Fauly siding a headache for homeowners, buyers

The 36 new homes in the Regatta Estates subdivision of Edmonds seemed ideal: nestled next to the South Gulch open space, a half-mile from Picnic Point beach, in a friendly neighborhood full of children. And best of all, affordable.

"To get in under $200,000 was almost unheard of," said Jeanne McDonald. She and her husband, Mark, bought their house in October 1996 and moved in the following January.

One reason the homes were within the McDonalds' means was that they were sided not with pricey solid cedar or even plywood, but with Weyerhaeuser-brand hardboard siding.

"The flyers for the houses in the subdivision trumpeted the fact that it had Weyerhaeuser, which was a selling point then because of the (Louisiana-Pacific) issue," Jeanne McDonald said. "We thought,`OK, no issues with Weyerhaeuser.' "

The McDonalds, and many of their neighbors, have issues now.

On some houses, the siding has started taking on a wavy, wet-cardboard appearance. On others, it is visibly pulling away from the side of the house. One house has a huge, blotchy stain of mildew on its northeast side. On another, part of the siding above the back door bulges out.

For the past few years, several Regatta Estates residents have gone back and forth between developer Crosby Homes and Collins Products, the Portland company that bought Weyerhaeuser's hardboard-siding business in 1996, over who was responsible for the condition of their siding.

At one point, Collins told Kevin and Rose McKay (whose house has the bulging siding) that repair work would begin by late June. But nothing has been done, Kevin McKay said, and at this point, he just wants the hardboard off his house.

"I'm of the opinion that this hardboard is not a viable siding in Western Washington," he said. "It's going to fail over and over. It seems to me that what you do is take it all off and put something else up."

The Regatta Estates residents' experiences will be familiar to the thousands of Northwest homeowners who've had to deal with warping or rotting L-P siding over the past several years.

It's too soon to say whether Weyerhaeuser siding will acquire a similar reputation. Complaints about the siding didn't start to achieve wide currency until last year. Weyerhaeuser settled a class-action lawsuit over the siding last month.

The Federal Way-based company claims there's nothing inherently wrong with the siding. Most problems, it says, are due to improper installation or maintenance.

Siding and salability of homes

Local real-estate agents say L-P's history has made siding a frequent concern of potential home buyers, especially in the Eastside and northern suburbs, where many new homes have been built in the past few decades. (Older homes, built when old-growth cedar was more plentiful, are more likely to have solid wood siding.)

"Some people just don't want to deal with it," said Holly Magowan, an agent with Re/MAX Northwest Realtors in Seattle. "They'll say, `Don't show me anything with L-P siding - I only want to look at cedar or stucco.' "

Other people will buy a house with problematic siding, agents say - so long as there are no other major problems with the house and the buyer is compensated for his troubles.

Patrick Inouye liked the two-story, three-bedroom house in Seattle's Magnolia neighborhood, but his enthusiasm dimmed when the building inspector found that much of the house's L-P siding had swollen beyond specifications - from 60 percent to 90 percent, depending on the wall.

"It cooled my jets a little bit, at least initially," said Inouye, a Seattle lawyer.

But Inouye still liked the house, and when the owners agreed to knock $15,000 off their asking price, he agreed to buy it. The deal closed three months ago; Inouye plans to have the entire house re-sided with cedar and repainted.

Even though the job will cost him around $23,000, he said, he's not upset.

"It's Magnolia, and that offsets a lot of the feelings I had about having to get the siding replaced," he said. "I'm doing a number of things to upgrade the place, so I'm accepting it as just another thing I'm doing to bring it up to the way I want it."

Problems not always disclosed

Home sellers have a general duty under state law to disclose all material defects they know about, said Terry Miller, an agent at Coldwell Banker Bain Associates in Seattle.

The standard disclosure form doesn't ask specifically about siding, but several realty firms do; Miller's firm, for example, asks whether the home has manufactured siding, whether a product-liability claim has been made, and whether the homeowner received any payment.

No such disclosures were made, however, on the Camano Island house that Marilyn Hawkins and her partner were considering as a "getaway" home. They had already made an offer on the house, Hawkins said, and were reviewing the inspector's report when he mentioned, "By the way, did you know you have L-P siding?"

Further inspection revealed that much of the siding was loose or warping, said Hawkins, who owns a public-relations firm.

"Did it need to be replaced right then? No, but it would have to be eventually," she said. "We were buying a liability."

After a couple of weeks of negotiating, the sellers agreed to drop the home's price by $10,000. Even though the re-siding job ended up costing closer to $20,000, Hawkins said, she and her partner have no regrets.

"We actually walked away from the deal at least twice," she said. "We're happy with it now, but boy, there were times when we said to ourselves, is it worth it?"

Drew DeSilver's phone message number is 206-464-3145. His e-mail address is ddesilver@seattletimes.com.