This Window Company's Response
This window company in all represented material stands by its position the windows are not the entry point for rain water claiming any other of multiple possibilities.
Letter states: "...you have experienced water infiltration in your walls adjacent your windows."
No. The truth is that water infiltration is through the one window design and doors. See house inspection 2. This was the inspection by a company truly independent from the window manufacturer. It is also the only inspection to rule out other home construction features.
Letter states: "[the window manufacturer] contracted [the third inspection] an evaluation..." Then later in the same letter tells the homeowner to pay for the evaluation!
This is where this window company seems intent on antagonizing the customer. They contracted for inspection #3 as a means to find a way out from the demonstration of house inspection #2 that found their windows the source of the water leaks.
Letter states: "..[window water test 3] isolated the windows..."
No such isolation occurred as shown in the pictures of window test 3. Only in house inspection 2 were the windows first isolated, then exposed for a compare and contrast.
Letter states: "A number of fixed windows sashes have been caulked [causing the water infiltration]"
Two windows were partially caulked as part of an experiment and leaked before and after the caulking. Other windows that had not been caulked were also tested and found to be leaking.
Letter states: "...second story deck installation appears to be a water source..."
More windows than just the one under the deck leak water. The common denominator remains the same regardless of any condition offered, it is the company's one specific design of its panel windows that are leaking in all the locations in this house where that window design is installed.
On this last point we committed to a thorough inspection, something the manufacturer would not conduct.
After the company's contracted window inspection, we went back to this deck issue to search for a deck water infiltration source their home inspection claims is the cause for this particular window leak (seen at right). This is the window shown in the picture of the company contracted home inspector using a towel to mop up the water collecting on the interior lower window sill.
What we did was go up on the deck, remove the deck plank against the house, lifted the siding to inspect the flashing and wood sheeting for any water infiltration. We found none.
Shown below is the upper deck with plank and lower course siding removed exposing the flashing protection against deck water runoff from entering into the house.
Not content with just an examination of the deck to house water flashing,the next step was removal of the existing flashing to search for water damage to the house sheeting. We found none as shown below with the deck flashing removed and the house sheeting to deck ledger board area exposed.
If the deck flashing was allowing water infiltration, the ledger board to house area and the ledger board itself would show water damage at the minimum equal to that caused to the interior window trim or as bad as the rotted sheeting shown in the leaks and damage section of this web site.
The same home inspector that conducted home inspection #2 was called back to investigate this deck water penetration issue (the pictures above) and provided these written results.
A second point this example demonstrates is that the first and third home inspections were conducted by the same window company preferred inspection company. In both cases of the two inspections they included results that were speculation, not facts, and like the first inspection about the cedar siding the conclusions here prove that speculation wrong again.
The Window Company Letter
What Is Wrong
The window company transitioned from inexact terms of "appears" reference possible water infiltration to using the associated event as fact through use of those explanations for avoiding the basic question of would they honor their window warranty.
What the house inspector did wrong relative to this one point of the deck being the water infiltration entry point was to first have tested the window above the deck without isolating the deck or window below it. In short working top down rather than bottom up with isolating the previous test site to provide definitive analysis of the actual water penetration entry point.
The water applied to the top window fell onto the deck as well as down the exterior siding onto the window below it including the gap opening at the top of the window panel of the bottom window.
With inspector applied water to all three suspect locations of top window, deck and bottom window at the same time it is impossible with any certainty to state where the water entry point is located.
The window company further translated this supposition into fact as expressed in the letter from their law firm. The law firm's use of the terms: "analysis confirmed" and "absolutely"at this point, is easily contested by any that have read this web site.
We assume in the interest of integrity that this lawyer may not have had all the facts available to him when he wrote this letter. Further this lawyer made a mistake by using the "opinion" of the Hurd paid for home inspector as fact. Court cases have already been provided where Home Inspectors render opinion or best guess, not fact. What this lawyer ran into was a homeowner of means, a lawyer and willingness not to be intimated. Rod Kubat made a mistake.