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The Real Facts About EIFS

- Response to EIMA's Response to Dateline -

From "EIMAs Response to Dateline NBC Report":

EIMA: "While the EIFS Industry Members Association (EIMA) sympathizes with the situation of some EIFS homeowners whose properties have experienced moisture damage, we continue to stand behind our products."

If EIMA continues to stand behind the products as shown in the report, why are they no longer recommending their use in one and two-family residential construction?

EIMA: "EIMA regrets that "Dateline NBC" elected to focus its report on a handful of worst-case scenarios, and to suggest that these are typical residential EIFS installations. (In a subsequent conversation with the segment producer, he confirmed that Dateline had tested only three homes in conjunction with the EIFS report.)"

The inference from the first sentence of the above paragraph is that the homes tested in the segment were somehow selected beforehand so as to show the worst case and that Dateline did not randomly select the homes to test. But, as admitted in the second sentence, three of the three homes NBC tested, all built by different builders and with systems applied by different applicators, exhibited moisture damage. Indeed, the selection criteria for NBC was quite simple: Find three relatively new homes (3 - 5 years old) in the Reston / Great Falls area owned by home-owners who would be willing to have their homes tested and appear on the segment, whether problems were found or not. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the testing company that was hired by Dateline for the segment has stated that "The homes we tested for the Dateline segment exhibited damage that is far from the worst-cases we've seen in the D.C. area"

Behind the scenes EIMA has gone much further than this. They have been spreading the word within the industry that the founder of NOVASHOC appeared at the NVBIA Builder's Expo in September, 1998 and "brought NBC with him to confront Klmake" and thus "NOVASHOC was in cahoots with NBC prior to the filming of the testing and pointed NBC to the worst-case homes". What EIMA is neglecting to say is that the Builder's Expo was held on the 15th and 16th of September and Dateline filmed the testing of the founder's home on the 16th of August, a month prior to Expo. These dates are easily supported by ample documentation. Indeed, Dateline's testing and filming of the founder's home was the impetus for NOVASHOC's formation. NOVASHOC went "online" in the third week of November, 1998.

EIMA: "We're also disappointed that Dateline chose not to interview any of the many reputable builders who have had no problems with EIFS, or any of the EIFS homeowners whose walls have been tested for moisture and show no evidence of damage."

To date (28 March), of the dozens of homes tested in the D.C. area, we've heard of only one that was dry (normal moisture levels).