Stucco repair
The three kinds of crack and what each one is telling you, patching and impact damage, and how texture and color are matched on the wall.
Stucco repairStucco and Plaster Services
Two halves to this trade, and we do both. We repair stucco on any system — traditional hard‑coat, one‑coat and EIFS — and we apply new stucco and plaster from the lath up. Houses, churches, storefronts, offices. Everything below is written to say what the work actually involves, not just what it is called.
Repair
Most calls start with a wall that has begun to fail.
A crack that keeps coming back. A stain that spreads after it rains. A finish that has gone soft or chalky. These are the repairs we get asked for, and what each one really means.
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Stucco crack repair
Hairline and map cracking, diagonal cracks running off window and door corners, and pattern cracking that follows the lath behind the wall. Each one means something different — curing and temperature movement, movement in the framing, or how the wall was built — so we read the crack before we fill it. A crack that is being fed by something will open again in the same line.
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Patching, holes and impact damage
A ladder foot, a mower throwing a rock, a satellite dish coming off, a car door. We cut the damage back to sound material, re‑lath if the wire behind it is broken, and build the patch back in coats instead of filling it flush in one pass. The texture is matched on the wall so the repair does not read as a patch from the street.
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Water damage and moisture intrusion
Stains that spread after rain, soft or bulging spots, a musty smell on the inside of that wall. Water that gets past stucco has nowhere to go — it sits against the sheathing and rots it, and in this climate the wall wets faster than it can dry. We find where it is getting in, open the wall where it has to be opened, and rebuild what is behind the stucco before anything goes back over it.
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Full re‑stucco of a failed elevation
When a whole side of a building has gone — cracking across the elevation, hollow sounding areas, water damage in more than one place — patching it is money spent twice. We strip the wall back to the sheathing, correct the water‑resistive barrier and the flashing that let the water in, re‑lath, and rebuild the wall in coats.
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EIFS and synthetic stucco repair
The “styrofoam kind” — EIFS, Dryvit and the systems like them. Cement stucco will not bond to it and traps water behind it, so it fails again within a season or two. EIFS has to be repaired as the system it is: back to sound board, then base coat with reinforcing mesh, then the finish, with the drainage detail kept intact.
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Sealant and caulking at penetrations
We re‑seal where the stucco meets windows, doors, outlets, light fixtures and hose bibs — the places water actually gets in — and color‑match the sealant so the repair does not read as a patch. Sealant is a wearing part. It hardens, shrinks and pulls away from the edge years before the stucco does, and a failed joint is the cheapest thing on a wall to fix and the most expensive thing to ignore.
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Foundation and stem‑wall stucco
The band of stucco at the base of the wall, over block or the exposed foundation. It takes splash‑back off the ground, string trimmer and mower damage, and moisture wicking up out of the soil, so it usually fails first. It is also where the weep screed lives — the drainage exit at the bottom of the wall — and that has to stay clear and above grade, not buried by a flower bed or a raised driveway.
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Stucco and EIFS inspection
Before you buy or sell, after a storm, or when you simply want to know whether what you are looking at matters. We walk the elevations and the details that control the wall — sealant joints, flashing where the roof meets the wall, the weep screed and grade, the condition of the finish — and tell you plainly what is cosmetic, what is active, and what will not wait.
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Preventative maintenance and recoating
Stucco is not maintenance‑free, it is low maintenance, and the difference is a schedule. Walking the sealant joints, keeping the weep screed clear, dealing with a cracked joint while it is still a joint, and recoating before the finish chalks rather than after. It is the least expensive work we do and it is what stops the expensive kind.
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Pressure washing
Dirt, algae, mildew and the gray film that builds up on a shaded north wall. Washed at a pressure and a distance that cleans the finish rather than cutting it — a tip held too close will erode stucco and leave marks that show up worse once the wall dries, and a scoured wall takes coating unevenly afterward.
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Color restoration and recoating
When stucco or EIFS has faded, chalked or spider‑cracked, we recoat it with a high‑build elastomeric acrylic coating. Elastomeric means it stays flexible — it bridges hairline cracks instead of splitting over them the way ordinary house paint does. It sheds water while still letting the wall dry outward, so moisture already in the wall is not sealed in. It holds color and resists mildew and algae in our humidity. You can match the existing color or change it.
