Siding in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio

Why siding in Cuyahoga Falls is its own problem

Cuyahoga Falls holds one of the densest concentrations of 1945–1965 housing in Summit County, which means tens of thousands of roofs, siding runs and window sets are reaching end of life inside the same ten-year window. That is replacement work, not patchwork, and it needs a contractor who can handle the county permit and the city zoning certificate without slowing the job down.

The core south and west of Front Street is pre-1940 frame construction — Victorian and American Foursquare with wood clapboard and original single-pane double-hung sash. Between 1945 and 1965 the city filled in with Cape Cods and long low ranches sided in asbestos-cement shingle or early aluminum, most since overclad in vinyl. After the 1986 Northampton merger the north side added splits and colonials from the late 1980s and 1990s. What is failing now is that 1990s wave of 3-tab roofs, chalked and dented aluminum siding on the postwar stock, and undersized five-inch gutters that cannot clear the long shallow roof planes on the ranches.

The Cuyahoga River gorge cuts along the southern and western edge of the city, channeling wind through the valley and keeping shaded north-facing slopes frozen well into March, so freeze-thaw cycling runs harder here than on the flat ground in Akron proper. Cuyahoga Falls sits at the southwestern tail of the lake-effect belt and catches trailing bands, and the low-slope 1950s ranch roofs in the older neighborhoods ice-dam almost every winter.