Most Cupertino homes were built during the postwar Silicon Valley boom — single-story ranches, tract houses, and the flat-roofed Eichler tracts on the valley floor — and a lot of that original cladding is now well past its intended service life. Bay Area Siding Company is a Larkspur (Marin) siding and window contractor that re-sides these homes across the flatland neighborhoods and up into the western foothills. We take the old cladding off, look at what's underneath, correct it, and install a new wall system to spec.

Want to get moving? Request an estimate or call (415) 619-5167 and we'll talk through your home.

When a re-side beats one more repair

Patching buys time; it doesn't fix a wall that's reached the end of the road. On a Cupertino home, these are the tells that you're better off replacing than repairing again:

• Original board-and-batten, T1-11 plywood, or hardboard that's delaminating, swelling at the edges, or chalking
• Stucco with map cracking or hollow spots that keep coming back after each repair
• Paint that won't hold — blistering or peeling within a season or two of a fresh coat
• Fasteners bleeding through, or trim and fascia you can sink a screwdriver into
• Interior wall stains, a musty smell, or soft spots that point to water getting behind the cladding

One of these on its own may be a repair. Several together usually mean the cladding — and possibly the layers behind it — have failed as a system.

What "tear-off" actually exposes

There's a persistent myth that re-siding means opening the house down to the framing. On a standard re-side it doesn't. Pulling the old cladding exposes the sheathing or substrate and the water-resistive barrier (WRB) and flashing behind it — and that's exactly the layer you want eyes on. Many valley-floor homes from the 1950s and 60s were built before building paper and flashing were detailed the way they are today, so this is often where we find the real story: aging or missing WRB, flashing that was never right at windows and wall bases, or localized rot. We repair what we find, renew the WRB and flashing, and only then does new cladding go on. Framing only gets opened up if the sheathing itself is compromised — a larger scope we'd flag and price separately.

Picking a material

We install several systems and will walk the trade-offs with you at the house rather than online. The short version:

• James Hardie fiber cement — noncombustible, low-maintenance, holds a factory finish well in the valley's heat and UV. If any part of your property touches the foothills, read our Cupertino James Hardie page, where fire-material choice is the whole point.
• Fiber cement — the broader category if you're comparing manufacturers.
• LP SmartSide — engineered wood, lighter and quick to work with.
• Vinyl — the budget-conscious option where the look and the application both fit.

We also work in CertainTeed and wood. For an Eichler, material choice is really a design decision — the horizontal lines and exposed-beam eaves reward a profile that respects the original architecture, so that conversation matters as much as the product spec.

Permitting in Cupertino

Siding replacement is permitted work. Cupertino's Building Division actually offers a streamlined instant online permit for siding replacement — but only for residential projects that are not historic, not in an HOA, and not Eichler homes. That last exclusion catches a real slice of Cupertino: the Eichler tracts don't qualify for the instant path and go through standard plan review instead. Historic and HOA properties are the same. If your home falls outside the instant-permit lane, it's not a problem — it's a normal permit application, and we handle the paperwork either way. When in doubt, the City's rule is simply that if the work isn't on the exempt list, a permit is required.

A note for foothill parcels

Cupertino is mostly flat, but its western edge climbs toward the Santa Cruz Mountains, and CAL FIRE's 2025 fire-hazard maps expanded the acreage designated moderate, high, and very high fire hazard in the city's response area considerably compared with the older maps. If your lot is up against the hills, the material conversation changes — California's fire-hardening provisions can steer you toward noncombustible cladding — but whether any of that applies depends entirely on your specific parcel's designation. We check that against the City's fire-hazard-zone lookup before we spec, and the detail lives on our James Hardie page. On the valley floor, it's simply not a factor.

What moves the price

No two re-sides cost the same, and we don't quote sight-unseen. The honest drivers are: the square footage and the number of stories; the material and finish you choose; how much substrate or flashing repair turns up once the old cladding is off; whether trim, fascia, and soffits are part of the scope; access and staging (tighter on hillside lots); and whether the project runs through standard plan review rather than the instant permit. A walkthrough is the only way to put real numbers on it.

FAQ

Do I need a permit to replace siding in Cupertino? Yes. Cupertino permits siding work. Many straightforward residential re-sides qualify for the City's instant online siding permit, but historic homes, HOA properties, and Eichler homes are excluded and go through a standard permit application. We manage the permitting for your project.

My house is an Eichler — is re-siding different? Practically, yes. Eichlers don't qualify for the instant siding permit, so plan for standard review. Just as important, the architecture is specific: profile and detailing should hold the home's clean horizontal lines, which shapes the material recommendation.

Does replacing the siding mean opening my walls to the framing? Not for a normal re-side. Removing the cladding exposes the sheathing/substrate and the water-resistive barrier and flashing, which is what we inspect and correct. Framing is only opened if the sheathing itself has failed — a bigger scope we'd identify and quote separately.

How long will the job take? It depends on the home's size, the material, and what we find at tear-off. We give you a realistic schedule after we measure, factoring in whether the permit runs instant or standard.

Let's look at your Cupertino home

Call (415) 619-5167 or request an estimate. We'll assess the walls, talk materials, and lay out the permit path. We serve the wider South Bay; browse finished work in our project gallery; and if windows are on the list too, see Cupertino window replacement.