: 9508220015
SECTION: HOMES PAGE: C-13 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARTHA SLUD ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
The solution? Aluminum siding, that ubiquitous, middle-class American household exterior that's been damned as a suburban eyesore and hailed a marvel of mass production during its 50-year history.
Aluminum siding - heralded as a rustproof, rot-proof, termite-proof ultra-convenience - helped Reynolds and other companies capitalize on what today has become an estimated $6 billion household exterior products industry, according to the NAHB Research Center in Upper Marlboro, Md., a subsidiary of the National Association of Home Builders.
Many homeowners used to paint their wooden houses every few years, but aluminium panels - first applied to a cement home and garage in Louisville, Ky., - provided a low-maintenance, relatively inexpensive alternative.
``It was a product that came at a time when Americans were changing,'' said Terry Olbrysh, a spokesman for Richmond-based Reynolds. ``People wanted more leisure time.''
The development of aluminum siding paralleled the post-World War II rise in discretionary income, two-career couples and the spread of suburbia. People no longer had the time or desire to paint their homes every few years, Olbrysh said.
``This is mass production at its best. It serves a genuine need,'' said Marshall Fishwick, a Virginia Tech humanities professor who specializes in popular culture.
But mass-produced siding also has a flip side, Fishwick said.
``It doesn't have the warmth and grain of wood, nor does it have the continuity of brick,'' he said. ``It depersonalizes the house.''
Aluminum siding is ``just one aspect of Americans' fascination with technology,'' said James Kornwolf, a professor of modern art and architecture at the College of William and Mary. ``Anything new that made things easier just caught on.''
The siding industry has changed considerably over the last 50 years. Today, aluminum accounts for just 3 percent of the market, said Gerry Maibach, residential marketing manager for Reynolds' Construction Products Division.
Vinyl siding, which became available in the early 1970s, accounts for 44 percent of the market, while wood has a 39 percent market share and masonry 14 percent, Maibach said. He said vinyl siding surpassed aluminum because it costs less and is dent-proof.
In its early days, aluminum siding often evoked thoughts of unscrupulous door-to-door salesmen. The 1987 film ``Tin Men'' depicted a real-life scam in which salesmen dressed as Life magazine photographers duped homeowners into believing that if they replaced their fading wood exteriors with aluminum siding, their homes would appear in an attractive magazine picture spread.
``Keeping up with the neighbors next door was very prevalent,'' Biddle said, explaining why such scams worked.
There were some other types of factory-produced siding before aluminum, but none was as successful, said Will Biddle, market researcher for the NAHB Research Center. One type was asbestos shingles, which often cracked and broke off. Another was asphalt siding, which was made to look like brick but never really did, Biddle said.
by CNB