February 24, 1999
Letters to the Editor
The Baltimore Sun
P.O. Box 1377
Baltimore, MD 21278
I would like to respond to Robert Nusgart’s article , "Coming unglued over stucco", which appeared in the Sunday Jan. 31, 1999 Real Estate Section. Forgive me for the late response, but I just recently received the article.
The Northern Virginia Stucco Home-Owner’s Coalition (NOVASHOC) is a non-profit coalition of homeowners founded in 1998. Our mission is to get the truth about moisture intrusion problems in EIFS (synthetic stucco) homes out to homeowners in the Northern Virginia area. Largely from our urging and educating home-owners to have there home inspected by qualified persons, a great deal of damage from water-intrusion has been found in EIFS homes in and around Fairfax County.
I had gotten wind in mid-January that Mr. Nusgart was working on an article, and left a message offering to provide information. Unfortunately, we were not given an opportunity to provide input prior to the article being completed. In this regard, I would like to address a number of points brought up in the article.
First, Mr. Nusgart points out that EIFS has been used since the end of WW II. He fails to point out, however, that the use of EIFS prior to its introduction into the U.S. in 1969 was almost entirely on masonry structures in Europe. Structures on which water-intrusion has little of the impact it does on wood-framed structures. He also does not mention that the EIFS industry made absolutely no design changes to the systems prior to their introduction to the U.S. residential construction market. A market that is almost entirely based on wood-framed and wood-sheathed construction.
Also not mentioned was the fact that the Maryland Insurance Company’s decision to stop underwriting EIFS construction was based on its own extensive investigation. In this investigation two of the most respected forensic building inspection companies in the U.S. (Mark Williams Building Diagnostics of PA and Failure Analysis Associates of CA) were hired by Maryland Insurance and sent to NC. In their investigation they examined many damaged EIFS homes. They also compared EIFS homes to homes using other siding materials that were built by the same contractors in the same subdivisions. The results of this investigation were outlined on an internally-produced video entitled "EIFS: What You Need to Know". The evidence on this video is so damning to the EIFS manufacturers that they lobbied for, and got, an injunction against its distribution. I have seen the video, however, and can confirm that the information contained therein totally confirms what many objective investigators are concluding; that barrier-EIFS is a defective product and is inherently flawed by design.
Next a spokesperson from Dryvit insinuates that the builders and applicators are at fault for "shortchanging" the American public. Sonny Mosier of U. S. inspect states that he "guesses" that if the installers did what they were supposed to do, there would be very few problems. He then states that "up until a year ago, [installers] were not trained to install the material".
On these points I cannot speak for Baltimore suburbs. I can, however, speak about Fairfax County. We have some of the finest custom home builders in the country here. Several of which serve as construction consultants on a national-scale. The number of quality-built custom homes, a good number of which are over the $1 million dollar mark, that are suffering water-intrusion due to barrier-EIFS is alarming. These EIFS were not installed by "fly-by-night" applicators. The applicators in general were, and are, factory certified and have been in the business for a significant number of years. The head of the Fairfax County Residential Inspections Department, Mr. Paul Lynch, has repeatedly gone on record as concluding, based on his investigations, that "barrier-EIFS has no place in residential construction". The National Association of Home-Builders, The EIFS Review Committee and the Maryland Casualty Insurance are all correct in there independent conclusion that water-intrusion in barrier-EIFS clad homes is not a function of the quality of construction. Independent research dating back to the early 1960’s has repeatedly shown that it is simply not possible to make a home water-tight. In fact, the more water-tight you attempt to make a wall, the more probable it is that you will get extensive water-intrusion through tiny holes in a face-sealed system. The treatise on this subject was published by G.K. Gardner in 1963. The simple fact is that water-intrusion is a normal occurrence in residential construction. Barrier-EIFS is the only cladding system that fails to take into account, and properly deal, with the water that does get in.
Dwight Griffith, a luxury home-builder in Baltimore, says he has used [barrier-EIFS] for "20 years and has never had a problem". Oh, how many times we have heard this. Builders all over the country have said this and have been repeatedly astounded at the results when they have had their homes tested. Many of the Northern Virginia builders who initially labeled NOVASHOC a "fanatical scare group" are now in damage-control mode, scrambling to find a fix for the problem. Unfortunately, just as these builders initially failed to believe that there were any problems with EIFS, many are now failing to accept the fact that there is no way to repair the systems. Barrier EIFS are flawed by concept. You can patch up and caulk all you want. The system failed once, and it will fail again. Even the most perfect caulk joints possible have repeatedly failed in controlled laboratory tests. To Mr. Griffith I would ask, exactly how many of your homes have been tested by qualified inspectors? And how do you know you don't have problems?
People need to understand the insidious nature of the problem. In many cases there may be few, if any, outward signs of the problems going on behind the walls. Certainly nothing the average home-owner would connect with water-intrusion. People have no cause to have specialized inspections done until they are convinced that there is a significant chance that they may have a problem. This is why the problem appears to happen in "hot-spots". The EIFS industry typically jumps in and blames bad "local" builders and installers when a hot-spot, such as Wilmington or Atlanta, pops up. In reality, the problems are happening constantly and continuously all over the country. Few, if any, people in an area such as Baltimore are aware of the problems. Until, for some reason, someone like Gail Sandager takes the initiative to have a home tested. Then, when they find damage the word begins to spread. As more home-owners hear about the problem and have their homes tested, a hot-spot develops.
This leads to the issue of qualified inspectors. Everyday home-inspector are not qualified to perform these inspections. Home-owners must seek out a qualified forensic moisture-intrusion inspector. Unfortunately, truly qualified inspectors are few and far between. Mr. Mosier indicates that he has two "certified" inspectors. Unfortunately, there really is no such thing as a certified inspector. There is a training system run by the Exterior Design Institute (EDI). This is a 3-day seminar. At the conclusion of the seminar the participants receive a certificate and a badge. Completion of this seminar does not, in our opinion, qualify one to reliably inspect EIFS homes. The most important questions to ask a potential inspector, and the most important things to keep in mind, are:
Finally, in what is unfortunately a glaring omission, this article failed to mention the most relevant recent occurrence of all. In mid-January, the EIFS Industry Members Association (EIMA), including Dryvit and the other larger manufacturers, quietly reversed their long-standing position on barrier-EIFS. They no longer recommend barrier-EIFS be installed on residential structures.
Readers wishing to learn more on the subject are invited to visit our Web site, www.novashoc.org, at their convenience.
Charles S. McMillion
Founder