The EIFS Alliance - News/Past Articles -
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Published on: 1/1/2000
Last Visited: 12/22/2001
"Most of the articles written about EIFS are so poorly researched, they are a joke."Bill Adams, CEO/president of W.G. Adams Corporation, Marietta, Ga., whose pioneering in EIFS remediation was featured in the September issue of Construction Dimensions, points out that EIFS manufacturers have provided proper application instructions from day one, but they simply have not been followed.
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Adams, however, who limits himself to residential renovation or remedial work, suggests that the problem is not necessarily limited to residential.Commercial EIFS may last longer because of better workmanship, but even shoddy work in the residential market has lasted a few years.If EIFS had started coming apart at the seams right at the start, it certainly would have been noticed then, and would not have gained the popularity it has.Adams, who made a comeback in the industry and found his niche into taking out failed EIFS and putting them in right, saw his success plummet up to last July."It suffered the first half of the year, and I had to question everything I did," he says.Fortunately, he reports, he recovered the second half of the year.
A key reason for the downslide was competitors who came in offering to repair EIFS at a cheaper price.Apparently, enough people are now seeing that shoddy solutions are not the answer to the shoddy applications.But there is still widespread resistance, which is why he says, "I can't break into new residential or commercial work, for I know I would have to put the product up according to existing specifications, and that I can't allow myself to do."
The problem is not simply inadequacy of the interface, which is generally acknowledged by wall and ceiling contractors but more specifically, he maintains, "Ninety-nine percent of the people in my industry still disagree on the proper sealant."People will say, for instance, that the window leaking.They will point to where the problems are, rather than at the solutions."
The solution, or the proper configuration of the sealant, is, as Adams explains in more detail in the September article, both expensive and time consuming.As part of his evolution, Adams says he has to make a change he initially resisted: His company has become a moisture control contractor as well as a wall and ceiling contractor.
Of course, the time and expense put in up front to do the job right ultimately saves in the long run.Adams recalls that in the mid- 1980s, "when stucco started taking off, contractors put up thousands of $500,000 homes with so-called stucco systems costing $90,000.The three components of this conventional stucco are cement, clay, and lime.But the contractor substituted for lime a kaolin-based product, which is clay.Clay absorbs water and rots off the wall.Hit it with a hammer, and it crumbles.
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Yet Adams also suggests that the problems attributed to EIFS are not limited to this material alone-in just the last few months, similar problems have been uncovered with brick, wood and vinyl siding.
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The same as in Florida."Adams also relates that the Masonite Corporation, maker of a synthetic wood siding, has come out with a 12- minute video outlining the moisture problem.In the video, the Masonite holds up, but moisture gets behind the cladding and rots out the wall behind it."The end of the video states, ‘This is not a Masonite problem, but a flashing and sealant problem," Adams says.
What up to now has been called "the EIFS problem" by many should more properly be call "the moisture problem."And one step toward a solution is that all ceiling and contractors follow the lead of Adams and become moisture control contractors as well.But progress is not easy, Adams says, and the reason is the problem can't be attributed to a few wall and ceiling contractors in North Carolina.It really permeates the entire building trade."It drive me nuts to see painters using a latex-based sealant they've got from the paint store," says Adams."Latex is water-soluble, which is easy to put on, but is exactly what you don't want.And they try to squeeze the sealant into a joint, when you need to put on a sealant bead.Builders will then blame the resulting problems on the poor quality of the brick or the application."
Adams adds that, "Builders on new construction sites think I'm crazy, because I'm the most knowledgeable person there about moisture infiltration.They should not be getting the information from me, but they're not getting it from who should be their reliable sources.The problem is that any builder asks himself why he should pay twice as much to do it the way I suggest when everybody does it differently, and it's always been done that way."The problem is that EIFS is still taking the rap for what is, basically, an unresolved moisture infiltration problem that is widespread throughout the construction industry.
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Both Baker and Adams have praise for the National Association of Home Builders, whose research center is doing much to get at the truth of this matter, as well as to promote proper application methods.Adams cites the NAHB's findings that 48 percent of the moisture intrusion problems associated with EIFS occur at window and door openings and 38 percent with roof termination's.Adams adds that NAHB Research Center has a very good Web site: nahbrc.org.
Adams mentions that some of his local associations, such as the Atlanta Home Builders Association, are addressing the problem in a positive manner.Adams praises the Association of the Wall and Ceiling Industries - International for it educational efforts directed toward inspectors and mechanics, but adds that he is in agreement with the EIFS Industry Members Association, which says that at some point, the two sides have to come together to relate the moisture infiltration problem in the wall and ceiling trade to the identical problem in all the building trades.Just as the water infiltration problem has not been limited to a single exterior cladding, so too it has not been limited to a single city in North Carolina….Or a single state, for that matter.Baker reports that the problem is being uncovered all throughout the country, excluding areas, perhaps, such as Arizona, but including all those other areas near a coastline or inland lake, or that experiences other moisture such as from rain or snow - in other words, most of the country.
In Good Hands?
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Adams says it hasn't affected him, yet, on the other hand, he's had no complaints.
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And, as predicts Adams, "In five year, we'll again have a level playing field."
*** This article appears courtesy of ACWI's Construction Dimensions.
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