Stucco Repair
Spanish Lace Stucco Repair
Advantages: Cracks less than all other kinds. Is the best for hiding defects. Seems to be stronger than other types. A popular stucco for new construction.
Disadvantages: Not many other than it is not considered to be as elegant looking as sanded or smooth.
Spanish Lace is probably the most common type of stucco in the US for good reasons: 1) Its the easiest stucco to apply. By that I mean its the easiest for the builder to apply while at the same time having happy customers. 2) It can be touched up by less skilled workers. 3) Scaring and variations are less visible 4) It cracks considerably less than the other three types.
lf the stucco texture going on my home was my choice, we would use Spanish lace for the four reasons listed above instead of Sanded. I don't know the specific reason why but Spanish Lace is by far the most resistant to cracking. If a sanded and spanish lace home are next to each other and were built at the same time the Spanish Lace will almost always have considerably less cracking on it after 10 years. I suspect the added depth of the texture makes it stronger, but this is only speculation. Cracks are also more difficult to see in the spanish lace than in the sanded.
This image of spanish lace stucco is at a higher magnification. Notice the lack of air bubbles. In my experience this is by far the most durable stucco texture. Its also the easiest to get patchwork to blend in.
Tex Coating Stucco Repair
Advantages: Applies fast. Can be sprayed on over wood and pipes.
Disadvantages: To my knowledge it hasn't been used in the past 20 years. It flakes off in large chunks. New patches could eventually fall off since the material its applied to was not intended to be stuccoed.
"Tex" is our name for a common, but no longer sold or used elastomeric stuccoing paint with sand in it.
I don't know what the material was called twenty years ago but the generic terms I've heard used in Tucson are "Tough Tex" and "Dex Coat" both of which are currently registered trade names of existing products, so for conversational purposes and to keep myself out of court, from here on this 15 year old sanded sprayed on plastic coating will simply be referred to as "Tex".
What ever Tex is or was called years ago, its actually an elastomeric material (plastic) similar to roof coating or really thick paint with sand mixed in it. This sandy plastic liquid was quickly sprayed from a special sprayer onto the exterior walls, fascia, trim, pipes and wires of a wood or block home. The texturing process was completed in one day by a painter. The Tex application process was much less intenseive and faster than other stucco application methods since the material was more or less a paint, and applied as such. Until it went out of favor 15 or 20 years ago, Tex was put on fast, stuck to everything and looked good when new. Hurray for Tex..... Until you get to the disadvantages.
A photo of a Tex coated home I was asked to bid on. This is typical of a home with a 20 year old Tex coating on it. At one time it looked great and now its turned into a giant headache for the homeowner.
Disadvantages of Tex
Tex doesn't get considerably thinner like paint as it ages, instead as the coating weathers and becomes stiffer and more brittle, it will loose its grip on the surface under it. Then large thick pieces start falling off. Getting a reasonable match of the texture is not terribly difficult.
The biggest short term problem is dealing with where the edge of the new patch meets the old tex. When the painter spreads out the new sanded compound, the plastic becomes double thick on the existing old portions of old tex near the edge of the patch, and "ringworm scars" are easily formed by this small area of double thick patch. These patches range from horrible looking to slightly noticeable depending on many variables.
The skill and patience of the person doing the patch has the largest effect how the patch looks when complete. In one exceptionally rare case I had a 70 year old woman show me a patch she did and it took me almost a minute to see the witness line. She worked in her spare time on the patch the size of a t-shirt. She told me it took her 30 hours to get the edges perfect. This shows it can be done if a person is willing to put the necessary man hours into it or to pay someone to do it. Most Tex patch jobs we've completed were actually "paint jobs" on rental homes, and patching the tex was secondary. Our rates have ranged from $1,200 to $4,000 on these jobs. The goal - so far - has always been to get the hoouse patched and painted without spending much larger sums of money.
Most painting contractors shy away from tex repairs because the old tex continues to come off and they don't want to be responsible for this. We not only repair tex, but we will warranty the work for two years. Before providing a quote I'll carefully look at the tex and determine what the different avenues are for repair.
The following photos are from a job done almost two years ago. The first two photos were taken at the time we did the job and the last photo was taken recently.
A tex coated home with the first two patches applied. Notice the scars near the pieces of blue tape. These are previous repairs and the caulk lines are visibly raised up making scars.
During the repair process. As you can see over 19 different spots were patched. This is typical with Tex coats.
The job is finished and some of the patch work is visible. I wish the patches were not visable at all, but the ringworm scarring talked about earlier is happening here. The ringworm scars could be removed with LARGE amounts of additional labor. The problem is for the number of scars needing to be patched it is cheaper and much more cost effective to re-stucco the home than it is to patch each spot perfectly.
In this case the owner wanted his home to look as good as possible for the least amount of money. Which translates into basic Tex patching and painting. Re-stuccoing this small home would cost appromixately $10,000, plus the cost of priming and painting. We patched all around the home and painted it for about $1500. In other words - Patch and paint $1500 or Re-stucco and paint $11,500. Whats important to me as the owner is you as the client understand what the job will look like when we are finished BEFORE we start. If we are in agreement prior to starting a job, then you as the client will not
Synthetic Sprayed
Advantages: Looks great and goes on fast. Is newer method.
Disadvantages: The very few that I've seen have lots of air bubbles when looked at closely, and when patched have to be painted twice. This is a close up view. From a distance it looks great and non-contractors wouldn't normally notice the bubbles.
To my knowledge synthetic sprayed stuccos are produced by serveral different manufacturers. We don't put it on new, so I'm unaware of all of the different properities or why certain types are used.
With regards to painting and patching, synthetic sprayed on stucco has an interesting set of characteristics.
Sad to say, but most new homes are painted with what we call a "piss coat" and with synthetic stucco like the kind shown here thats a big deal. When a thin coat of paint is put on the stucco, it doesn't fill up the pores or air voids. When stucco in this condition is patched, most of the voids are filled in and the texture looks different. The areas with a lot of pores and air voids will look darker and rougher since the shadows from the "caves" are showing.
If a area of sprayed on synthetic stucco is patched and painted it will look completely different than the surrounding area.
Synthetic stucco can be patched and made to look nice, doing so requires painting the entire home with a heavy coat of paint after the patching is complete. Painting after patching eleminates the two looks on one home shown in the photo above.
Once a home has been re-painted and most of the pores are filled in, future patching is much easier to do.
This is the end of the 6 types of stucco section
Variations Within the Categories
Within each of these categories there will be quite a bit of variation in workmanship, which affects the look and also the likelihood that patches can be applied without looking like patches. As another contractor I know says "Great original stucco workmanship is easy to patch and paint, poor workmanship is a pain forever more."
Common Stucco Problems: