I would appreciate some profession advice on the prospect of stucco for my home. I’d like to understand better what to look for and what to expect before deciding to move forward. Ultimately, some recommendations of quality contractors in my area will be appreciated.
I own a large (~4000 sq ft) tutor style home in the Kansas City area. The house is about 15 yrs old and it’s time again to consider painting or some other form of exterior preservative. I am considering stucco because I like the expected longevity and I think it will complement the architectural style of the house. Many other homes in the neighborhood have stucco. The home has a natural stone front and would require stucco on just three sides.
The exterior walls of the home are framed with 2×6’s, non-structural insulating panels, and sided with 4 x 9 sheets of hard board siding and painted. There is 1 x 6 trim over the horizontal siding seems. The windows are wood (casement) with recently replaced PVC trim around the exterior. The soffit and fascia are all painted wood.
Some questions I can think of:
- Can the existing 4 x 9 siding be used as the stucco base?
- What is done around the windows where there is existing trim?
- How much of my exterior can realistically be made maintenance free?
- I think I want the real cement stucco, but what about the fake stuff?
- What’s all this going to cost me?
- What should I look for when seeking a stucco contractor?
- Can anyone recommend a contractor in the KC area?
- Do I really want to do this or should I just paint again?
- What am I forgetting?
As always, thanks for your help.
Replies
SamT
Sam,
You want self furring wire lathe. Cement based base coats, and either cement based or acrlylic finish. Should end up about 3/4 thick when done. Several days at least between coats. Make sure flashing around windows and doors is in good shape. Caulk around all trim before the stucco goes on. The smoother the finish, the cleaner it will stay. Even the best stucco job will still get a few small hairline cracks. Not to worry that is normal. Trust your instincts.
CurlyHand Hewn Restorations Inc.
Restoring the past for the future.
Thank you for the advice thus far. Can anyone else weigh in?
the stucco guys around here are all running for cover.. there has been a history of problems with stucco due to mold issues (seperate thread) people are talking to lawyers and getting out of the business as fast as possible..
be prepared for a shock when you get the estimate..
around here it's cheaper to brick a wall than stucco it, lately it's evan cheaper to stone it than stucco it.. the only people still doing it are either fly-by-nighters with no insurance or track record or the really big firms who still have some insurance but charge accordingly..
Edited 11/18/2003 12:43:53 PM ET by frenchy
It's very different here. Probably 99+% of this town is stucco -- for residential and light commercial. There's very little brick, it went out of style after the 1933 Long Beach earthquake. Flying drywood termites make wood impractical here.
-- J.S.
frenchy, are you talking about traditional stucco? I still see a fair amount still being used around the Twin Cities.
Since I visit about 200 new homes a week (sometime many more) I see that most developers in the twin cities metro area are avoiding stucco.. My comments are based on what a number of stucco contractors have told me.
Yes I do see some places where it's still used but not to the degree it was a decade ago nor evan five years ago. I've sold several stucco contractors equipment to get into the framing end of construction since they have been frightened out of the stucco part.
I wish I could get one of those southern calif. stucco contractors here for a day.. I have a little that I need to get done on my dormers and gable ends. It seems as if it's Donnely stucco, or his former employees or the moonlighters..
Here in California, stucco is the finish of choice. DO NOT go for anything but real cement stucco. Here, the steps are: 2 layers of felt paper, wire, scratch coat, brown coat (smoothed flat) and finish coat. Contractors here always wait about a month before putting on the color coat. This gives the brown coat a good chance to dry and crack.
Going over your existing siding is fine, but you'll probably have to remove the battens over the seams. I'm not sure about detailing around your windows, but it sounds like you'll have to surround the existing window trims with stucco "J" mold to give the stucco something to die into and screed. If you do this, be sure to caulk the "J" mold to the window frame edges. I use the expensive stuff from Sika and have never had a problem.
Another thing to consider is stuccoing underneath the eaves. There are various stucco vents for eaves. I particularly like the continuous perforated ones. We call them vent screeds here.
Thanks. Great information... keep it comming. I was not aware, for example, that stuccoing underneath the eaves was even an option. Do you know the maufacturer of any of these vents you describe? I'd like to see a picture or some product description. What about a manufacturer of the "J" mold? (Is that really needed given that my window trim is PVC?)
