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Stucco Wall Repair and Paint
&
Repair Surrounding Roof Area (Soffit and Fascia)
& Concrete Stair Repair
August 12 - 22, 2014 |
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Our house exterior is mostly
brick. However, there are two walls that are
covered in stucco between the house and garage.
Over the years the seam between the foundation and
house on both walls had buckled a little.
Sealant was used on these cracks over the years.
The paint had also started to flake off of the
walls at the bottom. When one of our puppies
came into the house with a chunk of cement in it's
mouth, I knew the stucco had gone past squeezing a
little sealant in the cracks. Some locally
hard rain that came down at an angle had hit the wall,
which did not help
the situation either. |
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Stucco
wall on the side of the house |
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Stucco
wall on the side of garage |
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So it was time for some stucco
repair. I contacted a local contractor to do
this work since this repair is something I had not done
before. |
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Fascia
and soffit repair. Old caulk removed between soffit
and stucco wall.
Repaired and painted photo below |
In addition to the stucco repair, I am going to
re-seal around the windows, repair the soffit that
meets with the stucco walls, fill any holes
that are located elsewhere on the stucco, and scrape
off the flaking paint. All of this to prepare for a
fresh coat of paint that will cover both walls.
The wrought iron gate and wrought iron on the
windows will also be sanded and painted.
Another project is to do something with these ugly
cement slabs. I am currently researching options
like a stamped concrete overlay.
The first thing the contractor did was chip out all
of the loose concrete at the seam between the
foundation and house. |
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Stucco
removed from seam |
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Concrete
patch being applied to chipped out area |
The contractor then filled the chipped out space
with DAP Pre-Mixed Concrete Patch.
At this point, he left for the day to let this
first step dry. He said that the patch was
thick in areas and was afraid that the weight of
the stucco might pull out the patch if placed on
before it set.
He would be back tomorrow to place the stucco on
and re-texture the wall. |
Stucco walls with concrete patch |
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Concrete patch used |
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Rainfall a couple hours later |
And of course...
as fate would have it...
we received the hardest rain we
have had all year a couple hours later..
Based on my mop bucket
which was sitting in the middle of the backyard
patio, we received about 2" in one hour.
In case anyone is wondering, there are no
gutters on the house. In fact, very few
houses in El Paso have them because of the lack
of rain.
Even if I had gutters, they would have filled up
and overflowed with this particular
thunderstorm.
Needless to say, the concrete patch was not dry
the next morning when the contractor showed up
at 7:00 am. He had some dry wall to hang
at another job and said he would be back in the
afternoon. |
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August 14, 2014 - The
repair actually continued the next morning.
This was actually better because the patch had more
time to set. |
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Shallow holes drilled into the patch to help
second coat adhere better |
The first thing the contractor did was drill
some shallow holes into the patch. I asked
him why he did this. I was told that this
will help the second layer stick to the first
layer better.
The next step was to mix the cement mix for the
next layer of the repair.
The cement mix was mixed with a little of the
concrete patch added in.
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The mixture was then applied to the surface of
the wall over the first layer of concrete patch.
Before this layer dried. The contractor
used a smooth float to level the patch to the
existing wall surface.
After this step, he added the texture coating to
match the existing walls. The texture pattern on
this wall is a large pattern called by various
names such as:
-Mud trowel knockdown
-Skip trowel
-Santa Fe
-Spanish Knockdown
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Holes
being drilled into concrete patch |
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Because of this
particular texture, it is almost impossible to match
the existing wall texture exactly. So you will be able to
tell that the wall was patched. The only way
for this not to happen is to apply new texture over
the entire wall. I will be using a flat
colored paint so this will minimize the appearance
of this a little. |
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Concrete
mixture being placed onto concrete patch |
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Second
layer being smoothed down level to existing wall |
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Completed
repair job almost dry |
The photograph to the right shows the completed
walls. The area is blocked off because the
puppies we have right now thought the patch
would be great to eat off the wall.
The rest of the work in this area will be done
by me.
I still have to brush off the loose paint along
the bottom, seal some surface cracks and holes,
seal around the windows, and prep the soffit
areas on the house.
The soffit on the garage will not be painted at
this time because the entire garage roof is
scheduled to be ripped off and replaced with a
new higher pitched roof.
The brand of paint I will be using is an
elastomeric paint called SherLastic by
Sherwin-Williams. This paint is designed
for use on masonry and concrete.
The paint is about $50 a gallon but I use
coupons and wait for sales to bring the cost
down. |
Completed repair job. Some areas still drying |
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I finished painting the section
of the soffit and fascia I had started on, before
the stucco job began, while I waited for the patch
job to set. |
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This
section of soffit and fascia repaired and painted |
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One of the surface cracks I
sealed before painting is shown below. The
opposite wall also had this crack along the edge
where the stucco meets the brick wall. |
Before - vertical crack to seal |
After
- vertical crack sealed |
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I also sealed along the wall and
the concrete patio floor. There was a large
crack that had developed here. I sealed it
with Dap Acrylic Concrete Patch using my fingers to
push it into the cracks and smooth out. The
gap was just too wide for a caulk job.
There were also about 30 holes
drilled into the concrete from a "termite treatment"
for termites that did not exist. Huh?
There was this BS treatment for termites when we
were closing on this house. Something I'm sure
the realtor cooked-up to generate business for a
friend. Both my husband and I came from humid
climates where termites are everywhere, so we both
know what termite infestation looks like. This
house had no signs of termites anywhere. Needless to say, I needed to fill these
holes to keep any more moisture from seeping in
under the concrete slabs.
When I started painting on the garage wall, one
thing became apparent....the stucco patch job was
too noticeable. See photo below. |
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Garage
wall with wall/concrete seam sealed and termite
treatment holes filled.
Paint also highlights very noticeable patch job |
What I needed to do was knock
down the patch job so it would be less noticeable.
I used a paint/rust remover that I attached to my
hand drill.
I did not knock down the house stucco wall. This is
because the stucco on this wall had a thicker
texture than the garage wall. The house wall
was either re-textured before we bought the house or
there were two different workers working on the two
walls when the house was built. |
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Knocked
down patch job |
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Less
noticeable knocked down patch job repainted |
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The completed stucco wall paint
job is shown below. I still need to paint the
area above the windows and sand and paint the
wrought iron over the windows. |
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House
stucco wall painted (the wall is all one color,
there is a slight shadow along
the bottom that makes it look darker) |
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Garage
stucco wall painted |
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There was also an issue with the
bottom stair that leads from the front entrance to
the stucco wall patio. Water that keeps
hitting here when it rain hard had worn down the
concrete. I had patched the left corner last
year when I was about to loose a big chunk of
concrete. I again used the DAP Vinyl Concrete Patch. |
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Bottom
step patch job needed to be completed |
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Bottom
step patch job completed |
I plan to give the stairs and the
cement slabs a faux brick and tile treatment.
As of September 7, 2014 I have finished the faux
treatment on the stairs.
See
this here...
When I have the garage roof replaced I
will see about extending the portion of the roof
over this area, so the rain runoff is not directly
coming down on top of the stairs.
I am also going to do something with the stair
wrought iron.
See
what I am doing to the wrought iron stair rail
here... |
