Mach 4 Homes Remodels LLC

Your siding didn't rot because it's old. It rotted because water got behind it and had nowhere to go.

Which means the useful question was never which board is soft. It's what put water there, and whether that's still happening today.

Around here it's usually a detail nobody looks at. A missing kickout flashing where a roof meets a wall, dumping every rainfall into one spot for fifteen years. Housewrap lapped the wrong way, so it channels water inward instead of shedding it out. Siding buried against the grade, or built tight against a deck. A window that got caulked instead of properly flashed.

Replace the board and leave the detail, and you've bought a few years and a bill. That's how a house ends up getting sided twice.

We probe for soft sheathing and check the flashing before we quote. If it's a three board repair, we'll tell you it's three boards.

mach4homes.com or (425) 583-7295.

Three painters quoted your house and the numbers came back thousands apart. Here's what that gap actually is.

It's almost never a difference in skill. It's a difference in what got left out of the scope and never written down anywhere you'd see it.

Six things come out of a low bid, roughly in this order: the pressure wash, the scraping, the sanding, the caulking, priming bare wood, and the second coat.

You don't find that out at the estimate. You find out in year three, when the south wall is chalking and the caulk lines have opened up, and whoever did the work is either out of business or telling you it's a maintenance issue.

Our scope is written line by line with the prep in it. If you want to take something out to bring the number down, you can — you'll just be doing it on purpose, with the trade-off in front of you, instead of finding out about it later.

Ask for the prep in writing. From anyone, not just us.

mach4homes.com or (425) 583-7295.

If you can still find the patch, the repair failed. Doesn't matter how flat it is.

Here's what usually happened. Somebody filled the hole, sanded it flat, and left. The mud drinks paint differently than the wall around it, so when it got painted the sheen flashed and the patch showed. The texture never got matched, so it shows in any raking light. And nobody primed it, so it keeps coming back through every coat you put on after.

It's flat. It counts as done. It just never looks repaired.

We match the texture on a sample board and hold it against your wall before we spray anything on the actual repair. Then we prime, we paint, and we walk it with you in daylight. If you can find it, we're not finished.

On ceilings we find the cause first, too. Around here a brown ring is usually a roof, a flashing detail, or a bath fan vented into the attic instead of through the roof. Painting over that buys you about eight months.

Free estimate: mach4homes.com or (425) 583-7295.

Go outside and look at where your deck attaches to the house.

That board is called the ledger, and it's where deck failures start. Not the decking. Not the railings. The ledger.

If it was nailed instead of bolted, or nobody flashed above it, water has been getting in behind it for years and quietly eating the rim joist of your house. Nothing on the surface tells you that's happening — which is exactly why a resurfacing quote given from the curb isn't worth much. New boards over a bad frame just hide the problem under new material, and everybody's happy until they're not.

We pull a board and probe the joists before we quote anything. Sometimes the frame is sound and a resurface really is the right answer at a fraction of a rebuild — and we'll tell you that when it's true.

Free deck inspection, and you keep the findings whether you hire us or not. mach4homes.com or (425) 583-7295.

"You guys only do windows, right?"

Got that on a job in Kenmore last week, standing in a hallway six feet from a cracked corner bead that somebody was going to call a second contractor about.

We don't only do windows. Haven't for a while now. Ten trades — painting, drywall, trim, doors, siding, windows, roofing, decks, minor concrete, and kitchen and bath. We've got teams ready to go to work, and I'm on every job working right alongside them.

What that actually buys you is one contract and one invoice, instead of four contractors who each need the other three to finish first before they'll start.

So if you've got a list rather than a single job, that's the whole reason we're set up this way now.

Free estimate, written scope, no sales pitch. mach4homes.com or give me a call at (425) 583-7295.