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Brick vs Stone vs Siding: The Same 2,400 sq ft Ontario House Priced in Each, 30-Year Upkeep, Resale, and How to Mix Them Without It Looking Like a Compromise
Exterior Finishes
Brick, Stone or Siding: Same House, Four Prices, and the Honest Answer Is Usually Two of Them at Once
Put the same 2,400 sq ft of wall in vinyl and it is $22,800. In fibre cement, $43,200. In manufactured stone, $76,800. In brick, $86,400. That is the whole decision in one line, and it is why almost nobody builds a house in one material anymore. The brick or stone goes where the street sees it and where the snow hits it, the siding goes everywhere else, and the budget lands near $50,000 with a masonry face. This page prices the house every way, counts what each costs over thirty years, says what each does at resale, and gives the rules for mixing them so the joint between the brick and the siding is not where the water gets in.
The same house, priced each way
| The house | Cladding | Soffit, fascia, eaves | Before HST | With HST |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All vinyl, mid, vinyl soffit | 2,400 x $9.50 = $22,800 | $1,200 + $1,950 = $3,150 | $25,950 | $29,323.50 |
| All fibre cement, mid, aluminum soffit | 2,400 x $18 = $43,200 | $3,750 + $1,950 = $5,700 | $48,900 | $55,257 |
| The mix: fibre cement, stone front, wood accent | $28,800 + $16,000 + $5,100 = $49,900 | $5,700 | $55,600 | $62,828 |
| All manufactured stone, mid | 2,400 x $32 = $76,800 | $5,700 | $82,500 | $93,225 |
| All brick, mid, on a poured ledge | 2,400 x $36 = $86,400 | $5,700 | $92,100 | $104,073 |
The mix is 1,600 sq ft fibre cement at $18, 500 sq ft manufactured stone at $32 and 300 sq ft engineered wood at $17. Eaves are 150 lf of aluminum soffit and fascia at $25 and 5 in. aluminum eavestrough at $13; the vinyl house gets vinyl soffit at $8. New construction, so no tearoff and the brick ledge is in the foundation. The exterior cladding cost calculator runs any mix you like on your own walls.
What each one costs you over thirty years
Vinyl. Wash it. Replace the odd panel a snowblower or a barbecue gets. On the south and west walls it chalks and fades, and most vinyl in this climate is tired at 25 and replaced by 30, so over thirty years budget for it twice: $22,800 and $22,800 again in today’s money, $45,600. Still the cheapest line on the page.
Fibre cement. Factory-finished panels hold colour 12 to 15 years before they want a coat, and a repaint is $3.50 a square foot for two coats, 2,400 at $3.50 is $8,400. Say once in thirty years: $43,200 plus $8,400 is $51,600. The product itself is good for fifty.
The mix. $49,900 plus a repaint on the 1,900 sq ft of siding and accent at $3.50, $6,650: $56,550. The stone front does nothing but sit there.
Manufactured stone. No paint, no replacement. It fades on the sunny walls and it may want a mortar touch-up where the splash hits it, so carry one masonry minimum job, $3,500, somewhere in the thirty years: $80,300.
Brick. Nothing, except repointing at a sill or under a downspout eventually. Carry the same $3,500: $89,900. The brick house costs about $44,000 more than the vinyl house over thirty years and it is a brick house for all of them. Whether that is worth it is a question about the house and the street, not about the brick.
What each does at resale
Buyers and appraisers in Ontario still read brick as the top of the pile, stone as brick’s richer cousin, fibre cement as “good siding”, and vinyl as the starting point. None of it returns dollar for dollar. What a masonry front does is get the house looked at: it photographs better, it does not need the listing to say “new siding”, and in a subdivision of brick fronts a vinyl front is the one that sells last. On a rural lot in Tiny or Muskoka, where the neighbours are trees, buyers care less about the front and more about whether the walls leak, and a well-detailed fibre cement house outsells a badly flashed brick one. The exterior renovation hub has the whole-house budgeting and the inspection side.
