Halloween has passed, but the horrors still lurk everywhere.  This is one of those Paul Harvey type tales which has “….and the rest of the story…”.

One of our clients is going to be constructing a new Hansen Pole Buildings kit. His hurdle – his local HOA (Homeowners Association).

Even though it added significantly to his costs (not to mention the having to maintain it), he didn’t grouse about having to use wood siding, as opposed to steel. IMHO (in my humble opinion) over the long haul, no one would object to a tasteful color of steel siding. Having to have had my own wood sided pole buildings repainted recently, I can attest to wood siding being an error I would never make if I had to do it all over again.

Our client’s idea was to use resawn plain T1-11 for siding. To add to the curb appeal, he proposed using 1×4 battens vertically every 16 inches to give the look of board and batten siding…without the cost (budget does play a part somewhere in most projects).

To his surprise, the Homeowners Association turned him down! Even though he had rolled over to go with wood siding, they want him to use actual cedar boards to create the board and batten look. Pretty well creates an instant doubling of the costs for his siding, not to mention a tremendous amount of extra time in the labor to construct.

Not to be daunted, our client pressed on.

He wanted to know the reasoning of the HOA. To his surprise, but not necessarily shock, there was a culprit to the siding game. Early on, he had contacted a building contractor to give him a price on a constructed building. Our client decided the builder’s proposal was not within his means, so opted to do the work himself. The builder happens to live in the same neighborhood and put the bug into the Homeowners Association to make life miserable for our client.

My recommendation to the client – push the HOA to exclude the builder from the discussions, as the builder has a conflict of interest.