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I have just recently received confirmation from Toll Bros. that what we
have applied to our house is
“a
traditional hard coat system that includes felt paper,
metal
lath, 2 base coats of a cement, sand and lime mixture, with a thin
polymer
finish color coat”. Ours was apparently the third to receive this
exterior after they switched from the
synthetic stucco after
getting
so many complaints. I would gladly pay for your time and opinion
– I am still concerned about what we do actually have and its
condition.
I cannot imagine that after the lawsuits they have recently been
through
with Dryvit, that they would lie about what's on our property, but
nothing
would surprise me! I will await your reply or I will call to
arrange
an appointment. Thank you for your time.
What you have is one coat "stucco"
They say it has the strength of
Traditional
stucco,
defining their product as something besides
Traditional
stucco.
It is a material applied very thin with a
synthetic
finish.
They didn't have plastic sand 100 years
ago.
The details such as window surrounds,
quoins,
etc.
are EIFS, (Styrofoam) and are rotting your
house
at this
moment.,
If you believe Toll Brothers then you are a
victim
of consumer fraud.
I have tried to present my product, my
trade,
and the way I make a
living in a positive manner, trying not to
bad
mouth anyone too much,
but now I am infuriated.
THE
TRUTH:
Toll Brothers at least came clean and
spent the
money to tear off
the EIFS on 140+ houses in Northern
Virginia,
admitting that
EIFS rots wood framing, sheathing, etc. by
trapping
water in the wall.
The main point that the Toll Brothers
homeowners
won their suit is
that the houses were falsely advertised as
having
"stucco details",
referring to window surrounds, quoins, etc.
that
were foam and EIFS,
and not stucco (portland cement plaster).
What were the details replaced with ? Foam
and
EIFS.
Traditional
is defined as a custom or quality
passed down from one generation to the next. One coat stucco is
probably
less than 10
years old, a new material that hasn't had
time
to be passed down to a second generation. The finish coat material is
the
same acrylic paint
and plastic sand that is used on EIFS.
Maybe
the rot isn't as severe
with a cementious basecoat as with foam,
and
certainly is an improvement over flimsy foam, but still the product is
falsely
represented as "Traditional stucco" and it
isn't.
This one coat stucco was called "hard coat"
by
toll brothers and others
and applied by EIFS contractors-the same
people
who put EIFS on in
the first place. What makes this
grossly
unfair to me, is unfair competition. I have to compete with lower
skilled
people applying a
lower installed cost material.
Another large national home builder that
came
clean and is
replacing EIFS with other materials such as
Drainable
EIFS and
hardy siding is Pulte Homes. All this was
done
very quietly with
very little mention in the press. Why?
Pulte
and Toll Brothers are
large advertisers in the Washington Post.
Much
like the fine magazine
Walls and Ceilings, once the voice of the
plastering
industry, publishes
what their advertisers, the EIFS
manufacturers,
tell them.
If you want the truth, come here, I don't
have
any advertisers nor
do I get paid a nickel to publish all this.
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