Category Archives: Intermediate

Stucco Home Insurance: How Does EIFS Affect Insurance

Posted by Admin on December 14, 2011 None comments

Stucco (or more accurately, EIFS) is enormously popular on homes in and around the Greater Toronto area due in large part to it’s great aesthetic appeal and it’s ability to insulate, thereby reducing heating and cooling bills. It’s become a “hot topic” (pun intended) for insurance companies – moreso in the U.S. than Canada – over the past few decades because of problems if improperly installed. Problems which range from moisture intrusion and entrapment to the combustibility of it’s components and decorative accents.

Before starting any home improvement project, it’s a good idea to call your insurance provider to check whether or not it will affect your home insurance policy. Failure to contact them and update your policy when changing something as drastic as the exterior walls on your home could actually void your home insurance warranty.

Think about it… let’s say you retrofitted your home with stucco in July of 2012 at a cost of $12,000 and were happy with the contractor – he was polite, on time, did everything according to the contract and finished on a good note. 3 years down the road (it’s 2015 now) you have a building inspection completed for termites because it’s been an issue in your neighbourhood. During the inspection, the home inspector doesn’t find any termites, but notes that you have moisture trapped in your walls – around the windows, wherever. Remembering that mould is somewhere in your insurance policy, you contact your insurance provider who sends someone out to investigate and they’re shocked that your home doesn’t match what’s on the paperwork. Your insurance company won’t cover the damage any more, because what you’ve been paying for does not have EIFS-related coverage. Let’s take a look at some of the damages you’ve incurred:
- Insurance: 36 months x $200/month = $7200
- Removal of EIFS: $4,000
- Removal and repair of mould/moisture damaged wall section: $7,000
- Reinstallation of EIFS, done properly: $13,000
Total: $31,200

That’s $31,200 out-of-pocket expense that is related to your one forgotten phone call to your insurance company. Note that properly installed EIFS usually is slightly (give or take 10%) more expensive than the shmuck who cut his costs by cutting required material out of your home. Good luck finding him too – the average “stucco contractor” is in business roughly 2 years before closing it down and opening another or going to work with a friend.

If properly installed, and done in accordance to local building codes (following fire code where necessary), EIFS is a worry-free system that will last decades and save you thousands of dollars in heating and cooling bills. The trick then, is to find the right contractor – one that has a proven track record and can be vouched by manufacturers and previous clients. Services like Stucco Toronto can put you in touch with multiple contractors, are provide a neutral – 3rd party approach to your project.

The takeaway from this article is this:
1. Make sure you contact your home insurance provider to include coverage of EIFS, which may or may not affect your policy.
2. Compare quotes and get recommendations from suppliers/previous-customers, but don’t try to force a contractor to lower their prices to the point where they are going to cut corners – you’re the only one that will suffer in the end.

Synthetic Stucco – Why Weeping Holes Are Important

Posted by Admin on September 5, 2011 None comments

Synthetic Stucco (actually known as EIFS) is a popular cladding among both commercial buildings and residential homes in Northern climates because of it’s superior ability to insulate a wall and manage moisture. The moisture management comes primarily from 2 important components of EIFS:

  1. The weather barrier (typically trowel-applied) that acts as a back-up defense against any incidental moisture that gets past the outer barrier
  2. The drainage cavity created by geometrically defined insulation (read: insulation with grooves in the back) and strategically placed adhesive

There are a number of important details that need to be paid attention to, to ensure the system performs optimally. It’s important to note that the drainage system will work even if the details are screwed up to some degree, just not optimally. What we’ll focus on here is the weeping holes though.

Stucco Weeping Holes

Stucco Weeping Holes on a commercial building

Weeping holes are simply gaps in the caulking that is installed at the base of an EIFS wall. The EIFS can terminate 8″ above grade (per building code requirements), above another material (such as brick or stone) or at the joint between floors. EIFS should be terminated with a flashing that is tied into the weather barrier with the use of an EIFS tape, so that water is diverted away from the wall, out onto the exterior surface. Caulking is then installed between the flashing and the EIFS termination (the underside of the EIFS), with weeping holes every 24″ (or per manufacturer specifications).

The caulking prevents excessive wind-driven rain, and/or insects from entering into the EIF system from the bottom. The weeping holes provide adequate area for air flow and drainage of incidental water, while being small enough to act as a deterrent to insects. There’s actually a study floating around somewhere that concludes that the ventilation within an EIFS wall is enough to create an inhospitable environment for bugs to nest.

The lack of weeping holes when caulking is present is strangely common – whether by fault of the EIFS contractor being improperly trained (or maliciously lazy – is that an oxymoron?), a site supervisor lacking the knowledge, or inadequate inspection from the manufacturer. An EIFS wall without adequate drainage from the bottom may suffer from:

  • Precipitate buildup at the caulking
  • Inadequate air-flow for ventilation

Both of which will generally shorten the life of the EIFS wall itself. Will a general contractor who is on the job to ‘get it done and move onto the next’ care? Not likely. The EIFS wall probably won’t fail within the GC’s liability/warranty period, and they probably have backlash against the installer or supplier of the EIFS system regardless. It’s more about ensuring that EIFS countinue to be seen as a reliable, effective cladding for the sake of the future of the industry.

