Back
in the “StuccoLithic Period” of Earth’s history, several decades ago, I was
really impressed with the many features of EIFS. At that time, I worked for an
EIFS competitor in the metal wall system business. We were having alot of
trouble selling against EIFS. Why? EIFS was less expensive, had better
insulating properties, and could be designed to look attractive in a lot of
different ways.
One
of the most popular design features of EIFS is its ability to mimic other
materials. This includes being a stone, concrete or stucco look-alike. This
feature of EIFS is widely used for many reasons, including its attractive
appearance, light weight and low cost.
One of my favorite aspects
of the EIFS consulting business is working with new products and markets. There
seems to be an unending stream of innovations in the EIFS business, including
the proverbial next-generation EIFS design and challenging new markets.
If
you spend any time working with specifiers, end-users, designers and
contractors who are involved with EIFS, you’ll find out right away that the
environmental friendliness (“eco-friendliness”) of EIFS is a hot topic.
In North America, EIFS is
pretty much a single type of design, namely expanded polystyrene insulation
adhesively attached to the supporting wall, and a thin, synthetic, two-layer,
glass fiber mesh-reinforced coating system.
The recent devastating
earthquake in Haiti has focused attention on many things about that country,
including politics, economics, its history and culture, and many other poignant
topics, not the least of which is the safety and design of buildings there.
When EIFS first appeared in
the U.S. market, designers and contractors didn’t know what to make of it and
were reluctant to specify it, thinking it was flimsy and cheap. Little did they
know that EIFS would quickly become a mainstay in the wall cladding business.
In those early days, EIFS had to be sold. Then the oil embargo in the ’70s sent
designers and owners scurrying to find more energy-efficient walls, and EIFS
quickly became popular.
The origin of the EIFS with drainage goes back to the 1990s. The idea of adding drainage came about due to a rash of water intrusion problems on houses in the southeast. Water had gotten behind the EIFS and ruined the supporting wood structure, causing a flurry of lawsuits and repairs, and sparking the interest of building code officials.
There’s hardly an EIFS job these days that doesn’t use foam shapes in some way. In fact, a lot of other non-EIFS claddings incorporate foam shapes as accents, such as shapes over stucco, block and concrete. Most foam shapes are made of EIFS, while others use non-EIFS materials to create hybrid EIFS-like shapes.
Sometimes, a project’s specifications require inspection of the EIFS. This type of inspection is a matter of a private contract-part of the business agreement to do the work. Other times, inspection is required by statute, as in cases where the building codes require inspection. Most EIFS jobs are not formally inspected: EIFS has not been relegated to the must-be-inspected world of critical construction, such as structural welds or elevators.