Naperville homeowners who had cracked Allura siding on their relatively new homes got help from James Hardie and Style Exteriors to fix the issues.are getting brand new siding from a company that had nothing to do with the problem, but wanted to help.Fiber cement siding is supposed to last 50 years.
"We are based out of downtown Chicago, this is our community and our city, so for us it was so important that we reach out to these homeowners even though this is not our problem, this is not our product. It was a competitor product," said Atousa Ghoreichi, senior vice president of Marketing, Communications and Public Relations at James Hardie.
"We've worked with the homeowners, we've worked with James Hardie; it's a great partnership that we have there to control those costs," said Patrick McGowan, vice president of Style Exteriors. Since all of the homes are out of warranty, the developer then said it would only replace siding at cost, without profit or mark-up. But that bill would have been roughly $55,000. Homeowners said that would cost too much, and are grateful for the other companies coming forward.
But the four homeowners who reached out to the I-Team said they are not taking the $15,000 because it is not enough to cover costs. Those homeowners recently filed a joint lawsuit and are seeking more money. They also said the initial building contract states that their homes would be built with James Hardie fiber cement siding, not the other brand they received.