Hardiplank Problems

[janineanne]

I had a feeling my question would bring out a range of responses, based on what I had already read in this thread.

Mark, if I had it to do over again I might think twice about buying a house with Hardiplank, or would at least have taken a closer look at the installation. In fact, if I had it to do over again I would not buy an Arbor house at all. But under the circumstances, I'll settle for making it reasonably right. Completely right is probably not going to happen, as it sounds like a great deal of work and expense.

I guess it could be worse - we have none of those golf ball dimples you show in your pictures, nor any of the cracked planks that are in some of the other pictures in this thread. There are one or two places that might be spalling as you said, but they are way up high and I won't be getting a good look at them for a few months yet (we will need to rent or buy a ladder to get up there). From the ground it's hard to tell if the end of the plank has swollen or flaked or something along those lines or if it has warped and is bending outward slightly.

We are not super handy people - every thing we tackle is a new journey of discovery, as they say. I kind of enjoy this kind of work as long as I have a clue of what I'm doing; my husband hates it, so things tend to get put off until they have to be done. Neither of us has ever painted the exterior of a house either, but at least that is easy to research online. The only reason we're doing that is the HOA is requiring it this year.

So, having said that - Kurt, what do you want to see more pictures of? Those two sagging boards are the worst; there are maybe 5 - 6 of them total. It looks like it's only happening in one relatively small area, I believe all below 6' off the ground. My hunch is that the guy who installed the planks in this area was even less knowledgeable than usual and did something wrong, but I have no way of knowing.

I am ok with not having a perfect installation, but I'd like to correct the most egregious problems and at least make it look nice.

I mentioned that Arbor gets sued a lot. They have actually been sued by many of our neighbors, and the suit is just settling now. The main issue was that they didn't install the Tyvek moisture barrier properly, but lots of other defects were noted along the way. We didn't participate in the suit because we aren't the original owners and so would be entitled to less compensation, and since the legal expenses were to be divided evenly among all the homeowners we were concerned about getting very little or even ending up owing them money.

We did have Forensic Building Consultants do the preliminary evaluation on our house. They found lots of defects but did not find the major mold and rot issues that some of our neighbors had. A number of the smaller homes in this development have had to have nearly all the siding replaced; interestingly the larger, more expensive homes like ours seem to be better built and have more minor issues. So, given our second owner status and the lack of major problems, we thought it too risky to join the suit.

I just found the report, which had this to say about the siding:

- Inadequate clearance at siding terminations or interfaces with adjacent building components, including the following location(s):

o Less than 3/8" clearance between siding and metal flashing at horizontal terminations

o Less than 1/4" clearance between siding and vinyl fenestration frame

o Less than 2" clearance between siding and horizontal paved surface

- Improper siding fastener schedule, including the following condition(s):

o Lap siding planks fastened less than 3/4" from plank top edge

o Siding not adequately secured to underlying structure (evidenced by deflection of lap siding planks)

- Greater than 1/8" width of lap siding plank butt joints

So there you go. Have I mentioned that Arbor is a crappy builder?

Does anyone think I should be getting in touch with James Hardie? Or is 10 years out just too long for anyone to care about installation problems, no matter how bad?

Let me know what additional info or pictures you guys (or any one else) would like to see and I will provide them ASAP. Thanks very much for taking the time to respond!

[Jim Katen]

. . . However, there's one section of siding, on the west side of the house, where some of the pieces appear to have slipped. Representative pictures below. They aren't loose, in fact they don't move at all when I try to wiggle them. One of them has a visible nail hole with no nail in it (not torn out).

Can anyone please tell me:

- what the heck happened here?

The nail was overdriven. It's still attached to the sheathing, but the siding plank has slipped down. It can be lifted back into position and face nailed to hold it there.

- how do we fix this with a minimum of removing and replacing?

- are there any good homeowner references out there on how to work with this stuff? I presume we probably would not understand the official installation instructions nor have the correct tools to follow them.

The instructions are readily available online. They should be easy to understand.

is there any point in contacting James Hardie after 10 years? We are not the original owners of the house and have no idea what the warranty is on this stuff.

The overdriven nails are a poor installation issue. They don't warranty that.

