THE RETURN
OF EIFS
By
Nick Moretti
Can’t
get insured to do EIFS repair? Forget about it! Now,
EIFS repair contractors can get certified and warrant
the work, with or without insurance on EIFS repair
work.
If a company is willing to warrant EIFS repair, insurance
companies refusing to insure such work become unnecessary.
Moisture Warranty Corp, of the Charlotte NC area,
has a simple solution to the state of EIFS repair
restrictions due to insurance unavailability issues:
Become a certified Moisture Warranty EIFS repair contractor
and agree to have work checked by a certified Moisture
Warranty EIFS inspector. The company will then warrant
the repair work allowing homeowners and contractors
to feel secure in the work performed.
“Given the state of litigation in the EIFS industry
today, we are the solution and perhaps the salvation,”
says Chris Burton, president of Moisture Warranty.
“Instead of getting hammered with lawsuits and
doing tear-off and reclad, this option is available
and approved by the courts (Moisture Warranty was
the “official” warranty QC coordinator
in recent legal settlements), and that these systems
can be salvaged and restored to the cladding that
the manufacturers originally made.”
Warrant not insure
The amount of attention given to the Moisture Warranty
option has been limited.
“Some repair contractors have been leery of
us due to the fact that any time you involve inspectors,
alert signs go up in contractors, ”Burton continues.
“That’s because anyone involved with inspections
is often bound to bring bad news. Some contractors
saw us as potential police of their work-which we
are-but not to take them to court or encourage people
to sue them but to correct any mistakes made, sometimes
through no fault of their own. Additionally, we want
to offer homeowners a non-litigation solution to potential
problems.”
Mike Minigh, quality control consultant for Moisture
Warranty, also laments the “worst-case scenario”
solution usually given to homeowners with problems.
“Homeowners are often told they have no solution
outside of stripping the entire home,” he explains.
“The saying is, ‘If you got EIFS, you
got to tear it off,’ and that’s not true.”
“Keep in mind, only sometimes is the reaction
negative to the idea of inspection,” adds Kay
Candler, marketing director. “In different parts
of the country, contractors are in areas where we
can really help. We are looking to fix these homes
with a lasting repair. Where it needs to be stripped,
of course we’ll say so, but it is highly unlikely.”
Origins
The predecessor company that spawned the idea for
the moisture-free warranty was originally called Stucco
Pro, and formed as an inspection company that licensed
a specialized testing and recording procedure to home
inspectors across the country. Fifty-five affiliates
tested and documented, and instead of inspectors producing
reports, they actually did the fieldwork and sent
photos and documents to the main office, which passed
the information as a finished report to the homeowner.
It gave the company a chance to capture a wealth of
data on what was occurring in EIFS home construction.
“In 1999, when we started working on the Moisture
Warranty program, not only did we discover what a
tremendous amount of data we had but also that the
problems were not nearly as severe as homeowners were
led to believe,” Burton says. “The data
also showed that when proper repairs were performed,
the repairs worked. When fixed properly, they rarely
fail. Bottom line: If you inspect and repair a certain
way, we’ll put a warranty on it.”
This might mean huge opportunities for contractors.
Now, general liability is all that is needed to cover
potential mishaps that have nothing to do with EIFS
repair coverage.
Both sides of the Dryvit class action case approached
Moisture Warranty. The homes in the case needed to
be fixed with a warranty to back the repairs. It took
two years of negotiation but finally, everyone agreed
to a settlement. Both the plaintiffs and defendants
approved the warranty in court. Now that the settlement
has put the official stamp of approval on the repair
warranty, the company wants everyone to know what
it is and how it works.
“We want to involve everyone in the transaction
a solution process,” Burton says. “Not
just a warranty but we are also letting people know
which inspectors and repair contractors are good,
what they should and shouldn’t do to a home,
etc. All this is part of the solution process. It’s
typically about two to three months from first inspection
to warranty issued.”
Contractor’s prerogative
The process is that first, a contractor goes through
training to be a repair contractor. It’s around
$595 for manuals and videos that will certify two
people in the company to do the repairs. The certified
individual is required to be on the job every day-if
not all day-to inspect on the daily progress. The
failsafe for Moisture Warranty is that a second inspection
is done after the repairs to ensure that everything
stated to be done in the initial inspection has been
performed.
Currently, the company is only warranting existing
construction, not new projects…yet. However,
plans are in the works for both new residential construction
and commercial warranties. Certified repair contractors
are in high demand, in addition to certified inspectors.
Any repair contractor in good standing with Moisture
Warranty will get a lot of the work currently awaiting
repair.
Frank Guidera, CEO of Performance Exteriors, a repair
contractor in Charlotte NC and current vice president
of CLAPCA, chairman of its technical committee, and
past chairman of AWCI’s EIFS committee, is a
Moisture-Free certified repair contractor. Guidera
was instrumental in working with Dick Hopkins on the
EIFS Doing it Right Program, and an instructor for
the inspectors and applicators.
“I knew about this program, I’d been following
it since the class action suit,” says Guidera.
“I became a certified repair contractor in early
2003. I thought it was well written and it was right
along the lines of what they have in their textbook
and the tapes they give you. And if you have any kind
of job experience, in addition to the text and videos,
you should pass it. But it’s not a giveaway,
I’ll tell you that. You have to know what you’re
doing.”
Guidera looked at eight to 10 houses that have been
inspected by certified inspectors and he gave the
repair price based on what they said and has agreed
with them across the board except on some incidental
things. He is still waiting to proceed as the houses
he’s bid on must go through the process at headquarters
before work can begin.
“All the ones I’ve looked at have been
inspected but I’m still waiting for the green
light, “ he says. “I fully expect to get
the work, bar none