A few years after buying a new home in Everett, Bill and Patricia Farrow got a nasty surprise.
Their home’s siding, then 7 years old, had begun to swell and rot. Bill Farrow learned the composite wood siding came from Louisiana Pacific, which produced siding that was the subject of class-action lawsuits.
The Farrows turned to Exterior Restorations, an Arlington-based business with a little-known specialty: replacing defective siding. The company stripped away the old siding and replaced it with vinyl, a product with a lifetime warranty.
Exterior Restorations owner Tony Connell, 42, started the business a decade ago when a glut of homes built with certain types of composite siding began to show problems.
His business will be one of hundreds with booths at this week’s Home and Garden Show at the Everett Events Center. Connell will be on hand to answer questions about defective siding and he’ll have siding samples for homeowners to see and touch.
One of the first homes Connell saw with the bad siding, a nearly new home in Monroe, had mushrooms sprouting from the siding. Work has been steady since then; Connell’s company replaced the siding on 55 homes last year.
Connell said it’s crucial defective siding is removed rather than covered with another layer. Most defective sidings include glues that rot when they get wet and don’t stop rotting. If the bad stuff isn’t removed, the rot spreads, eating into the walls. Connell keeps photos of siding so moldy he could stick his finger through the wall.
He replaces the defective siding with vinyl, hardwood siding or a fiber cement siding that looks like wood, he said. Part of his business is also fixing any damage to the structure of the house. He can replace windows and paint, too.
Most jobs cost between $5,000 and $15,000, depending on the size of the house, the damage and the type of replacement siding, he said. The average job is around $12,000.
Connell said homeowners with defective siding usually pay to replace bad siding even if they qualify for class action lawsuits.
When the Farrows had the siding on their one-story home replaced in 2000, it cost $8,000, Bill Farrow said. The couple qualified for a class-action lawsuit settlement and they received $2,000 from the siding manufacturer.
“Probably a bunch of lawyers got the other six,” Farrow said.
Reporter Debra Smith: 425-339-3197 or dsmith@heraldnet.com.
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