Further, since we are going to have to touch every single joint on the house, is it worth our while to try to install flashing under the joints? Is this a homeowner-level task? Smearing on caulk sounds easier but I don't want to be up there again in a couple of years (did I mention it's a two story house?

Forget about the caulk. Someone (you, if you have the skill) can easily slip flashing up behind each joint. You'll need flashing pieces that are the same depth as the exposure of the siding. Just use tin snips to clip each side of the flashing 1" up from the bottom on each side and slightly bend back the flashing just above the cuts to form little "wings" that will cause the flashing to snap into place when you slip them between the siding pieces.

By the way, you might only have to put flashing behind the joints on the south and the west sides. In our area, the caulk joints on the north and the east sides often fare just fine.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can offer advice or pointers to other information. This task is completely new to us so we have a *lot* to learn.

It's not rocket science, but it can get tedious.

[Jim Katen]

. . . Mark, if I had it to do over again I might think twice about buying a house with Hardiplank, or would at least have taken a closer look at the installation.

What kind of siding would you prefer? The wood sidings that are available today are total crap, unless you pay for old growth cedar from Canada - and believe me, the price would knock you over. Would you prefer vinyl? Plywood? LP?

In fact, if I had it to do over again I would not buy an Arbor house at all.

Arbor's houses are no worse than any other builder working in the same price range in our area. I guarantee that every builder in your price range produced houses with about the same (or poorer) quality as Arbor at the same time. (They've *all* gotten better over the last 10 years, by the way.) I say this as someone who's been inspecting houses in our area for the last 22 years. You can do *a lot* worse than Arbor.

We are not super handy people - every thing we tackle is a new journey of discovery, as they say. I kind of enjoy this kind of work as long as I have a clue of what I'm doing; my husband hates it, so things tend to get put off until they have to be done. Neither of us has ever painted the exterior of a house either, but at least that is easy to research online. The only reason we're doing that is the HOA is requiring it this year.

Homeownership comes with responsibilities. It's fine to not be handy. In fact, it's best to recognize your own limitations. That's when you hire out the work. Home inspectors see a lot of crummy installations, but we see a lot more problems that are related to lack of maintenance. It sounds like you're kind of griping about the fact that you have to maintain your home?

So, having said that - Kurt, what do you want to see more pictures of? Those two sagging boards are the worst; there are maybe 5 - 6 of them total. It looks like it's only happening in one relatively small area, I believe all below 6' off the ground. My hunch is that the guy who installed the planks in this area was even less knowledgeable than usual and did something wrong, but I have no way of knowing.

The guy had his gun set to over drive the nails. After a while, he realized it and made an adjustment to the gun. If he was paying attention, he would have noticed it right away and gone back to repair the bad spots. Instead, he figured that no one would notice for a few years so he just kept going.

I mentioned that Arbor gets sued a lot. They have actually been sued by many of our neighbors, and the suit is just settling now. The main issue was that they didn't install the Tyvek moisture barrier properly, but lots of other defects were noted along the way. We didn't participate in the suit because we aren't the original owners and so would be entitled to less compensation, and since the legal expenses were to be divided evenly among all the homeowners we were concerned about getting very little or even ending up owing them money.

Those suits are generally a big scam run by a sleazy lawyer. Not that Arbor is perfect, but they're a large builder and they make an attractive target. The lawyer hires a consultant to find any and all possible errors, then they approach the association and get individual homeowners to buy into a lawsuit. In general, the cost to buy in greatly exceeds the cost of hire a contractor to simply make the repairs. Arbor's insurance company settles, minor repairs are made, and the lawyers make an obscene profit.

We did have Forensic Building Consultants do the preliminary evaluation on our house. They found lots of defects but did not find the major mold and rot issues that some of our neighbors had. A number of the smaller homes in this development have had to have nearly all the siding replaced; interestingly the larger, more expensive homes like ours seem to be better built and have more minor issues. So, given our second owner status and the lack of major problems, we thought it too risky to join the suit.