New application
New work, built up in the right order.
Stucco is not a coating you roll on. It is an assembly, and almost everything that goes wrong with it later was decided in the first day or two of the job.
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Traditional three‑coat over lath
A water‑resistive barrier goes on the sheathing first, then metal lath fastened through to the framing, then three passes of Portland cement plaster: a scratch coat keyed into the lath, a brown coat floated flat and true, and a finish coat that carries the texture and the color. Each coat has to cure before the next one goes on. That is where the time goes on a stucco job, and it is the difference between a wall that lasts and one that crazes in its first summer.
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One‑coat systems
Scratch and brown combined into a single pass of about half an inch, over foam board. Common on houses built from the 1990s on. It goes up faster and it is thinner, which means the details — the flashing at openings, the weep screed at the base, the control joints — carry more of the load, not less.
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EIFS installation
Insulation board, a base coat with reinforcing mesh embedded in it, then the finish. Modern EIFS is built over a drainage plane so water that gets behind the board has a path back out — the residential code now requires drainage on framed walls. That single detail is the whole difference between EIFS that performs and the face‑sealed walls of the 1990s that gave the system its reputation.
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Stucco over brick, block or existing siding
Most of the housing stock in Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and Louisiana is brick, so this is a real service here and not a footnote. Over brick or block, stucco will key straight to the masonry once the surface is prepared and any painted or sealed areas are dealt with. Over existing siding it is a different job — the siding usually comes off, or a lath and barrier assembly goes over it, because stucco needs something to key into and a drainage path behind it.
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Decorative and architectural work
Bands, quoins, arches, corner stones and foam trim around windows and doors. The shapes are set out on the wall, then coated and finished the same way the wall is, so the trim moves and weathers with the wall instead of separating from it and opening a joint for water.
Inside the house
Interior plaster.
Plaster is in our name for a reason. It is a different material and a different hand from drywall, and older houses around here are full of it.
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Plaster wall and ceiling repair
Cracks running along the lath lines, corners that have opened up, a ceiling that has started to sag where the plaster keys have let go of the lath behind it. Where the plaster is still sound we secure it and rebuild the damaged area in coats; where it is gone we replace it and blend it back into the surrounding surface so the repair disappears.
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Skim coating
A thin, full‑surface coat over a wall or ceiling that has been patched too many times, or has an old texture on it you no longer want. It brings the whole plane back to one flat surface. It is the difference between a wall with fixed spots on it and a wall that simply looks right under a light.
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Patching after a leak
A roof or a supply line lets go and a ceiling comes down in one spot. Once the leak is fixed and the material behind it is dry, we cut the failed plaster back to something solid, rebuild it, and match the surrounding texture. Patching over plaster that is still damp is how the same ceiling gets repaired twice.
Commercial
Churches, storefronts, restaurants and office buildings.
Commercial work is the same trade with different constraints. The building is usually occupied, the scope is written by elevation rather than by wall, and there is a property manager, a general contractor or a building committee who has to be able to follow what is being done and why. Past commercial work includes a church in Harvey, Louisiana and a jewelry store in Huntsville, Alabama.
In more detail
Six pages, written for the problem you actually have.
If you already know roughly what you are dealing with, start here. If you don’t, send a photo and we will tell you which one of these you are looking at.
Water damage repair
Where water gets in, what it does to the sheathing once it is in, why it is worse in this climate, and what opening a wall properly involves.
Water damage repairEIFS repair
Synthetic stucco and Dryvit. Why cement patching fails on it, face‑sealed versus drained systems, and what the 1990s reputation was really about.
EIFS repairStucco installation
Three‑coat over lath layer by layer, one‑coat systems, EIFS with drainage, and stucco applied over brick, block or existing siding.
New applicationPlaster repair
Interior plaster walls and ceilings, skim coating a surface back to one flat plane, and rebuilding what a leak took down.
Plaster repairCommercial
Churches, retail, restaurants and offices. Working around an occupied building, scope written by elevation, and who has to sign off on it.
Commercial workShow us the wall.
Send a photo and we will tell you what you are looking at — what system it is, what is likely causing it, and whether it needs doing now.