Homeowners Want CertainTeed Shingles Class Action Certified

Top Class Actions’s website and social media posts use affiliate links. If you make a purchase using such links, we may receive a commission, but it will not result in any additional charges to you. Please review our Affiliate Link Disclosure for more information.

Homeowners have requested Class certification in a lawsuit claiming that CertainTeed shingles are defective and the company does not compensate many consumers for problems they experience with the products.

Last week, homeowners Paula and Joel Wetzel requested Class certification arguing that they and at least 1,000 other consumers have been financially injured by CertainTeed.

They seek to represent people who own homes in Washington that are fitted with CertainTeed Landmark 30 shingles that were made in Portland, Ore., between Jan. 1, 2004 and June 30, 2007.

The homeowners claim that the company makes defective asphalt shingles, and when consumers experience problems with the products, does not honor warranty claims.

Allegedly, the shingles’ warranty only covers first and second generation homeowners, leaving other homeowners to cover the damage from defective shingles.

The CertainTeed class action says the Wetzels had to spend more than $13,000 to repair the roof on a their home that was made in 2006.

Allegedly, the shingles on the roof failed prematurely. The Wetzels claim that their home was fitted with CertainTeed Landmark 30 shingles, which are advertised to last 30 years.

The CertainTeed shingles class action says the Wetzels chose their home because they did not want to spend time and money on extensive repairs, but were forced to do so much sooner than anticipated because their shingles began to fall apart.

They claim that as is the case in most asphalt shingles, their shingles had asphalt granules embedded in the surface. Allegedly, these granules are supposed to function to protect the shingles from weather conditions including ultraviolet light, and when the granules loosen, the shingles degrade much faster than they should, can cause the roof to leak, and can then require  the shingles to be replaced.

Allegedly, the granules in the Wetzels’ roof loosened and fell off, clogging their gutters and decreasing the functionality of the shingles.

The CertainTeed class action lawsuit claims that around the same time, the Wetzels noticed that many of their neighbors were experiencing the same problem, and that the neighbors had their roofs replaced with CertainTeed Landmark 30 shingles around the same time.

CertainTeed, the company that makes the shingles in question, is a subsidiary of Compagnie de Saint-Gobain SA, a construction materials manufacturer based in Paris.

CertainFeed has admitted that Landmark 30 shingles produced in Portland between 2004 and 2007 possess a manufacturing defect that causes the granules to loosen and fall off quickly, well before the advertised 30-year mark.

The CertainTeed roof shingles defect class action lawsuit claims that though the company acknowledged the problem, investigated the issue around 2013, and changed its manufacturing protocol to prevent the problem from recurring in future shingles, the company did not honor the warranty of customers who had purchased the affected shingles made between 2004 and 2007.

Allegedly, this is because the company’s warranty only covers the original homeowner who had the shingles installed, and the homeowner after them. Any “third generation” homeowners or later are not covered by the warranty.

However, the Wetzels claim that many third generation homeowners experience the defect and deserve compensation.

The Wetzels are represented by Beth E. Terell, Adrienne D. McEntee, Eric R. Nusser, and Benjamin M. Drachler of Terrell Marshall Law Group PLLC, and by Catherine J. Fleming of Fleming Law Firm PLLC.

The CertainTeed Shingles Defect Class Action Lawsuit is Paula Wetzel, et al. v. CertainTeed Corporation, Case No. 2:16-cv-01160-RAJ, in the U.S. District Court Western District of Washington.