I just found the report, which had this to say about the siding:

- Inadequate clearance at siding terminations or interfaces with adjacent building components, including the following location(s):

o Less than 3/8" clearance between siding and metal flashing at horizontal terminations

o Less than 1/4" clearance between siding and vinyl fenestration frame

o Less than 2" clearance between siding and horizontal paved surface

- Improper siding fastener schedule, including the following condition(s):

o Lap siding planks fastened less than 3/4" from plank top edge

o Siding not adequately secured to underlying structure (evidenced by deflection of lap siding planks)

- Greater than 1/8" width of lap siding plank butt joints

None of which are particularly serious problems and none of which are causing the issues that you're asking about correcting. These are garden variety errors that are present on almost every house built at that time. Newer houses will be better built.

So there you go. Have I mentioned that Arbor is a crappy builder?

I really have no interest in defending Arbor - they and I have clashed in the past. But, honestly, they're no more crappy than any of their competitors. In fact, the siding subcontractor who installed the siding on your house probably also installed the siding on their competitors' houses.

Does anyone think I should be getting in touch with James Hardie? Or is 10 years out just too long for anyone to care about installation problems, no matter how bad?

If you have manufacturing defects, then you should contact the manufacturer. They won't care about installation defects.

[kurt]

The only point that gives pause is possible problems with the WRB (housewrap). If you have a problem, you can't fix it, and you may or may not experience problems. Time will tell.

After that, the forensic specialists points describe almost all jobs. Not that it's good or right, but without context, these sorts of observations are useful only to class action attorneys.

Since you can't fix the housewrap, fix what you can. Two points:

1) You don't know how to fix stuff, but are interested in learning.

2) Your husband has no interest in fixing or learning.

The positions cancel each other to zero, possibly to negative interest territory when spouse conflict issues are factored in.

Get someone to fix it. Carpentry is very basic; it's about doing, not talking. Folks inclined toward very long paragraphs are usually better at very long paragraphs than carpentry. No offense intended; you seem lovely, but my crystal ball says any attempt by you will result in frustration.

You can paint. Focus on learning how to paint.

Paint the joint after someone else fixes it.

[janineanne]

I'm going to reply to everyone all at once, and somewhat quickly as I'm supposed to be working:

Jim, I'm not so much griping about having to do maintenance as I'm griping about having to do it on the HOA's schedule. We plan to move in a couple of years and had hoped to put off painting until then. I didn't even realize we had an issue with disappearing caulk and slipping siding until I looked more closely.

I will take your word for it that Arbor is no worse. All I can say is that it's pretty bad. We've had some neighbors have floods because their upstairs plumbing has given way, lovely things like that.

I have tried to move the piece with the nail hole back up into position but it is stuck fast and will not move at all. None of the saggers will move. I'm thinking we have to take down the whole section and rehang it, but am not quite sure how to do that without starting at the very top, which seems unpleasant and hopefully unnecessary.

Kurt, we are both software engineers. You're right, not terribly suited to this sort of work. But he is willing to do it, even though he doesn't want to or enjoy it, because money is tight right now and we have to do everything for ourselves that we possibly can. When we move we are hoping to get a house closer to Portland with a larger yard, which means going up in price. To do that we're going to have to buy a fixer-upper and work on it ourselves. He knows that he needs to learn to do this stuff no matter how much he doesn't enjoy it.

I may have an unrealistic view of things but painting an extra-tall two story house is a much more daunting task than redoing some siding that we can reach from the ground.

So, if you are willing I would still like to know what we need to do. Every handy person started somewhere...

[mark parlee]

janineanne

I can appreciate you having to do things yourself to save a little money and make up for tight money. One thing you want to keep in mind is the ladder work. when you don't do it everyday it can be a challenge and you risk a fall. I do this everyday and have all of my life. Twenty years ago I took a fall and woke up three days later and I am experienced and should not have fallen but still did. Sometimes it is really better to pay someone to do the high work

[janineanne]

Believe me, Mark, I know. But house painting is not a little money - it's at least $3500 to have this house painted. We were hoping to put it off until we could better afford it, and so it would be fresh when we sold the house, but it was not to be. Our HOA is as terrible as the builder; they look the other way when people do unapproved changes to their houses, often approving after the fact things that they would not have approved if the people had asked first. But they are ruthless about the things that they can press without worrying about getting sued. I used to be on the board so I have far too much first-hand experience with them.

