I had a accident where a small are of aluminum siding was damaged by a small fire. The area covers four rows (courses) and is about two ft. wide. What I would like to do is first cut out the damaged area then take a couples courses of siding from under my deck which would better match and then lap them over the damaged area. I know there will then be more joints visible but think this will look better then putting up some new panels. Question, As aluminum siding is not readily available as in the past, local home improvement stores don't carry it, all they carry is vinyl. Is the siding made the same. Meaning does aluminum and vinyl siding have the same characteristics. Do they share the same type of lock? Is it possible that I could put a couple of courses of vinyl siding in place of the aluminum that I took out to do the repair, and make it work?

Hello all, Recently I had painters paint the exterior of my house. It was build in 1956 with cedar siding. It already had 1 or 2 coats of paint previously, which was peeling and bubbling (which was only recently noticed and the painting company never seemed to notice prior to the quote). The job started (power washed, some scraping, etc.) and when the new paint was put on it started to bubble up. When it was scraped the paint came off down to the cedar, where you could tell a previous owner had put some sort of varnish (yes varnish, not stain) on the cedar. It was then also noticed that a previous owner and caulked HORIZONTALLY down the siding. This I now know prevents moisture exchange to the outside and this is why bubbles where seen in the new coat. The painting company drilled more holes (for venting) and scrapped the seen bubbles, but more bubbles came (all at my expense of course). Needless to say I have a few questions. First, would removing all of the caulking releave the bubble situation? Second, is there a paintable spackle type product that can be used to smooth out scrapped paint areas. The painting company repainted the paint bubbles they scraped off (down to the cedar), but it is now uneven. And yes I know, new siding is the best option, but that it no longer in my budget. I just wanted to do some sort of band aid fix for the time being. Thanks in advance, JP