Buyers beware, i recently received a complaint from one of my customers on a Certainteed siding project that was only three years old and was wavy as hell! I went to the site with a rep from there co and was told immediatly that it was the installers fault. I have been a contractor for over fifteen years and began asking specific questions that the rep could not answer (BS). From there another so called Certainteed profesional came to the site with almost the same canned response (moreBS) i then received a letter from them with more canned responses! I followed up with the email below only to receive a response from another rep with the same canned responses who was several states away and never seen the project!!! (BS BS and more BS)
To date they have never sent any test results that they claimed to have performed, they are leaving me on the hook to replace it.
The following is an email I sent to certanteed,
To whom it may concern:
Re: incident # 00184530
In regards to your recent discoveries at the Ferrell residence in Oshkosh. I appreciate the response and would like to further express my position. After receiving your list I visited a spattering of projects I have been involved with over the years randomly and was quite
surprised at what I found. These projects date back as far as twenty years. I noted that every project had several of the issues that you described on the Farrell project. However none of them looked anywhere near the results we have on this project after three years. With that said there was some instances of minor waving occurring with these projects. This leads me to ascribe that we have a combination of factors that occurred with the Ferrell project.
Nowhere in your response is the answer to my questions that I posed during the inspection. There are areas where none of these incorrect techniques were found and yet these were the areas that were the worst. The other intriguing question is why the north side which was installed similarly had no problems. With the information I have been able to assemble I am convinced that we have a combination of defects that include your product and its inability to handle the suns affects. You have referenced testing but no documented results were provided.
From there I looked at how to address the issues and what needs to be done. First off my involvement as a general contractor was to allow my customer to choose the product that he desired which was yours. This was presented to the customer as a special order and put added burden on me as the contractor due to the fact that I could not return overages as well as extra lead time to procure.
From there I proceeded to enlist the services of what I thought to be a qualified installer. I did look at a project that he had done and it looked adequate. With the customer not satisfied I do have the option of claiming the one year warranty has lapsed and not stand behind it. This position only damages my reputation. I need to stand behind this weather you as a company support me or not.
I have also taken the time to look at just how many CertainTeed products are used on my projects. I was actually surprised at how wide ranging the use of your products are in my construction process. I use FormADrain religiously on every project, so right from the start your name is introduced as a major benefit to my customers home performance. The current
homes being designed are 3D imaged and the software used actually specifies products and shows the customer colors and product selections. I looked at the immediate impact this has on my business, our next project has the integrated tile system, a stone veneer, cedar shake vinyl, and roofing products that are all CertainTeed products. After several production meetings with my staff and associates the support was given to me to specify no further use of any of your products. This puts not only added burden on my staff to assure these products are not used and the research time it takes to determine comparable products to
introduce, it will also add burden to your distributors to ensure me that your no longer welcome in the bid process.
The letter I received was dated 3/29. I have waited to see if there was going to be any follow up from your company with no response to date. I believe we have a product concern and will tell my customer that. I will stand behind his home and replace his siding with another competing product. He has been a great reference for me to date and I do not want him disappointed over a few hundred dollars worth of siding. I will await a response from you for a short period before any action on my part. I would like to respond to my customer by the end of May.
Regrettably yours,
From here i think you can assume i am no longer an advocate of Certainteed or there BS!
My suggestion as a professional is to not use ANY certainteed products unless you are willing to self insure. From my experience you will not be cooperated with if there is any product failure issues. If you have home repairs specify that Certainteed is not used.
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