We're going to buy or rent a very tall Little Giant ladder, which is extra wide at the bottom, and I already have the stabilizer bar for the top of it. We will probably take turns going up the ladder with the other standing by to stabilize the bottom. We'll be doing it in stages - pressure washing, scraping/priming, caulking or flashing, masking and then finally painting. We'll be able to do most of that from the ground up, giving us a chance to get used to being on the ladder before we have to work at the very top.

[kurt]

Yes. Listen to Mark. High ladder work is daunting, and if you aren't REALLY accustomed to the work (you aren't), don't do it.

Willingness to learn is the starting base for all DIY. Read up on installation guidelines. Look at other peoples houses.

Put up some better pics. Take an establishing shot (wider angle to establish what it is we're looking at), then a lot of close ups from various angles. "Explain" with pictures what you have.

Since you probably aren't experienced driving nails with a hammer, you may have to drill and nail, or maybe even secure some components with screws. Yes, I'm already going outside the parameters of the installation guidelines, but some amount of creativity may be necessary to fix this without going all in and reworking the entire house.

(ooops...you posted while I was. So, you're going to do ladder work. OK. You may still be way better off hiring a carpenter to fix the siding, then you do the paint.)

[janineanne]

I have used a hammer before - I'm not *that* green!

I'll get some pictures as soon as I can. Probably tonight if it's not raining.

[hausdok]

Odd how things can be so different with so little distance between. Sure, I find HP installed wrong all the time; but even when it's installed wrong it seems to hold paint better than anything else does in our damp Seattle climate. Here it's rare to find paint failing on HP; even after 20 years.

http://www.hardieinstallation.com/hardi ... ding.shtml

Go to the JH site above to down load their Hz10 instructions. Also follow their link to their best practices guide and print off the one for zone Hz10.

[Bill Kibbel]

even when it's installed wrong it seems to hold paint better than anything else does in our damp Seattle climate. Here it's rare to find paint failing on HP; even after 20 years.

I have a pile of cut-offs laying on the ground for over 12 years. They only have the factory primer and have untreated field-cut ends. I could pick up any of these scraps and install it like it was a new piece without concern.

[janineanne]

The siding is actually holding on to the paint just fine. It's only the white trim (real wood underneath) and the wood shingles on the front that look really bad. But the paint Arbor uses is the thinnest, cheapest stuff you can get so the color is pretty faded. That means that in order to repair the spots where Forensic pulled off siding and replaced it with fresh pieces, we have to paint the whole thing or the new paint will be very noticeable.

So basically we are being "rewarded" for having played along with the lawsuit even to the extent that we did.

[gtblum]

even when it's installed wrong it seems to hold paint better than anything else does in our damp Seattle climate. Here it's rare to find paint failing on HP; even after 20 years.

I have a pile of cut-offs laying on the ground for over 12 years. They only have the factory primer and have untreated field-cut ends. I could pick up any of these scraps and install it like it was a new piece without concern.

Tom Raymond and I saw a piece delaminate into shards in a cup of water, in about four hrs, at a CE class.

I've seen pieces that were installed in close contact to the ground, that were shot.

Who knows what you might see?

Might be ok for one timers who'll study the most recent rule book and take their sweet time but, I'm not so sure about the same results for a contractor with a schedule and an ant farm full of new houses to complete.

[janineanne]

I'm not sure how much these are going to help - I may have to get ahold of a real camera instead of using my phone. But here's what I have for now. The first picture, with the window far away, is what it looks like from the corner of the house (which is just outside frame to the left). The next picture, closer to the window, is the next part of that side of the house. You can see (I hope) where the slipping boards stop. The last picture is a bit more context for the worst one, the one with the visible nail hole.

The caulk marks around the window were made by Forensic; they opened up the house in a few places to check for water damage and the kitchen window was one of them. They caulked the areas they worked on and replaced a few pieces of siding (presumably ones they had to destroy to get the opening started).

Do these help at all?

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[kurt]

Did Forensic find any damage under the siding?

[janineanne]

Did Forensic find any damage under the siding?

Not on our house, no. There was a small amount of rot behind the bottom edge of the window over the garage; they replaced the affected piece of wood trim.

A number of houses in the neighborhood had major damage under the siding and had to be completely redone, but I'm not aware of any of the larger houses like ours being that affected. Ours was one of the least affected they looked at, which was a big reason why we did not join the lawsuit.