Oh, and the person who ends up owning or using the building. They’re important too.

What Are Geometrically Defined Insulation Boards?

Posted by Admin on February 12, 2011 None comments

A relatively new modification to modern Exterior Insulation Finish Systems (EIFS, or “Synthetic Stucco”) are what is called (geek alert) Geometrically Defined Insulation Boards. What exactly does that mean?

It’s a complex way of saying insulation with grooves cut into the back. The purpose of the grooves is to provide a way for water to drain out that gets behind the system. This helps to ensure that no moisture becomes trapped, causing mould or rot.

Why is this necessary? Well, it’s not if EIFS is installed by a skilled applicator, but was implemented to further assuage the fears of Architects. The problem is that even when the Architect properly specifies a system, General Contractors (and home owners) don’t always pay for true skilled applicators – and the applicators who charge less typically do so because they’re inexperienced. Less experience means higher chances of screwing up some part of an EIFS installation.

A popular argument against EIFS with drainage channels formed from cementitious adhesive (the grey streaks in the picture above) is that  the ribbons are flattened out once  the exterior insulation is pressed in place on the wall. The argument goes that if the ribbons are flattened, there is no longer any way for water to drain out if it gets behind the system. Unfortunately, there is an element of truth to the statement – I have seen insulation torn off walls as part of an inspection and observed a complete lack of drainage space because the insulation was pushed against the wall too hard.

If this was to happen, the weather-barrier that is required by EIFS manufacturers would help to protect against mould and rot problems. The majority of the time however, the vertical ribbons of adhesive stay in tact when the insulation is pressed in place (by a skilled applicator).

The Cause Of The Problem

As with all potential problems with skilled trades, it comes down to hiring the right contractor. Selecting the cheapest bid will not get you actual skilled applicators who know how install EIFS properly. This is the case with all skilled trades though, and not a problem exclusive to the EIFS industry. The problem is that every idiot GC or home owner brags when they get EIFS installed for $6 per square foot, when what they’re really doing is shooting themselves in the foot. The $6/sf “contractor” is typically an applicator who was in the industry for a couple of years and is willing to charge less because they won’t take the time to install the system properly. Whether that’s because they’re not aware of how to properly install EIFS or they just aren’t ethical people is another topic entirely. Other people hear about this then think that paying $6 per square foot for EIFS is the norm, and are shocked when something inevitably goes wrong. The few hundred or thousand dollars they save ends up costing many thousand in the long-run and in their ignorance they blame EIFS.

The purpose of the geometrically defined insulation boards is to help “idiot-proof” an EIFS installation. By creating a second layer of drainage that is difficult to clog up (in addition to the cementitious ribbons), the EIFS industry is essentially helping general contractors and home owners who are otherwise too ignorant to hire the right contractor. While the industry is aware I’m sure that someone out there is working hard to create a better idiot – it’s still a step in the right direction and will undoubtedly help a few projects.

Additional Thoughts

Notice that in the image above, the edges of the insulation board are also cut back so that there is additional means of drainage around the perimeter of the insulation boards as well as within it. Also note that this only works if the insulation boards are installed horizontally (how it’s being held in the picture) so that water can drain vertically down the cavities.

Some people have commented that cutting into the insulation reduces it’s R-value. Studies by the EIFS manufacturers have found the reduction in R-value to be negligible as less than 5% of the insulation is removed to create the channels.

What Style is Your Home?

Posted by Admin on January 23, 2010 None comments

I frequently get asked what type of house a home owner’s is – and what decorative stucco elements fit best on it. Until now, I haven’t been enough of a history-building-styles buff to really have an answer. I came across this the other day, and found it illuminating: style home

There are so many different styles that it would help to have a general idea so that you can search for it, but the features listing of the home is very handy for identifying what style your home was built as. This can help you in maintaining the architectural features that suit your home when doing a renovation with EIFS – using the appropriate colors, and adding the appropriate style (and quantity!) of exterior trim.

In the Queen Anne for example, we know that the home is asymmetrical and therefore does not necessarily need to match identically on both sides of the house (in fact, this may look “off”!). We know that since the timber/shingle siding look is common, we may opt to add “reveals” (grooves in the insulation) horizontally along the wall, to match this effect.

Were you able to find your style of home on the website? What is it?

Unique Stucco Plaza Design: Rounded Corners, Square Cornice

Posted by Admin on September 26, 2009 None comments

This is a great example of thinking outside of the box, and the great number of possibilities you have with stucco. I had always wondered what it would look like to have rounded corners, and not have the cornice moulding contour it. It is definitely the first project I have seen to do this, and was done successfully! On top of that, this was a retrofit, and the old wall actually had squared corner.

Rounded Stucco Corners

EIFS With Curved Corners

Repeated Architectural Stucco Elements

It needs just a few more mouldings over top of the store-front windows and the windows on the second level to further reinforce the horizontal direction that the eye naturally takes, traveling from one end, over each protruding entrance, to the far side.

Very well done!