It’s a complicated problem. One piece of the puzzle is consumer’s price-sensitivity in the face of complex technical problems. Consumers should pay more for buildings and expect higher performance. But this might be a small part of the problem. Whoever owns this ocean-front building will be faced with unnecessarily high risk of water leakage owing to the absence of sill dams. They will have to re-paint the house frequently, partly owing to the absence of a drainage gap beneath the cladding, and partly owing to the siding being unprimed prior to installation. Finally, the unprimed siding will trap water and bleed tannins into the water-resistive barrier, both if which will contribute to the premature failure of the barrier, which will increase the likelihood of water penetration.
