Buying an EIFS house
I was browsing your Q & A site and have some questions I hope you can answer for me. We are considering purchasing a home that supposedly (have not yet seen documentation) had $100,000 worth of eifs removal on a 1995 stucco home built in Florida. The home is listed for sale and is available for viewing on the web. (so you can see what I am talking about). The listing agent said that there was another contract on the home; the buyers ordered a home inspection and that is when they found out about the eifs and some rotting wood/timber/moisture issues. So, those buyers pulled out of the contract. According to the listing agent, the seller then had approx $100,000 worth of repairs/removal of the eifs.
My questions:
1. How did they remove the eifs?
2. How can we be sure that there wasn't/isn't any moisture issues still underneath the new stucco?
3. Is this a red flag? Should we avoid the home all together?
4. Will a new home inspector be able to tell if there are any existing problems (i.e. rotting timber,mold...) or do we need to have it inspected by a stucco person?
Any advice you can give will be greatly appreciated.
This is a risk, but probably has documentation and photos to support the work claims, but still it is a good idea to walk away.
The key areas is to make sure the windows and roof lines have adequate flashing. If you see the EIFS tear offs on my site the worst of the rot was under roof lines that didn't have a counter flashing or under windows. Lack of flashing over the window rots under the window. A lot of rot is caused by backwards flashing, or flashing angled into the wall instead of away from the wall. Here's my chapter about flashing for reference.
Also, EIFS traps water against wooden windows and sometimes the windows don't open and shut right. Here's a house that we tore off the EIFS. The windows no longer opened and shut. Someone from Baltimore came down and ground down the window sashes so they would open and shut again. The window jambs showed some rot, but were fine without major repairs.
Here's my you tube video on how we tear off EIFS:
After the EIFS is off, the rotten framing and sheathing can be replaced. If the lumber dries out it is usually okay, but after the lumber is partially rotted, it will never be 100%.
It wouldn't hurt to have a third party inspection, but someone truly qualified is hard to find.