★★★★★
Heritage Exteriors is beyond exceptional. Very impressed with the timeliness, communication, and reasonable price of the whole project.
Scott Doyen
Sacramento, CA · Google
Sacramento, CA · Google
What a Multifamily Re-Side Costs Per Door
Per-door is the figure a board asks for and the figure a bid cannot honestly begin from. Wall area per door varies by a factor of three between a garden walk-up and a four-storey wrap, and that is the number the work is actually priced on. Here is how the total is built, and what to require so three bids can be compared.
Get a Free EstimateAsk three contractors what it costs to re-clad a 120-unit community and you will get three numbers built three ways. The spread is rarely margin. It is what each bid assumed about wall area, substrate condition, access and who carries the residents through it.
This page is about that build-up. It deliberately does not offer a per-door figure, because per-door is the output you should be most careful with.
Why per-door misleads
Siding is priced by the square foot of wall. Doors are a count of dwellings. The relationship between them changes with the building:
- A two-storey garden walk-up has a large exterior envelope relative to its unit count — lots of perimeter, low storey count, many exposed end walls.
- A four-storey wrap stacks units vertically, so the same door count sits behind far less cladding.
- Townhomes sit somewhere between, with shared party walls reducing exterior area but adding a lot of vertical trim and transitions.
The consequence: a per-door figure taken from one property tells you very little about another. Wall area per door is the variable, and it is the one worth establishing first.
How the total is actually built
1. Exterior wall area
The base quantity. Perimeter times height per storey, less openings. Everything else scales off it.
2. Complexity, not just area
Two walls of identical area do not cost the same. Corners, offsets, balconies, stair towers, changes of material, and every penetration all add labour without adding measurable area. A building with an articulated facade can cost meaningfully more per square foot than a plain one.
3. The cladding specification
Material, profile and finish. For a rough bracket before bids, our Northern California siding cost page publishes installed ranges — dated October 2025, and written for single-family work. Multifamily moves off them in both directions. Treat them as a way to bracket a reserve, not to price a project.
4. Substrate repair
The largest genuine unknown. What is behind the cladding decides a real share of the final number, and nobody knows it until the walls are open. This belongs in the bid as agreed unit rates, not as a vague allowance — see the scope-of-work guide.
5. Access and staging
Storey count, whether lifts can reach the elevations, how much of the site is landscaped or parked, and how far material has to be carried. Access is where two bids on the same property diverge most and explain themselves least.
6. Occupied-building logistics
Notification, scheduling, parking displacement, protecting patios and balconies, and what happens when a phase stalls. On an occupied community this is a real cost and a real risk. Our guide to phasing work on occupied properties covers what the plan should contain.
7. Everything attached to the walls
Light fixtures, signage, address numbers, hose bibs, dryer vents, satellite dishes, security cameras, downspouts. Removing and reinstating these is genuine labour, and it is one of the most common silent exclusions.
8. Permits and disposal
Straightforward but frequently left out of the number a board is shown.
The arithmetic to do before bids arrive
- perimeter × wall height per storey, less openings = wall area
- wall area × installed rate for the specification = cladding and labour
- plus substrate repair at agreed unit rates × an assumed quantity
- plus access and staging
- plus resident management and phasing
- plus fixture removal and reinstatement
- plus permit and disposal
- then divide by doors, if a board needs it expressed that way
Doing this yourself is the fastest way to see which bid has quietly left something out.
What to require so bids are comparable
- Stated wall area, so you can check it against your own.
- Unit rates for substrate repair, with an assumed quantity shown separately from the fixed price.
- The phasing plan and what happens if a phase stalls.
- Fixture removal and reinstatement, explicitly in or out.
- What is excluded. Exclusions are fine. Unstated exclusions are the problem.
Where this sits in a funding schedule is covered in exterior repair reserve planning.
Working with Heritage Exteriors
We price multifamily cladding from measured wall area with the assumptions written down, so it can be compared line by line against anyone else's. Licensed in California, CSLB #1055919. Call (916) 546-2991 and we will walk the property and give you the build-up, not just a total.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why will nobody quote me a per-door price?
Because siding is priced by wall area and per-door is a division you do afterwards. Two communities with the same door count can have very different exterior square footage depending on building shape, storey count, and how much of the perimeter is shared wall. A contractor quoting per-door before measuring is either padding heavily or is going to discover the difference during the job.
What should I measure to get a usable early number?
Exterior wall area, not doors. Take the building footprint perimeter, multiply by wall height per storey, subtract openings roughly, and you have a square-footage figure good enough to bracket a budget. Every bidder will do the same arithmetic, so doing it yourself tells you which bids have assumed something unusual.
Where do published cost ranges fit?
They are a sanity check, not a quote. Heritage Exteriors publishes installed siding cost ranges for Northern California, dated October 2025, on our new siding cost page. Those are written for single-family work; multifamily moves off them in both directions — repetition and volume pull the rate down, occupied-building logistics and access push it up. Use them to spot a bid that sits far outside the range, not to argue a line item.
Does doing all the buildings at once cost less?
Per square foot, usually yes — you pay for mobilisation, staging and set-up once rather than repeatedly. The saving is real but it is a minority of the total, because material and installation labour do not change. The stronger arguments for doing it at once are a single specification across the property and one disruption for residents rather than several.
What is most often missing from a multifamily siding bid?
Four things: substrate repair beyond a token allowance, resident notification and access management, the cost of a phase that stalls, and reinstatement of everything attached to the walls — lights, signage, hose bibs, satellite dishes, address numbers. All four are real, and a bid that is cheaper than its rivals often differs on exactly these.
How do we handle rot we cannot see until the walls are open?
With unit rates agreed before work starts — a price per sheet of sheathing, per linear foot of framing repair — rather than an open allowance. Then a discovery is a number you already accepted. Our scope-of-work guide covers how to structure that. We are happy to walk a property and price it properly: (916) 546-2991.
Recent Multifamily & Commercial Projects
Apartment communities, condominium associations, and commercial buildings we have re-clad across Sacramento, the Bay Area, and Northern California.
What Our Clients Say
★★★★★ Rated 4.9 from 69 Google reviews
★★★★★
Heritage replaced my old crumbling wood siding and did a fantastic job. From the first interactions assessing the project and providing a quote, to the project itself, was all exceptional. My home looks brand new.
Stacey Leanos
Sacramento, CA · Google
Sacramento, CA · Google
★★★★★
We recently had our house re-sided with Hardie product. We interviewed 3 companies, one of them being Heritage Exteriors. From our first meeting with David to the last day's work touching up paint, the experience was excellent.
Zane Anderson
Sacramento, CA · Google
Sacramento, CA · Google