Vinyl Siding:
Vinyl siding is thought to be immune to problems -- NOT TRUE -- because it is perceived as being "open" in construction. It's not true and some of the worst buildings I have examined have used vinyl siding.

What does appear clear is that the length of time that it now takes for significant failure to occur is down to two or three years rather than decades and that the accelerated failures seem to date from the 1980's and later. The common factors seem to be that from the mid 80's there was greater attention paid to reducing air movement through the building exterior, thus preventing the rapid drying out of occasional water leaks. In addition, the materials used for the exterior sheathing and cladding have become increasingly impermeable and more unlikely to dry out when wet. The result is that whereas twenty years ago a leak might take two or three days to dry out, now it takes weeks, which is long enough for rot to become established.

It is also now clear that it does not take a lot of water to create these disastrous situations where the entire exterior structure needs to be replaced. It simply takes a small amount of water over a long time. So in order to clear up these urban myths about why Condo Rot is with us here goes with exploding a few of them:

Workmanship:
The problems occur even when everything is done according to code and current Best Practices. Bear in mind that the same tradesmen work on the new Rainscreen buildings and these have very few problems. It could be heightened awareness but my own experience suggests otherwise.

EIFS and Stucco:
When applied using a cavity or Rainscreen system EIFS works fine as does every other type of cladding that I can think of.