Oxford of Blue Bell:
Rebuilding 32 Exteriors Without Losing the Community Around Them
Project Timeline: November 3, 2025 – September 9, 2026
Our Oxford of Blue Bell siding replacement is renewing the exterior across 32 occupied condominium buildings at Bromley Drive and the surrounding community in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. We are working alongside PENCO Management, Property Manager Jody Serrao, and Bustamante Engineers while Project Manager Luis leads the field operation and Jeffery supports the work from operations. The approved exterior program replaces the existing aluminum siding with CertainTeed Monogram® vinyl siding and CertainTeed Board & Batten siding, along with trim, front-door and vestibule surrounds, porch support-post details, exterior light fixtures, and related components across the property. CertainTeed describes Monogram as a premium vinyl siding line with RigidForm™ reinforcement and CertaLock™ locking technology, while its Board & Batten line provides a vertical profile designed for durable, low-maintenance exterior applications.
Thirty-two buildings sounds clean when it sits in a spreadsheet. On the ground, it means thirty-two sets of entrances, windows, utility penetrations, landscaping beds, porches, lighting, roof transitions, resident schedules, old repairs, and architectural details collected over years of use. The original project schedule targeted a November 3, 2025 start and September 9, 2026 completion, as the final buildings, corrections, and punch-list items moved toward closeout. By August, our status map showed the project at approximately 90.6% complete, as we pushed through high heats & strong rains, making sure minor details were in place every step of the way.
Studying the Community Before the First Wall Opened
Our estimators and project personnel began by walking the property and studying how the existing exterior systems came together. We reviewed siding conditions, trim, windows and doors, roof-to-wall intersections, utility penetrations, decks, landscaping, access routes, equipment locations, and the spaces available for dumpsters and material staging. Those site visits gave our production team something more useful than a neat drawing on a screen: a working picture of how construction would actually live inside the community.
The information collected onsite moved through estimating, administration, production, and field management before the first active phase began. Measurements, photographs, engineering documents, homeowner forms, hand-delivered start notices, project-portal updates, and field notes gave our crews a clearer understanding of what would be waiting at each building. That preparation mattered because the work was not simply about fastening new material to a wall; it was about managing a long exterior program without forcing the entire property to live inside one giant construction zone.
Our teams also reviewed the relationship between the siding and the components that would remain in service. Windows and doors, roof edges, vents, utility lines, decks, lighting, and mechanical penetrations all created transitions that needed to continue managing water after the new facade was installed. Lemus currently handles siding, windows, doors, roofing, drainage, and broader exterior renovations for multifamily and HOA properties, which lets us look at those intersections as parts of one building envelope instead of unrelated trades fighting over the same few inches of wall.
Engineering the Details Before Covering Them Back Up
Bustamante Engineers was involved before a contract was ever awarded. The engineering team invited us to a pre-bid meeting at the Oxford of Blue Bell clubhouse in May of 2025. Bustamante’s community-association practice includes building-envelope work, structural inspections, reserve studies, and construction oversight, while Keith’s own background centers on roofing and building-envelope inspections and bid-document preparation. That experience gave the association and our crews a documented path for conditions that needed technical review once construction moved beyond drawings and into actual walls.
Once an elevation was opened, our crews could review accessible substrate, flashing, trim conditions, penetrations, and the weather-management layers behind the finished exterior. Not every exposed wall reveals a horror show, which is good news for everyone except whoever is trying to make construction television exciting. The point was simply to document legitimate concerns before they disappeared beneath a brand-new facade.
When a condition needed engineering direction, we routed it through the project process instead of letting somebody make a permanent decision during a five-minute conversation beside a lift. That kept repairs, field changes, and installation details connected to the same documentation used by management and the association. It takes a little more discipline up front, but it beats opening the same wall twice.
