STUCCO NEWS.NET

Saw your website and have a question maybe you can help me with.

We built a new addition 18 months ago onto our 1890's house. Wood studs, plywood, building paper, lath. The quality of the construction unfortunately was very poor. The mason put only 2 coats of stucco on. He said the second coat was thick. He then (against my good judgment) applied 2 coats of Thorosheen-a masonry paint. We had roof leaks, I suspect the building paper installation was very poor (large gaps around windows), I suspect no flashing was installed around windows. Immediately the stucco developed horizontal cracks about 24" o.c. all over (even on a small portion of CMU wall with lath underneath). Then over time the stucco developed large (thickness of a dollar bill) and hairline alligator cracks under all windows, along corners and less so all over. I have been monitoring the cracks and the cracking seems to have slowed down. We've had a mild winter with very high winds. I get dripping from the wood sill plate in the crawl space below during driving rains. I fear the cracks are letting in water or the stucco is not keeping driving rain out. I had a mason look at it, he said it was horrendous, that the mason probably stretched his lath wrong and used the wrong sand (brick sand?).

Question: I want mason to remove stucco around windows and repair building paper, flashing and re stucco. What should I do with the rest of the stucco cracks and to uniformly cover the surface?

1. wire brush paint off, power wash and fog coat? If base stucco cracks more, I am afraid the fog coat will crack as well or base cracks will telegraph through.

2. Re mesh whole structure and reapply 3 coats of stucco on top of old? Do I use building paper over the old stucco to keep water out of the old cracks underneath? Is this a strain for the structure to support so much weight, especially since it has been previously wet from leaks?

3. Remove old stucco and reapply paper and stucco? I would like to avoid doing this as the vibrations I am sure will open up new problems elsewhere in this old house.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I say option 3, completely remove the old stucco and lath and start over.

A lot of people claim they can stucco a house, but aren't experienced or qualified. If someone says they do masonry, or drywall or painting, that should be a huge red flag. We tear off a lot of horrendous work. Sometimes, it just falls off. Sometimes people really believe that they can stucco a house. They are so incompetent, they don't know they are incompetent.

Water is coming in from all over, not just the cracks. With no flashing over the windows, and gaps in the paper around the windows, water is deflected into the wall. Also, water is running down the sides of the window jamb causing the deterioration below the window. This also will rot out your new window jambs in short time.

Bear in mind, stucco absorbs water even if it is painted, cracks or not. The water is running almost freely into the basement, probably with no flashing to stop it. One large source of basement leaks is that the foundation projects past the wall.

The tarpaper and flashing should ideally be overlapped, starting from the bottom up.

The important thing is to find experienced plasterers to do the work and not a masonry repair type.

You just can't put good over bad.

Like I always say, when in doubt, tear it out.

Thanks so much for visiting my site.