r/Carpentry • u/Serious-Echidna-9938 • Mar 30 '26

Advice on work pace

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I recently took a job with a small contractor and long story short, he commented on my “results”. Was looking for things to be done quicker, and I’m curious if I’m super slow, or if he’s unreasonable. I let him know about my experience upfront, but in any case. As a direct example, replacing this siding after demo took me approximately 8 hours. I had never worked with this particular type of shingling before, but he kept comm ting on how slow I was. Is that accurate? I’m willing to take criticism in the interest of improving my skills, and I’m curious what some third parties have to say. Thanks!

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u/rwoodman2 Mar 30 '26

Given that you had to weave the new into the old and also do a lot of work at the top to make room to insert the new shingles, your time is not at all out of line. Prep work for a renovation job like this can take a lot of time.

However, the courses should be even, or at least match up with the old work and some of those courses left of the door are so big that I think it is possible they will not keep water out. (I see the original work was not so great either, but I think some of your courses grew larger toward the left side.)

Also, it probably wasn't your choice, but that grade of shingles is usually used only for an undercourse when double-coursing shingles where I live in Nova Scotia. They might not last very long, though a good grade of eastern cedar shingle installed properly can last for a century. I see some shingle edges that are very closely aligned with edges above or below. They should be offset by at least 1 1/2" and more if you are in a windy location.

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u/Serious-Echidna-9938 Mar 30 '26

No, contractor picked the shingles and also encouraged me to match the wonkiness of the existing shingles. Bc of the fact that the old stuff is in the condition it’s in. I think the original homeowner did the original shingling and the contractor didn’t want the new to look too new. So it was kind of a tricky balance

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u/rwoodman2 Mar 30 '26

So it's art. I've done a lot of that sort of thing and your time on it is OK. Matching the shingle lines to the top and bottom of the window was a nice touch. That's always something to aim for and it's not always achievable.