Working With PENCO and the Community
PENCO Management provided the property-management connection between the board, residents, engineering team, and our construction operation. PENCO has specialized in community-association management throughout the Delaware Valley since 1975, and its services include property inspections, contractor coordination, maintenance administration, board communication, financial management, and large capital projects. That background gave us a management partner accustomed to the kind of moving pieces that arrive with a multi-building exterior program.
Jody worked with our team as the listed property manager while our office and field personnel coordinated notices, homeowner forms, building schedules, access requirements, and changing construction conditions. Residents received project information before crews reached their buildings so they could prepare patios, move vehicles where necessary, and understand when exterior access might temporarily change. Clear notice does not eliminate the inconvenience of construction, but it keeps inconvenience from becoming confusion.
We approached the community through planned building sequences instead of opening work everywhere at once. Equipment, materials, waste containers, and active crews moved with the current phase while completed areas were cleaned and returned to normal use. Homeowner forms were sent before work reached the buildings, start notices were hand delivered, and an active online project portal gave the community another place to follow project information. The goal was to keep the project moving without making residents feel like they had spent the better part of a year living inside the contractor section of a home-improvement store.
Managing Project Documentation and Whitpain Requirements
On a 32-building project, administrative gaps can ripple through weeks of production if engineer approvals, materials, billing milestones, and residents are working from different versions of the plan. Our exterior renovation services are structured around phased scheduling and project administration specifically because large condominium and HOA properties need that level of control. The construction itself may happen one wall at a time, but the project has to be managed several buildings ahead.
The association also used construction financing for the work, which made documentation and progress verification even more important. The contract structure tied monthly billing to satisfactorily completed work, owner and engineer approval, lien waivers, and a holdback before final release, so progress in the field had to match progress on paper. Nobody needs the siding crew to become bankers, but somebody absolutely needs to know which building is complete before a payment application says that it is.
Installing CertainTeed Monogram and Board & Batten Siding
The new facade uses CertainTeed Monogram® vinyl siding together with CertainTeed Board & Batten as the primary exterior cladding. Monogram provides traditional horizontal clapboard and Dutch-lap styling, while Board & Batten introduces vertical sections that can break up larger elevations and emphasize architectural areas without changing the community into something it was never meant to be. CertainTeed identifies Monogram as a reinforced, low-maintenance vinyl product and its Board & Batten line as a vertical vinyl system available in multiple profiles, with both designed around long-term exterior durability.
The exterior scope went beyond the broad siding fields. Front-door and vestibule surrounds, front-porch support posts, exterior light fixtures, trim, accessories, and the surrounding transitions all had to be incorporated into the finished elevations. CertainTeed’s own installation guidance emphasizes that vinyl siding is not a watertight material by itself and must work with a weather-resistant barrier and properly flashed windows, doors, and penetrations, which is why the details behind and around the siding mattered just as much as the visible panels.
Consistency mattered from the first building to the thirty-second. Horizontal course lines, vertical Board & Batten sections, trim widths, corners, door surrounds, penetrations, and changes between materials needed to look like they came from one project even though months separated some phases. The community needed one exterior language when the lifts finally left, not thirty-two different interpretations of what the drawings probably meant.
Keeping Quality Consistent Through a Long Project
Long projects create familiarity, and familiarity can be either useful or dangerous. Crews learn the buildings, the staging routes, the common details, and the sequence that keeps production efficient. The danger arrives when repetition convinces somebody that the next building no longer deserves the same attention as the first.
Luis and our field leadership kept quality checks moving with the work rather than waiting for one enormous punch list after every building was complete. Alignment, trim, penetrations, flashing, transitions, cleanup, and visible finish conditions could be reviewed while access equipment, matching materials, and the active crews were still nearby. That made corrections more practical and kept final closeout from becoming a scavenger hunt spread across the entire property.
Our internal teams carried project knowledge forward from earlier phases as well. Photographs, approved details, field decisions, and building notes created a better baseline for the crews working later sections. A project gains value when it learns from itself instead of discovering the same detail over and over again.
