Take it off, take it all off. These words are typically not heard on a construction site, but increasingly, we hear this phrase coming out of the mouths of our industry experts. When I say industry experts, I’m talking about our independent cladding experts and when they say take it all off, they are referring to our exterior stucco and EIFS claddings.
You may recall the sensationalized attack on the EIFS claddings back around 2005 where it was a top news story, covering the poor people who had EIFS claddings on their homes. Some moisture intrusion had gotten behind the barrier EIFS and damaged some of the sheathing and framing members. The “panic” propagated by the experts, called for a complete removal of the EIFS cladding and the replacement with anything but EIFS. I say poor people because the panic brought about a misperceived notion that EIFS was inherently flawed, caused mold and therefore reduced that value of said EIFS clad home. Many homeowners were unable to sell their homes if they were clad in EIFS and in fact had their home values drop considerably. Luckily proper education and time have healed the “take it all off” mentality, or has it?