More Faux Materials Pop up in New-Home Construction

Many homeowners like it this way
Walk down a street in almost any new subdivision in America and you’ll see traditionally styled houses built with traditional materials. Or maybe not. Although that stone may look like the real deal, most likely it, along with nearly everything else on the facade, is a fake, or, as they say in the home-building business, “faux.” Perhaps even more remarkable, most homeowners are quite happy with this arrangement.

In interviews with architects and home builders around the country, I learned that homeowners care a great deal about appearances, but not necessarily about authenticity. For the most part, this lack of purist fervor is driven by maintenance concerns, not price. The faux materials can cost the same or more than the traditional materials they are replacing, but they require little or no attention. Some can be left unattended for the foreseeable future, or at least over the 20 or 30 years that the owners might live there.

By contrast, natural materials weather as they are exposed to the elements. Depend-ing on the climate and the material, most require some to a lot of care, but most people are so “time crunched” they are unwilling to spend even a single weekend a year working on their houses. They want the exterior to take care of itself. If that means faux materials, so be it.

All the architects and builders that I spoke with said they used the synthetic materials with mixed feelings. Up close, most lack the subtleties and nuances of the real McCoy, but prudence dictates bowing to homeowner realities. As one Washington-area builder said, “What’s the point of using real materials like wood when I know the buyers won’t do the maintenance and the houses will look like my neighbor’s with mushrooms growing out of the dining room window sill?”

The material that suffers the most from weathering is wood – certainly a builder’s and a homeowner’s biggest maintenance headache. In most climates, it needs a primer and a protective layer of paint or stain to keep it from absorbing moisture, and a generous amount of caulk at the joints to keep moisture from getting behind it.
Homeowners should check the caulking annually, and the paint or stain must be periodically reapplied. In many places, this must be done every three to five years. Otherwise, the wood will check, spilt and crack, the paint will peel off and, eventually, the wood will rot. Before putting wood on their new house, owners need to know what they are signing on for.

Not surprisingly, wood is the natural material that is most often replaced. The first faux material to be widely used was aluminum siding that mimicked overlapping cedar boards. A similar-looking product made of vinyl is more common now, and the vinyl can be shaped to mimic shingles as well as boards. But, many architects and some builders objected to both because they looked fake, their color palette is limited, they can be dented by hail, errant baseballs, and pebbles thrown up by lawn mowers and weed whackers; and the vinyl can melt and burn.

But many of these same reluctant architects and builders are now happily using another faux wood siding product, fiber cement. It’s a mixture of portland cement, wood fibers, clay and sand that can be shaped into boards that appear to be about the same size as real cedar boards or real cedar shingles. Installed and painted, it looks very close to the genuine article, and it can be painted any color that the owner chooses. It’s about 1/4-inch thick, about five times thicker than aluminum or vinyl siding, and far less susceptible to damage from flying debris. It’s fireproof, bug proof, and because it does not absorb moisture, it holds paint well. Owners can go as long as 15 years between paint jobs, compared to wood. It is also more durable than vinyl or aluminum-some manufacturers, including James Hardie, warrants its fiber cement siding for 50 years.

Wood siding is not the only wood element on the exterior to cause maintenance migraines. Less noticeable, but equally important, is the trim at the corners, and around windows, doors and the roof edge. This is an issue even when the siding is a non-wood material such as brick. Fiber cement can also be used for the trim pieces, and builders and architects like it for the same reasons they favor it for siding. Another wood trim substitute that is increasingly popular is cellular polyvinyl chloride. It has the density and resistance of pine without the downside – it doesn’t rot or absorb moisture and it holds paint extremely well.

Maintenance-averse homeowners who want a trim material made with recycled content can use MoistureShield, a composite material made of recycled wood fibers, plastic grocery bags, palette shrinkwrap and plastic milk jugs. It is similar to composite decking boards, and its manufacturer, A.E.R.T (Advanced Environmental Recycling Technologies), also makes ChoiceDek. MoistureShield boards have been used for siding, but the manufacturer has not tested them for this purpose and does not recommend it at this time. As with the other nonwood trim boards, Moisture-Shield also holds paint extremely well.

Not every natural material is a maintenance headache, however. Some, such as stone, are just pricey and have never been widely used. The stone that you see in new-home communities all over the country today is undoubtedly the faux look-alike, or generically speaking, manufactured stone veneer. It’s about half the cost of real stone and meets the builders’ need to offer something more upscale for higher-end homes. The faux stone is made with portland cement, sand and the same iron oxides that color real stone. The mix is cast in molds made from real stones, but the finished veneer is only about 2 inches thick and weighs 75 percent less. In the past, the faux stone looked clearly fake, but today’s product can be remarkably realistic looking, so much so that “you have to tap it to tell,” Newport Beach, Calif., architect Jeff Lake said. The faux has a thud; real stone has more of a ping.

In some new-home communities, the stone may actually be the genuine article. But, it’s a thin, 1-inch veneer, not the full thickness of natural material, which can be as thick as 8 inches. The veneered stone, which costs a bit more than the faux product, was introduced about four years ago and is not yet in wide use.

Some materials on new houses are the traditional ones they appear to be because home builders found that the synthetic look-alikes had their own set of problems. A case in point is stucco. Weathering was never an issue, but the synthetic product known as EIFS—for “exterior insulation and finish system”—promised to be faster and easier to install, and it offered designers the opportunity to add more interest and complexity to the exterior surface without great expense. Unfortunately, installing EIFS correctly requires a degree of precision that is not always possible in residential construction. When incorrectly installed, rainwater can get into the wall and cause mold problems. Another unexpected EIFS problem is woodpeckers. In some areas, including South Florida, it has proved irresistible to woodpeckers and they drill holes in it.

All this has led home builders back to the “old way,” and this is the stucco that you see on new houses now. The stucco industry has refined the specifics over the years, but the basic idea is the same as it has been for at least the last four or five centuries: a mixture of sand, lime, and cement applied in two or three coats.

Manufacturers not specifically mentioned in the text:

Fiber Cement trim: www.jameshardie.com
Cellular polyvinyl chloride trim: www.azek.com and www.synboard.com
Recycled wood and plastic trim: www.moistureshield.com

Manufactured Stone Veneer: There are at least 200 firms in the U.S. that make this product. The two biggest ones that offer the most varied stones are www.culturedstone.com and www.eldoradostone.com.

Copyright 2005 Katherine Salant. Reprinted with permission. Inman News.

Trimming the Risk of Tree Hazards

Spring and summer storms can bring high wind and heavy rain, causing trees and branches to come crashing down on homes, cars or in the yard, often leading to costly repairs.

That’s why the Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) created Still Standing: Trim Your Risk of Tree Problems. The new guide helps detect signs of potential problems and remedy hazards before a storm and explains how to go about clearing debris after a storm.

This guide was produced with the support of the Mutual Assurance Society of Virginia Fund of the Community Foundation. To view the guide online or order copies, go to www.ibhs.org/publications/ view.asp?id=550.