As a director of facilities for the last 21 years I am very aware of the EIFS debacle. Frankly I winced when builders went to Dryvit EIFS but to be honest, most of the leak problems were due to poor application by architects who didn't understand the system.I agree that some unions are great but others suck big time. The UAW isn't a great one. When I was a petrochemical plant pipe fitter in Texas back in the 70's the local union was selling journeyman cards without any apprenticeship at all. I had to fix many a screw up by guys that bought some tools at the pawn shop and said "Yesterday I couldn't spell pipe fitter, today I are one". The problem with unions is the same problem with federal governement. When you put together a large pool of taxes or dues in one place, slugs come out of the woodwork to scoop some up. Corruption is a part of the game.
Now on the styrofoam accent pop outs, I have a personal rule....."No styrofoam below the 10 feet elevation mark. Day to day use of a building will damage low level plastered styrofoam. Heck, even when you put it up high it can be a problem. I had a resort once that had three styrofoam bells in a bell tower about 25 feet off the ground. One day it was raining styrofoam balls and when we got the boomlift to check it out some birds had hollowed out the big bell for a nest. They did the same thing to some corbels too.
