One of the country’s largest privately owned homebuilders has been sued by residents of a 55-and-over resort community in the Seattle area over poor-construction practices that caused thousands of dollars in damages to hundreds of houses.
More than 950 residents of a development called Trilogy at Redmond Ridge are represented in the suit against California-based Shea Homes. Among the claims, according to an article in The Seattle Times, is that Shea didn’t apply flashing around windows, and failed to install moisture barriers on garages.
By the time many homeowners discovered the problems, extensive repairs were needed to replace rotted wood. Possessions stored in their garages were ruined.
The lawsuit was filed earlier in October in a federal district court in Seattle. Lead attorney Steve Berman told the newspaper he’s seeking $30 million in damages and wants class-action status for the case.
“Shea intentionally omitted nearly all industry-standard methods for building homes to withstand our wet weather,” The Seattle Times quoted the lawsuit as saying. “And, even after its first homes suffered from various forms of water intrusion due to the substandard construction, Shea refused to tell its customers of the problems and continued building new homes with the same defects.”
Not the first time Shea has been in legal trouble
Shea Homes has already settled one class-action lawsuit involving mold issues with 850 Trilogy homeowners, the newspaper said. That 2012 case resulted in a $2.4 million settlement.
“We are prepared to defend this latest attempt to expand the litigation,” Shea Homes told the newspaper in a statement. “And we continue to work directly with our homeowners to resolve any issues they may have with their homes.”
Berman, however, told the newspaper that newly acquired emails and internal memos show Shea knew about the problems more than 10 years ago, before the houses were sold.
Shea has operations in a number of other states, including Trilogy “active lifestyle communities” in Arizona, California, Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, and Nevada.
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The Hagens Berman lawfirm posted this and other photos of rotting building components at a Shea development near Seattle on its website. Lawyers representing homeowners claim internal Shea investigations concluded columns on hundreds of houses were rotting from the day they were built.
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It's really a big problem of home owners and I think this is very much considerable and need necessary steps to lve this problem. So thanks for sharing this and hope that th
The problems these homes have are strikingly similar to the ones I have been repairing for a number of years. Unfortunately these defects are systemic in the construction industry. If you own a home in the Pacific Northwest built with Aspen based OSB, a weather barrier, trim, and especially any composite cladding with vinyl windows and it faces south - you have a problem. If by chance it has well thought out seals, vents and drains and a notable gap between the layers and allowances for water intrusion, permeability and surfactants you may fair significantly better.
From the building science industry to the manufacturers and vendors and ultimately the installers the chain of education on theory and method for eliminating moisture rot fungal growth needs a great deal more attention.
I have been repairing this damage for some time now and would like to learn all I can on prevention, early detection and remediation.
I took some time to drive through Redmond Ridge and I could easily spot the pattern of construction that creates the conditions conducive to moisture rot damage. The exterior shell takes the brunt of the weather and especially conditions that create moisture saturation and drainage problems. If the building envelope fails to protect against condensation/evaporation cycling and drainage caused by cladding failures the sheeting and framing will also suffer the consequences of moisture rot damage.
The design of many of the architectureal details on these homes creates the conditions that will consistently cause wood products to be subjected to moisture satiation. This satuation occurs in relatively predictable situations when a home is constructed with the methods and details found in most production built homes.
When the building envelope is either too sparse and applied incorectly moisture intrusion occurs. When the envelope is too robust the problem moves to condensation and evaporation caused by solar and heat cycling working with the various states of water in the assembly - trying to get in and trying to escape.