LP Smartside Caulk/Sealant

Hey lads and ladies, hope everyone is staying cool in this heat. My wife and I bought a house a couple month back and the previous owner had installed what appears to be LP Smartside Siding on the house and Garage. Install looks good to my eyes apart from a couple areas that may be a it tight. Anyway, there is no caulk or sealant present anywhere. Nothing on edges, corners or above bottom trim pieces. Please correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t this stuff supposed to be sealed on every edge? If so, i am happy to do the work, but i need recommendations on caulk. The house is painted already. Will a good clear hold up or yellow in the sun? Anyone know of a good company that can color match? I know there are some handy guys and contractors on here, any help would be greatly appreciated.

Is there any kind of flashing behind the joint ? If not, this is a void and water will get in. When my brother in law put ours on the garage, he left about a 1/8 gap and caulked every seam. I think it is a bigger issue in climates where you have freezing temps.

Could be blind caulked.
I’m a vulcum guy, you should be able to get a color that’s close.

Eelpoutguy wrote:

Could be blind caulked.
I’m a vulcum guy, you should be able to get a color that’s close.

Ditto on both statements. Vulkem all the way. There may or may not be a flashing piece behind the siding joints, but still should be caulked for aesthetics. The gap left between the siding and trim boards absolutely should be caulked.

We just had LP installed on our house, all edges around door frames and trim edges are caulked, ends that butt against each other have a aluminum spacer between them.

Yes, I remember he used Vulkem also, I had to pick up a couple tubes.

Thanks for the info fellas.

Beast is very correct.
I too used to be devoted to Vulkem but for the long term it does not paint well. All other properties I think it is great. Now there are other one part urethane caulks out there that are doing all the positive attributes well. BASF NP1 and Quad OSI I believe are a couple of them