Exterior siding project: lots of questions

Hi. I just joined the site and have undertaken a project to reside our house. I have done lots of DIY stuff but nothing this big. The siding on our house was wood planks dating back to the 1950s. It was in bad shape so we starting to rip it off. The siding was attached directly to the studs - no osb. I installed osb and that is where I am at now. Part of this side of the house has brick and after installing the osb I am now flush with the brick or as in the first pic on top of the brick. I have quite a few questions, but my biggest issue is how to transition from the siding to brick - at side, end and bottom. I do intend to wrap the osb before attaching the siding.

Thank you for any thoughts and/or suggestions!

 

Well it looks like you should start by retrimming the windows so that they arent sunken in by the time you put siding on. Remove whatever face trim is currently on there and then jamb extend them flush with the face of your new osb. Put your housewrap on at this point, then apply the casing of your choice onto that. A drip cap or z-flashing will go over the top piece of casing (and over any horizontal frieze) and should either be taped to the housewrap or should be slipped behind it. You will also need to add a sill nose extension the way it looks. The sill nose needs to extend past the front of your siding.

Where the osb is flush with the brick, like at the corner, that's probably fine. You will maybe want to tape the edge of your tyvek, then overlap the siding onto the brick a little. If we knew what kind of siding you were planning to use, we could probably be more specific with the advice.

Where osb sticks past the brick, near ground level, you can either bend some trim coil and make your own cap for the bottom of the osb... or if it is pretty consistant, like 1/2" or so, you might be able to get a z-flashing that is the right size, and install it backward, to protect the bottom of the osb like a cap.

I don't quite understand why your sheathing above protrudes farther than the sheathing below, but the framing must be offset I guess. You will probably want to side the lower part, see how the siding lands, and figure out what you need to do at that point in time. Often the siding above can just overlap the siding below. Other times a frieze banding looks good, and separates the different planes. Looks like that's what was on there before you removed it.

 

Thank you for the info. Are you saying to pull the windows out and make them trim with the osb? Doing that would make them sunken on the interior?

As for siding, we are trying to decide between Hardie and Smartside. Wood doesn't hold up very well here in this part of Texas and vinyl gets destroyed by hail. I would also appreciate thoughts/comments on siding choices.

The protruding sheathing is due to frame offset and I am not sure why the house was built that way. I am still trying to figure out how to work with that when I get there with siding.

Again, thank you for the help/comments. I appreciate it!

 

No, I said, "Remove whatever face trim is currently on there and then jamb extend them flush with the face of your new osb." This is done from the outside. Your picture of the window has a trim piece removed on the left side. It looks to me like you would need to remove that piece on all 3 sides, then extend the jamb straight out... so that it protrudes just as far as the sheathing does. Then apply your exterior casing (face trim.)

I have installed more fiber cement than Smartside, but in your area with strong winds and hail, either would probably work fine, but I would suggest neither be blind nailed. Smartside comes in 16' lengths, fiber cement comes in 12' lengths. So you would have more seams with fiber cement. I do believe that the fiber cement will hold paint better/longer.

 

Got ya! Thank you for helping explain it. I am new to all of this and still trying to understand all of the terminology. I will take what you have said and do some more research so I can visualize it better.

I agree with you on the fiber cement and am leaning towards that route.