Go here;
http://www.jlconline.com/cgi-bin/jlconline.storefront/3fbba4d20063ac60271a401e1d290653/Export/catalogs/1011Stucco
And get the "A Close Look at Stucco"
If it is the one that I am thinking about it has lot and lot of details about a good stucco job.
You might want to look at some of the other articles also.
And go the FHB index and see when they last did a stucco article.
You and also use the synthetic stucco (dryvit, rwall, etc.) as a top coat. It won't show the hair line cracks and the color will be more consistent.
There is no such thing as maintenance-free siding. But if you're going to get stucco, get the real thing. The lawsuits referred to are about the fake stuff that's sprayed onto foam. The real stuff has been used since the Roman Empire...
Yes, stucco has been used forever and, like concrete, it will crack.
Here many houses of all ages have stucco and if not maintained and even when done right, it looks old after a few years and has leaks in the tiny and not so small cracks. Ok if you live where it doesn't rain much and humidity is low most of the year.
I live in a stuccoed house and would never use stucco on one. Drive thru these small towns in the SW and you will see all kinds of stucco in good shape to terrible disrepair.
No one brick house, no matter how old, looks that bad and they have not been touched since they were built, didn't have to restucco/washed/painted every so many years.
There is much new building going up today with it. It sure looks pretty. I wish them good luck down the years.
Well, I live in California and it is low humidity- stucco can last a hundred years here. And we can only use brick facing- a brick wall has a distressing tendency to collapse in an earthquake...
Where in CA? We're in Hollywood.
--J.S.
I live in Oakland- it's not as bad as you've heard.
---"...stucco can last a hundred years here."---
This house I live in was built in '34. It has been stucco'd over two times, the last time some 40 years ago. It shows mold lines/big spots that need to be washed/painted, the color faded in places and has some cracks. Looks better under the porches. Would be best to stucco it again soon.
Still, there are many, many around here that were not done that good or just didn't hold up.
Stucco is pretty in the right places, in a SW home, like here, or accents on a Tuscany house or such and it may be earthquake resistant to damage, something I doubt, I don't know. If it was not for the wanted look, which is what you are after anyway, I would think twice about using it if something else is available.
This is only one biased opinion, from living with it.
> it may be earthquake resistant ....
The LADBS type V sheet says it can be used as a seismic shear panel if it's 7/8" thick, on expanded metal or woven wire lath, nailed 6" o.c. to all the wood with 11 gauge by 1 1/2" nails with 7/16" heads furred 1/4".
On older buildings, the stucco isn't nearly that good. in the Echo Park collapse of a couple years ago, the cripple walls failed and the two story building sat down pretty much intact except that all the stucco fell off the exterior.
-- J.S.
My 1957 vintage house in El Sobrante, CA, has a stucco exterior. It is part of a small subdivision of similar homes - about 1200 sq ft single story ranch style homes. They are built with standard 2x4 frame construction with let-in 1x8 braces in the corners. From what I can tell from the unlined areas of my garage, the framing is covered by a layer (perhaps 2) of felt building paper, chicken wire, and about 1" of stucco. This area is about 1 mile from the Hayward fault, one of the more active faults in the Bay Area. It is built on fairly solid sandstone. The stucco on all of the houses have held up very well and all look good. I am surprised at how little cracking there is on my house. And I am amazed that just some stucco and chicken wire on 2x4 framing has help up with no problems, at least so far, in earthquake country.
In '45, the ranch bought two government granaries, opened one wall each and made them into one storage building, stucco on the exterior.
About 1985 we used 2' and 3' crowbars to tear the stucco down to move them and there were a million yellow wasps hibernating behind it. Would have been impossible to do if it had been warm, with those living in there. It was nightmarish, to see them crawl around by the thousands, all over us and the ground.
It holds up pretty well here in the Bay Area- I've owned stucco houses built in1912, 1920, and 1923. They were all painted, though, maybe that makes a difference. Although I've seen plenty of pebble-dash and other unpainted stucco also holding up fine. Admittedly we have a pretty benign climate. On the other hand, there's lots of stucco in minneapolis, and from what I've seen, it seems to hold up okay even in that climate.