What Residents Can Do to Protect the New Exterior
Residents should expect the new CertainTeed exterior to provide a more consistent appearance and lower routine maintenance than the aluminum siding it replaced, but no wall system should be treated as indestructible. Exterior walls still face wind, rain, freeze-thaw cycles, irrigation, landscaping, impacts, and the occasional service contractor with a drill and unreasonable confidence. Reporting small changes early gives management a chance to address them before a loose panel, damaged trim piece, or compromised penetration becomes a larger wall problem.
Residents should avoid drilling through siding or trim for cameras, decorations, hose reels, awnings, or other attachments without association approval. Landscaping should be kept clear enough that lower edges, corners, vents, trim, and penetrations remain visible for inspection, while sprinklers should not repeatedly soak the facade. Grills and other high-heat equipment should also remain appropriately separated from the wall and used according to community rules.
For routine cleaning, CertainTeed recommends a garden hose, soft-bristle brush, and mild soapy water, and specifically advises against power washing vinyl or polymer siding because high pressure can cause moisture intrusion, damage, or discoloration. The manufacturer recommends cleaning vinyl siding about once a year to control dirt and buildup. A hose and patience are less theatrical than a pressure washer, but the wall system has no interest in being entertained.
How Management Can Protect a 32-Building Investment
For PENCO and the association, the completed project should become the new baseline for exterior maintenance. Each building should have documentation covering completion dates, approved products, colors, photographs, engineering decisions, field changes, warranty information, and future repairs. On a project this large, a good record is not bureaucracy; it is a map back to what actually happened.
Annual exterior inspections should review siding, trim, joints, flashing, vents, utility penetrations, roof-to-wall intersections, lower-wall clearances, drainage, and any locations where unrelated trades have altered the facade. Gutters and downspouts deserve attention during the same review because overflowing roof runoff can stain or saturate a wall system that was never designed to serve as a waterfall. New penetrations from cable, security, electrical, HVAC, or pest-control contractors should be documented and properly integrated into the water-management system.
The association’s closeout documents and warranty information should guide future repairs and maintenance decisions. CertainTeed’s current Monogram and Board & Batten product pages describe manufacturer warranty coverage, but the Oxford project tracker does not yet list a final warranty submission, so the issued project documents should control what appears on the public case study. We would rather publish the exact warranty once than publish the wrong one quickly and spend years explaining it.
Reserve planning should continue even after a major facade project is finished. The replacement resets the exterior timeline, but future budgets still need room for localized impact damage, sealant maintenance, cleaning, drainage work, accessories, and eventual finish or component renewal. The new siding is an investment, not permission to forget the outside of the buildings for the next twenty years.
A Better Exterior and a Better Maintenance Baseline
The obvious improvement is visual: a more consistent facade using coordinated Monogram and Board & Batten profiles across the property. The quieter improvement is that the association is moving toward one documented exterior standard instead of years of aging aluminum siding and scattered repairs.
For us, that is what a large community siding project is supposed to accomplish. We are not simply installing panels and disappearing after the last dumpster leaves; we are helping boards and property managers turn a complicated capital project into an exterior they can understand, inspect, maintain, and budget around. PENCO, Jody Serrao, Bustamante Engineers, Luis, Jeffery, our office staff, and our field crews all have a role in keeping those pieces connected until the final punch list is closed.
Oxford of Blue Bell now joins our growing portfolio of completed siding and exterior projects throughout Montgomery County and the Mid-Atlantic. Blue Bell sits within a region that mixes established residential communities, commercial centers, historic sites, and the broader Valley Forge and Montgomery County landscape, which means exterior systems here have to handle both changing architecture and four honest seasons of weather.
Planning a siding replacement, building-envelope renovation, or another major exterior project for your HOA, condominium, townhome, or multifamily community? Contact Lemus Construction to discuss your buildings, engineering requirements, resident communication, warranties, financing, and long-term maintenance plan.