Mixing them without it looking like a compromise, or leaking like one
- Masonry goes low, siding goes high. Stone or brick where the wall meets grade, snow and the lawnmower; siding above. Never the other way round. Heavy on the bottom is what the eye expects and what the ledge wants.
- Change material at a line that already exists. An inside corner, a floor line, a band under the second-storey windows, the edge of a gable. A material change in the middle of a flat wall looks like the budget ran out, because it did.
- Every horizontal change gets a flashing. Where siding sits on top of stone or brick there is a cap or sill flashing that laps over the masonry face and tucks under the house wrap behind the siding, with a gap so the siding does not drink off the stone. Where brick meets siding at a vertical line there is a J or a trim with sealant and a backer, and the siding side gets its own flashing. This is where mixed-material houses leak and it is on the wall protection hub in detail.
- Brick on the front only is fine, and it needs returns. Carry the brick around the corner at least a couple of feet, or to the first window, so the side elevation does not show a brick face stuck on a vinyl box like a stage set.
- Three materials is the limit. Stone skirt, siding field, board-and-batten gables is a house. Stone, brick, two sidings and shakes is a sample board.
- Price the mix as areas, not as a feeling. 500 sq ft of stone front is $16,000; 800 sq ft is $25,600. Decide on the wall, with the plan and a tape, not in the showroom.
What I put on mine
Most of the houses I build are ICF, and most of them are finished in acrylic stucco with stone on the front or a stone skirt, because on an ICF wall stucco needs no insulation board and comes in about $2 a square foot under the industry rate for a frame wall. The same 2,400 sq ft house that way: 1,900 sq ft of stucco on ICF at $13 is $24,700, 500 sq ft of manufactured stone at $32 is $16,000, window and door bands 180 lf at $18 is $3,240, frieze 150 lf at $14 is $2,100, eaves $5,700, total $51,740 before HST. Within $4,000 of the fibre-cement mix, no paint, and the stone where the snow is. The brick ones get a ledge in the foundation and the same $36 brick as anybody else. The eight finishes on ICF article runs all of them with costs, and the houses themselves are at ICFhome.ca.
Brick alone is on the brick veneer cost page, every stone on the stone veneer cost page, and every siding by grade on the siding hub.
Questions people ask
Is brick or siding cheaper?
Siding, by a lot. Mid-grade vinyl is $9.50 a square foot installed, fibre cement $18, brick $36. On 2,400 sq ft of wall that is $22,800, $43,200 and $86,400 before HST and eaves.
Is stone cheaper than brick?
Manufactured stone at $32 is a little cheaper than brick at $36. Natural thin stone at $50 and full-bed stone at $65 are more. Most houses use stone on the front or a skirt, not the whole wall, which is why it reads as expensive and costs less than brick.
Does brick add value to a house in Ontario?
It helps a house sell and it photographs well; it does not return its full cost at resale. Over thirty years it is the cheapest wall to own after the day you pay for it, which is a different kind of value.
What is the best combination of brick and siding?
Brick or stone from grade to the first-floor band or to the top of the first storey, siding above, with a flashing at the change and the masonry returned around the corners. Change material at a corner or a floor line, never mid-wall.
What does a partial brick front cost?
About $36 a square foot for the brick on a new house, plus $45 a linear foot for a shelf angle if the house already exists. A 600 sq ft front is $21,600 in brick; the rest of the house in fibre cement at $18 makes the cladding about $54,000.
Price your house every way
The exterior cladding cost calculator takes each wall separately, so a brick front, stone skirt and siding sides come out as one number with the eaves and the HST. If you have quotes for two different mixes and cannot tell why they are $20,000 apart, the $99 review lines them up by wall and by material.
Sources and further reading
- Ontario’s Building Code, Section 9.27 Cladding: the first and second planes of protection, sheathing membrane, flashing at openings and transitions, and the clearances from grade and roofs that every siding and stucco job has to meet.
- James Hardie installation instructions: the clearances, fastening, flashing and primed-cut rules a fibre-cement warranty depends on; the installer is held to this sheet.
- ICFhome.ca: where I build the ICF houses these exterior details come from.
