By: Sandra McKenzie

  It's not often that Vancouver gets to play alpha male over Seattle, its more glamorous and affluent neighbour to the south. But in one critical area, Vancouver is indeed leading the pack, if reluctantly. Seattle's construction industry, home insurers, building inspectors and condominium owners are looking north, both for portents of trouble, and for some possible solutions to a shared problem.
 

So why doesn't Seattle have a housing scandal on its hands? The answer is, it does. It's just not public knowledge yet.

  While the saga of the soggy condos that plague the raincoast is familiar fare to Canadians, Seattlites, in sharp comparison, seem blissfully ignorant of the phenomenon. Yet Seattle shares our rain-drenched climate, rapid population growth and hot real estate market. It also shares a proliferation of stucco-clad, low-rise architectural follies more reminiscent of the high clear skies of California's deserts than the leaden cloud cover of Puget Sound or Burrard Inlet.
  So why doesn't Seattle have a housing scandal on its hands? The answer is, it does. It's just not public knowledge yet. "It is happening here," says Seattle-based building inspector Jerry Loomis who has been watching developments in Canada with keen interest. The difference is simply one of scale, he says. Vancouver has far more condos, and a significantly higher annual rainfall - hence the problems showed up here earlier and in greater numbers.
  When it comes to pointing fingers, high on the list of usual suspects is the material used for this substandard construction: EIFS - Exterior Insulation and Finish Systems (pronounced 'eefs"), more familiarly known as synthetic stucco. But the material itself isn't to blame, Loomis maintains. "EIFS is an excellent material, with a lot of design value," he maintains. "It's been in use in Europe since the end of the Second World War with no problems, but there it's used primarily over brick and stone, not wood." It also needs to be installed correctly, he adds. And Seattle, like BC, suffers from a lack of skilled construction workers, especially those certified to install EIFS.
  (When properly installed, EIFS is waterproof, and therein lies the problem. The coating is not only waterproof on the outside but on the inside as well. Any moisture that is trapped behind the cladding stays trapped, creating the ideal environment for hidden rot.)
 

Like BC's condo victims before them, affected homeowners in Seattle are reluctant to go public with their problems for fear of driving down property values

  But as in BC, inexpert construction is only one part of the problem, Loomis says. Inappropriate or badly designed architectural details, poor zoning by-laws that discourage roof overhangs, a building code that calls for an air-tight building envelope, and contractors unwilling to cough up for inspections during construction all add up to a drearily familiar list of usual suspects.
  Like BC's condo victims before them, affected homeowners in Seattle are reluctant to go public with their problems for fear of driving down property values. Unlike BC, they do have some clout with contractors who are obliged to guarantee their buildings for a period of four years. And unlike Canadian home insurers, Washington State counterparts generally allow for repairs before any damage becomes a crisis.
  And affected homeowners in the U.S. have one other undeniable advantage. They have Canada's example to learn from - summarized in a manual to major condominium repairs prepared by CMHC, the BC Homeowner Protection Office and the BC Ministry of Municipal Affairs, and distributed by the City of Seattle Department of Design, Construction and Land Use.

Sandra McKenzie is a Vancouver-based free-lance writer with a particular interest in residential design and housing issues. She lives in a 30 year old stucco townhouse that does not leak.