But within three years the color began to fade. When her son went up on the roof to clean out the gutters, the tiles cracked under his weight. When she called the manufacturer to make good on the warranty, company representatives repaired the broken tiles with caulk. Under the hot East Bay sun, the caulk soon dried and cracked. In the following year, the faux wood faded to a rosy pink and her house began to leak.

William Horsfall of Moraga had an even more heinous experience with his new Cal-Shake roof. "It didn't last a year," he told me of the roof he had installed in 1983. "It started leaking from the very beginning. From the second year it was leaking in every room in the house."

His warranty provided only a single visit from the company representative. "Then I could never find them again."

Were Bowen and Horsfall just a couple of rubes caught up in a construction con? Don't bet your house on it.

Seen through the refracted glow of PR materials, newfangled building materials often seem to trump old-fashioned materials hands down. Between extensive technical specifications and extravagant warranties, even the most conscientious consumer can be swayed. But few homeowners know the real limits of building manufacturers' claims. There is no governmental body that regulates warranties or building-material defects (excepting those that, like lead and asbestos, can cause grave bodily harm). And despite a wide array of private laboratories that test building products, the manufacturers accept no responsibility for the performance of the products once they are installed. In the end, consumers often find themselves in the Wild West of product litigation when building products fail.

And fail they do. Over the past several decades, the construction industry has run amuck in "new and improved" building products that turn out to be simply bad. In many cases, the companies producing these products go belly-up and disappear into the annals of capitalist failures. In addition to lead-based paint (which continues to poison inner-city children) and asbestos (a powerful carcinogen), there have been some spectacular if less well known failures.

After some manufacturers changed the chemical composition of plastic drain pipes (a.k.a. ABS pipes), thousands of homes were damaged when their pipes fell apart, flooding inside the walls and, in some cases, leaking gallons of raw sewage into living spaces. Even more noxious were the effects of some synthetic stucco products that trapped moisture and led to the mother of all construction nightmares: mold.

The fake shake seemed to have an ethical raison d'etre. In the wake of several firestorms in which homes with wooden shake roofs burned, manufacturers attempted to make a fireproof roof that didn't sacrifice the good looks of real wood. But water, not fire, ended up as the problem. Over time, the shakes absorbed moisture, which eventually leaked into homes. They also grew brittle and broke when they dried. In the end, the 50-year warranty had no scientific or legal basis; it was nothing more than a marketing promise.

The synthetic-shingle cases are only the latest clashes in the ongoing battle between homeowners and building-product manufacturers. In Bowen's case, a TV ad led her to David Birka-White, a San Francisco attorney who had recently won a big class-action lawsuit against another fake-shake company. When she finally called, Birka-White was preparing a case against Cal-Shake, and Bowen became a primary plaintiff. Actually, it was impossible to go after Cal-Shake, since the company had already gone out of business. The only recourse was to go after Cal-Shake's insurance company. After seven years of litigation, one set of plaintiffs won a settlement of $61 million; the other plaintiffs remain in litigation. "For the average homeowner, the cost of litigation exceeds the price of replacing a bad roof," said Birka-White. "So, many people just throw up their hands and give up."

Birka-White has been prosecuting building-material defect cases for over 20 years. He said that the lack of government oversight and standards for construction materials puts homeowners in a bind and makes lawsuits more prevalent.

"The bottom line is that there's no government entity to which they have to answer in order to sell these products," he said. "Even when the companies are owned by successful corporations, the parent companies are not responsible." Often, as in the Cal-Shake suit, the plaintiffs go after the insurance companies, which fight hard not to pay out on behalf of closed or bankrupt businesses.

In other areas of product defects, there are laws and government agencies, he explained. "But [building-material defects] are not the kind of thing that draws great interest. People are not dying. But it involves huge amounts of dollars."

Even if a company is still in business and the product has a warranty, the company may deny the homeowner's claim. "Some of the fake-shake warranties specifically said, 'We do not cover color changes,'" remarked Birka-White, noting that the authentic wood color is one of the key features customers are buying. "Other times, the homeowner doesn't hold the warranty, because the builder bought the product."

So what's a homeowner to do? Consider those building materials that have withstood the test of time. (Both Bowen and Horsfall have opted for old-school roofing products. She chose a composite shingle, and he a wooden shake.) At the very least, take new product claims with a grain of -- well, a giant salt lick. Whatever a company promises, it's virtually impossible to know if it will keep those promises later on.

"They tell you about testing, building codes, warranties," said Arnie Rodio, an inspector who has seen hundreds of homes ruined by disintegrated pipes, cracked siding and shattered roofs. "It's all false advertising and empty promises."

Carol Lloyd is currently at work on a book about Bay Area real estate. She teaches a class on buying your first home in the Bay Area, and another class based on her best-selling career counseling book for creative people, "Creating a Life Worth Living." For more information, email her at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .
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