A Stuff article.
A group of 144 owners of leaky buildings have failed to prove their claim that James Hardie’s Harditex fibre cement cladding boards were the cause of leaks and rot in their homes.
The homeowners sued James Hardie claiming Harditex was a defective product, but the High Court in Wellington has ruled bad building was the cause of the leaks, after a case involving more than five months of hearings, and more than 10,000 pages of written expert evidence.
Justice Simon France said the evidence showed fundamental building errors, and failures by builders to follow installation instructions, were so significant it was not possible for homeowners to prove a flaw in Harditex was the cause of their weathertightness problems.