THE ADVOCATE: …Billy Ward, president of the Louisiana Home Builders Association, said he hadn’t heard of the glass-infused wood product, but he noted that he’s seen “many products come and go” during his three decades in the industry.
“It’s incumbent upon us as professional builders to vet any new product, to research it, and we have the opportunity to do that,” he said.
Using new products carries an inherent risk of failure, said Loyola University professor Robert Thomas, director of the school’s Center for Environmental Communication… (more)
EDITOR: Construction products fail for one or two reasons: The rare circumstance is unscrupulous manufacturers. They know their testing showed the product was unsound but market it anyway.
Far more common is that it can take, not only years, but even decades for problems to emerge due to product failure or what turns out to be inappropriate installation instructions.
We experienced both situations and will post soon concerning the first typ under “Memoirs”.
An example ofa legitimate problem is how vinyl siding, now ubiquitous, suffered significant failure during the early years due to manufactures’ instructions (“recommendations”) that it be applied over a silver clad insulation board. The result was heat from the sun reflected outwards by the silver clad substrate “cooked” the vinyl and made it bend and twist. Once the insulation board was covered with black tar paper, the problem no longer occurred.
Once the problem was recognized, all manufactures changed their insructions of the course of a short period of time.
Pity the poor home owner!
What can a builder do more than rely on manufacturers’ recommendations, especially if the product is being widely used?
Construction is a humbling industry. We must adopt new materials and techniques but can never be certain what we are doing is correct for the long run. It is also a very democratic industry because each worker brings his own expertise.
