CertainTeed Siding Class Action: $103.9M Settlement and Claims

The CertainTeed siding class action was a nationwide lawsuit alleging that the company’s WeatherBoards fiber cement siding cracked, warped, shrank, and delaminated far short of its advertised lifespan. It ended in a $103.9 million settlement approved by a federal court in Pennsylvania in March 2014, with a six-year claims period that has since closed. A separate Canadian settlement and a later lawsuit over CertainTeed’s vinyl siding are distinct matters covered below.¹

What Homeowners Alleged

CertainTeed sold WeatherBoards fiber cement siding with a lifetime warranty for original owners and a 50-year warranty for later owners. Homeowners said the product did not come close. Complaints described premature cracking, shrinking, warping, and large gaps opening between boards, with some siding crumbling and resembling “water saturated cardboard” when it got wet.² At least one complaint alleged the defective product had been on the market since 2002.³

The warranty itself became a central grievance. It covered manufacturing defects under “normal exposure and weathering conditions,” which CertainTeed defined as “exposure to sunlight and extremes of weather and atmosphere.”⁴ Plaintiffs said claims were routinely denied anyway, with damage blamed on causes the company deemed outside coverage.

Who the Settlement Covered

The cases were consolidated as In re: CertainTeed Fiber Cement Siding Litigation, MDL Docket No. 2270, before Judge Thomas N. O’Neill, Jr. in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The court granted final approval on March 20, 2014, and found the $103.9 million non-reversionary fund “fair, reasonable and adequate.”¹

The class covered anyone who owned a home, building, or other structure in the United States as of September 30, 2013, with any of these CertainTeed products installed on or before that date:

WeatherBoards Fiber Cement Siding
Lap Siding
Vertical Siding
Shapes
Soffit
Porch Ceiling
7/16″ Trim

CertainTeed’s vinyl siding and polymer shake products were expressly excluded from the case.⁵ If your siding is vinyl, this settlement did not apply to you. Twenty-one individuals and entities opted out and were not bound by the deal.¹

How Claims and Payouts Worked

The settlement ran a six-year claims period during which class members could submit documented claims.⁶ Qualifying damage was defined narrowly: shrinkage above specified thresholds, warping or bowing greater than half an inch, field or edge cracking through the board, or delamination.⁷

Payouts turned on the extent of damage, the share of siding affected on a given wall, wall size, and how long the siding had been up. A depreciation schedule reduced awards by installation year, from 80% for siding installed in 2013 or later down to 24% for siding installed in 1999.⁷ Regional labor and material costs came from RS Means, a standard construction estimator.⁶ Approved claims were paid in halves: 50% on processing and the balance at the end of the claims period. Homeowners who had already collected under CertainTeed’s SureStart warranty could recover the difference if the settlement award was larger, but could not be paid twice for the same wall section.

The claims window opened after preliminary approval in October 2013 and ran six years. New claims under this settlement are no longer being accepted.

The Canadian Settlement

Canadian homeowners were handled separately. A CAD $7.25 million settlement, approved in Alberta and British Columbia, covered structures in Canada with CertainTeed WeatherBoards Fiber Cement Siding installed on or before July 1, 2016. That claims period closed on February 17, 2023, and no further claims are being accepted.⁸

The Separate Vinyl Siding Case

Because vinyl was carved out of the 2014 settlement, it produced its own litigation. In 2017, Chizniak v. CertainTeed Corporation (Case No. 1:17-CV-1075) was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York against CertainTeed and its parent Saint-Gobain.⁹ The complaint alleged a manufacturing defect that caused vinyl siding to blister, warp, melt, and degrade in normal conditions.¹⁰

Named plaintiffs said their warranty claims were rejected on the theory that damage came from “heat distortion” caused by sunlight reflecting off nearby windows. The complaint called that internally contradictory: the warranty covered “normal exposure to sunlight” but excluded reflection from windows, a feature of essentially any house.⁴ The available record does not show a final resolution of the vinyl case, and consumer complaints about specific vinyl lines, including Monogram and MainStreet, have continued.⁹

What Happened to the Fiber Cement Product Line

The siding you may still see on shelves is not sold under the CertainTeed name. On March 13, 2014, days before final settlement approval, Elementia, a Mexican industrial and construction consortium, acquired CertainTeed’s fiber cement division.¹¹ The line was rebranded as Allura under Plycem USA, and Allura says the formula was reworked before a national relaunch.¹² The settlement fund stayed with CertainTeed and was unaffected by the sale.

1
GovInfo. In Re CertainTeed Fiber Cement Siding Litigation, Final Approval Order
2
Cuneo Law Group. CertainTeed Defective Cement Fiberboard Siding
3
ClassAction.org. CertainTeed Fiber Cement Siding
4
ClassAction.org. Chizniak v. CertainTeed Corporation Complaint
5
PRNewswire. CertainTeed Corporation Settles Class Action Lawsuits Regarding Fiber Cement Siding
6
CCH. In Re CertainTeed Fiber Cement Siding Litigation, Proposed Settlement Motion
7
CertainTeed Settlement (Canada). Frequently Asked Questions
8
CertainTeed Settlement (Canada). CertainTeed Settlement Canada
9
Top Class Actions. CertainTeed Class Action Says Vinyl Siding Defective
10
ClassAction.org. CertainTeed Corporation News
11
Retrofit Magazine. Mexican Consortium Acquires CertainTeed’s Fiber Cement Division
12
Allura USA. Builders Know the Difference