I insulated the outside of my new home with 1″ extruded foam insulation. I am now preparing to side my house and am trying to decide what to cover the insulation with. Whatever I choose only needs to cover about 12-16″ from just below the finish grade to the top of the foundation, but whatever I choose does need to be approved for ground contact. What are my options?
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Stucco.
Stucco...
Who ever invented work didn't know how to fish....
It looks like stucco is the crowd favorite. Can stucco be applied directly over extruded foam board, or should I attach metal lathe first?
When I took an ICF course a few years back they had some sort of fiberglass mesh deal that stuck on then one or 2 coated it with some sort of acrylic stucco in 5 gal pails. You might try looking in the ICF direction, or maybe someone here can point you in that direction.
As mentioned before, acrylic stucco looks nice. I've often just bought a roll of colored aluminum flashing, either dark grey, or a matching color to the house wall....note that most of the houses here are vinyl siding....so it actually looks decent in comparison.