Happy 50th
As we ready to help America celebrate her birthday with cookouts and fireworks, we’d be remiss not to acknowledge another important milestone. Vinyl siding turns the big “five-oh” this year, and we’d like to briefly reminisce about some of the more memorable moments vinyl siding as experienced.
The Birth of a Legend
Our story begins with Bird Corporation, a company at the forefront of home improvement technology. Founded near the end of the 18th century, Bird initially made waves with its paper manufacture. Fast forward to the late 19th century, Bird would begin to shift the company’s focus toward home improvement products. As World War II came to a close, Bird reaped the benefits of an exploding housing market and subsequently tailored their home improvement products to compliment this boom. The most popular of these new products was vinyl siding, which Rhode Island Home Improvement began installing in the early sixties while on its way to becoming one of the forerunners of the vinyl movement. Formally unveiled during the World’s Fair in New York in 1964, vinyl siding would ignite a craze which would eventually catch fire among people looking to add a new dimension to their homes.
Vinyl Siding Comes of Age
While still just considered a new fad during the 60s and 70s, vinyl siding’s popularity burst with the birth of the 80s. Homeowners began to gravitate toward vinyl as opposed to aluminum for myriad reasons. Not only was the price of aluminum spiking, but vinyl offered so many advantages with which aluminum could not compete. For example, vinyl doesn’t conduct heat or cold, nor does it scratch.
50 and Still No Sign of a Midlife Crisis
While our good friend vinyl siding prepares to blow out all fifty candles on her cake and settle into the notion of “middle age,” she shows absolutely no signs of slowing down. Similar to a fine Pinot Noir, vinyl siding only gets better with age, and we would like to sincerely wish her fifty more years of allowing us to help people make their home the most beautiful one on the block.