Actually, I should clarify slightly - if you read their report you would think that we did have water damage. I'm going from what they told me and what I saw myself when they had it opened up. Reading it again now, almost 3 years after the fact, I have a feeling that the report is mostly boilerplate that describes the general condition of the homes in the neighborhood, not ours specifically. It seems rather detailed for the amount of time they spent and the limited number of spots they looked at (I believe there are 4).

We could have paid extra for a report that had pictures of what damage they found, but it didn't seem necessary once we decided not to join the lawsuit. I kind of wish now that we had; it would be interesting to see how many of these dire-sounding descriptions they could actually support with evidence.

[Marc]

Given that there was damage, I wonder if there is a weather resistant barrier behind the siding and if it's sealed properly at the door and window openings.

Marc

[janineanne]

There is a barrier, but it wasn't installed properly. That was part of the basis of the lawsuit. However, we're not prepared to replace all the siding to fix it - not having damage under our siding gives me some confidence that they didn't do too crappy a job on our particular house.

[mark parlee]

janineanne

can you email me a copy of the report, if not no problem but I would like to see it if you would.

[janineanne]

Sent. Let me know if anyone else wants a copy. Just keep your large grain of salt handy since this was prepared at the behest of the lawyers who were preparing to sue Arbor.

[mark parlee]

got it thanks

will review and let you know what I think

[kurt]

Sure, I'd take a copy.

[Les]

I would also like a copy. For the record, all attys are not bad.

[Jim Katen]

. . . For the record, all attys are not bad.

Of course not. But, in this case, the attorneys are not responding to a call for help from victimized homeowners, they're initiating the suits at the behest of no one.

The attorneys who specialize in this stuff keep records of every large development in our area. At about the 8 or 9 year mark (about a year before the end of the builder's statutory responsibility for construction defects), the attorneys approach the homeowners and call a meeting where they have a presentation about all of the horrendous things that could be going wrong with their homes. They receive permission to have a specialist go through the development and look for evidence of damage. In a development of several hundred homes, they *will* find some genuine problems, but they also find a lot of trivial problems. I've had customers who were told that efflorescence on their brick veneer is *conclusive proof* that the sheathing behind the brick is rotting. When they pull of sections of siding, any sign of staining on the WRB is considered a serious problem and a sure sign of mold to come. Decay on the cheezy whitewood trim is used as evidence of "failed flashing" even when it has nothing to do with flashing. In a few cases, the specialist finds very serious problems, but they're not usually related to the siding per se - a dryer vent that terminated inside a wall was one that comes to mind. When this initial investigation is finished, the investigated areas are left unpainted - so even homeowners who decline to join the suit now have to make repairs to their houses.

After the specialist finds everything that he can, the homeowners are invited to buy into the suit. They're treated to a slide-show of the worst problems found in the development and they are sometimes shown slides from other developments (to demonstrate what can happen if nothing is done). The buy-in is usually in the range of $2,000 - $5,000. In the vast majority of cases, these homeowners could have the most expensive contractor in town fix the problems on their houses for less than the buy-in cost. But they flock to buy-in because those pictures sure are scary.

At some point, the builder's insurance settles the suit and a contractor is sent to make token repairs to the houses. In some cases, the repair work is pretty good. In other cases, the repair work is no better than the original work. And in a few cases, the repairs are worse than what was there before.

The builder loses because the suit harms his reputation and his bottom line, meaning that he's got to build a new factor into his pricing to pay for current and future suits.

The homeowners lose because they end up paying lawyers to fix their house instead of paying (much cheaper) contractors to do it directly.

The public loses because the cost of all of this ends up being passed on to them in the form of higher prices for houses. (You think the builders and the insurance companies eat the cost?)

The only ones who don't lose are the attorneys who gin up these suits, at no one's request, to line their own pockets.

[John Kogel]

. . . However, there's one section of siding, on the west side of the house, where some of the pieces appear to have slipped. Representative pictures below. They aren't loose, in fact they don't move at all when I try to wiggle them. One of them has a visible nail hole with no nail in it (not torn out).

Can anyone please tell me:

- what the heck happened here?

Is it possible those planks were pried loose by the Forensic investigators? I think you should check around and see if neighbors have similar damage. Then you could all go after the perpetrators.

Maybe Jim knows a good lawyer. []