No clue, sorry.

 

This is exactly why EIFS is failing all over the place and why contractor and owner type folks are scared to death of the product. Because unqualified people like yourself are slapping it up without even learning the fundamentals of the product beforehand. Let a professional do it for you so that you and the owners both can sleep at night.

Any competent EIFS/stucco mechanic, hell, any apprentice should know the answer to your question.

Do us all a favor and get educated will ya.

Anyway, the answer to your simplistic question is yes of course.

 

From the number of lawsuits, I'd stay far far away from EIFS.

 

EIFS. So Scary.

AUSTIN: I don't know where you've been but the lawsuits took place in the mid 90's for the most part and to date EIFS related lawsuits are comparable to any other siding. Stay far away from EIFS? Give me a break. Imagine if people had your attitude in the stone age.
"Fire. Hot. Must stomp."
Just because lawsuits are out there is not a reason to stay away from a great product. Hell, folks were suing the manufacturers of the Hula Hoop because some folks were throwing their hips out of whack. It's rediculous. Like the Hula Hoop, EIFS is not for everyone. Anyone can slap sand and cement together and throw it on the wall and "Wa-La" there you have archaic stucco. EIFS is a modern facade which requires exceptional plastering skills as well as a knack for paying close attention to details.
It's totally absurd that folks in the construction and real estate industry still see it necessary to blanket the EIFS industry and EIFS in particular as "a bad thing". The truth is that EIFS failures are almost always attributable to ignorance on the part of General Contractors and Manufacturers. The manufacturers are to blame because they specified EIFS for wood substrates, without doing their homework and GC's for using both cheap materials and cheap labor.
EIFS does not belong on wood period.
Sample EIFS Report

 

Just because TONS of lawsuits took place in the mid-90s doesn't mean that they are over or that it's all clear to use EIFS.

EIFS may work fine for you. You and your clients may use and love it, but there are reasons to stay away from it. It's negative connotation in the eyes of agents, buyers, and others may cause your home to sit for a long time on the market, it may decrease the market value of the structure, also it may have insurance implications (see below).

Seems like EIFS may be like BETA. Works fine, maybe even superior, but because of the way things worked out in the marketplace, BETA died.

Sorry if that seems Neanderthal to you, but I'd rather stomp the fire than pay out of pocket for damages to a building with a specific exclusion of EIFS.

AustinRE

Federal Court Reaffirms That Co-Insurers Have No Right of Contribution Under "Other Insurance" Clause
May 20, 2008
Trinity Universal Ins. Co., Utica National Ins. and National American Ins. Co. v. Employers Mutual Cas. Co., #H-07-0878 (S.D. Tex. May 15, 2008)
This result looks bad for the insurance company plaintiffs, but the real losers in the long run will be policyholders. Here, the Houston Federal District Court dutifully followed the Texas Supreme Court's holding in Mid-Continent Ins. Co. v. Liberty Mutual Ins. Co., 236 S.W.3d 765 (Tex. 2007) (see my discussion at lawandinsurance.typepad.com/law_and_insurance/2007/10/primary-c0-insu.html"]lawandinsurance.typepad.com/law_and_insurance/2007/10/primary-c0-insu.html Mid-Continent Decision) that a co-insurer that wrongfully refuses to contribute its lawful share of a settlement paid by other defending co-insurers owes no duty to pay any reimbursement to those insurers despite its agreement to do so under the "other insurance" clause in its policy. In effect, the "other insurance" clause is rendered at best meaningless, at worst a positive hindrance to the defending insurer's right to seek contribution from the non-paying insurer. Why?
Most general liability policies contain some form of "other insurance" or "pro rata" clause to apportion responsibility for payment of defense costs and indemnity when other valid and collectible insurance is available to cover the insured's liability. This happens frequently, as in the Trinity Universal case. The insured, Lucy Masonry, was hired to install all the masonry work and facade items for construction of a hospital. Unfortunately for all concerned, the design called for one of those disastrous synthetic "exterior insulation and finish systems" (EIFS) that seem to be responsible for about half of all construction lawsuits in the last five years. The system failed, Lucy M. was sued, and about four insurers were summoned to defend and indemnify it in the litigation. All but one insurer agreed to defend. Employers Mutual's policy, however, contains an EIFS exclusion, and it denied coverage.

 

My friend, we are living in the age of litigation. Everybody knows that. The presumption that a particular siding is bound to fail simply because of stigma is ludicrous but you are correct, ignorance in the marketplace, especially concerning EIFS, has had an adverse effect on our bottom line. Remember, one bad apple doesn't spoil the whole bunch.

In todays reality, with the cost of energy rising everyday I would much rather have EIFS then any other siding under the sun. The truth is there is no other siding that even comes close to the energy efficiency of EIFS. Not brick, vinyl, hardcoat, nothing. Well, maybe one siding can stand up to EIFS' r-value. Cow dung.

It seems everywhere on the net there are folks bad mouthing EIFS when they have no clue of what it is they are talking about. From the beginning EIFS installations in this country were flawed due to fundamental mis-steps in the construction process. It is for that reason among others that insurance companies are in business. They are profiting off of ignorance.

EIFS shouldn't have it's own separate insurance, that's redundant to say the least. You are right, we are a nation of sheep, and people will be lead one way or the other, but I think industry professionals are doing a disservice to the industry and the buying public by spewing unfounded rhetoric. It appears the alarmists out there that warn against the evils of EIFS, namely brick and vinyl contractors as well as home inspectors, are failing to convince the buying public and to a greater extent architects and engineers to believe their increasingly piercing and scientifically unfounded rhetoric, so they blab on the net. EIFS is still going up everywhere and it is here to stay.

EIFS is not a problem and it hasn't been for some time. You're a developer correct? How many EIFS clad commercial buildings have moisture related issues? Not many. As I mentioned before EIFS is the way of the future and folks need to start recognizing that fact. We need to have the same quality control apparatus we have in place on commercial projects and implement those principles in the residential construction market. Only then can we as a whole better serve our clients.