San Francisco Chronicle, "Little Protection for Homeowners When Materials Fail" Construction Defect Attorney | Lawyer

          Over the past several decades, the construction industry has run amuck in "new and improved" building products that turn out to be simply bad. In many cases, the companies producing these products go belly-up and disappear into the annals of capitalist failures. In addition to lead-based paint (which continues to poison inner-city children) and asbestos (a powerful carcinogen), there have been some spectacular if less well known failures.
          After some manufacturers changed the chemical composition of plastic drain pipes (a.k.a. ABS pipes), thousands of homes were damaged when their pipes fell apart, flooding inside the walls and, in some cases, leaking gallons of raw sewage into living spaces. Even more noxious were the effects of some synthetic stucco products that trapped moisture and led to the mother of all construction nightmares: mold.
          The fake shake seemed to have an ethical raison d'etre. In the wake of several firestorms in which homes with wooden shake roofs burned, manufacturers attempted to make a fireproof roof that didn't sacrifice the good looks of real wood. But water, not fire, ended up as the problem. Over time, the shakes absorbed moisture, which eventually leaked into homes. They also grew brittle and broke when they dried. In the end, the 50-year warranty had no scientific or legal basis; it was nothing more than a marketing promise.

To learn more about the cases Lieff Cabraser's construction defect attorneys | lawyers have successfully prosecuted for homeowners, click here.