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My name is David Worthington and I’m the owner-operator of Worthington’s Painting Inc. We are a small custom residential repaint company located about 25 miles northwest of Orlando in Apopka, FL. (Repaint Stucco Home)

In this article, we will be covering in great detail how to repaint a stucco home (deep in degradation).

Including the recommended processes and products from Benjamin Moore and Sherwin Williams. Remember before commenting that we are located in Central Florida and the topic is repainting stucco with heavy chalk (deep degradation).

Degredation

Let’s talk about degradation and explain what we’re looking at in the picture to the right. Degradation simply means degrading or breaking down something. Here we are referring to the natural breakdown of the paint. (Repaint Stucco Home)

Exterior Paint Failure
Exterior Paint Failure

What is paint made up of (simplify) PBS? Pigment, binder, and solvent. The pigment is the colorant (chalk), the binder is the glue (latex) and the solvent is the (water) which evaporates out leaving a solid colored film.

Paint is predominantly broken down by 2 natural occurrences. Ultraviolet rays from the sun and rain. Ultraviolet rays from the sun, damage the bond between the pigment and binder causing them to hang loose on the surface of the film. Then the rain washes them away causing what we call “faded paint”.

Aesthetics and Protection

Not only is faded paint not pretty to look at, but it’s also an indication that the integrity of your coating is no longer sound. This simply means you have less protection for your building materials. No need to freak out, 90% of all homes we encounter look like this. (Repaint Stucco Home)

Paint failure isn’t a bad word or something you should take personally. Every paint job will experience paint failure sooner or later. It is our job to make sure it doesn’t happen prematurely. Premature paint failure is 99.9% of the time the fault of the applicator. Either they didn’t follow proper surface preparation or didn’t apply ample product.  (Repaint Stucco Home)

 Stucco Cracks

Stucco cracks can most commonly occur when stucco is curing. Also as foundations are settling and

stucco crack

when stucco is open to the elements from paint degradation for long periods of time. As pictured to the left we can see that some stucco cracks will actually follow the concrete blocks mortar joint hence

they are known in the industry as stair-step cracks. The masonry texture has also delaminated on the bald spots to the left of the photo. Stucco cracks can be dangerous if left untreated by allowing water to enter the home or even causing delimitation. We will go over the solution later in this article.

(Repaint Stucco Home)

I’ll start out by actually listing all the steps in the process and get into the fundamental differences in products between Benjamin Moore and Sherwin Williams further down the page. (Repaint Stucco Home)

1) Trench around the foundation of the home. This is done primarily to paint below the substate so that if erosion occurs you won’t see the line where you stopped painting had you not trenched.

repaint stucco home

2) Pressure wash the paintable surfaces of the home. Removing heavy chalk ( remember simply pressure washing a chalky surface may remove heavy chalk but will not remove microscopic chalk deposits). Along with heavy chalk, we’re eradicating dirt, mold, fungus, mildew, cobwebs, insect nests, etc… Were also probing for loose paint. (Repaint Stucco Home)

We personally do not use any cleaners due to the fact that we don’t want to be responsible for poisoning wildlife, killing grass or shrubs, etc… Sealers will kill mold/algae by cutting off 3 essential items needed for life (water, air, and sunlight).  In other words please stop using bleach.

3) Mask windows, lights, etc… Cover with paper and plastic to protect against overspray.

4) Apply masonry conditioner and or sealer/primer (this is where the two companies start to differ which we will address later in the article).

stucco crack patch

5) Apply textured brush grade elastomeric patch to stucco crack. Do not do this process before sealing the surface because this compound could delaminate from a chalking surface. (Repaint Stucco Home)

6) If the corner bead is rusting use a rust-inhibiting primer. Newer homes come equipped with plastic corner beads, (genius idea).

7) Finally a thick coat of premium paint sprayed and back rolled.  I’ll go into detail later in this article where we will talk about an accurate way of describing the thickness of a paint job. It’s not the # of coats you put on it’s the (DFT) dry film thickness of the coat that matters. (Repaint Stucco Home)

2 Coat Paint Job

If I told you I could load up my sprayer and paint your whole house with 3 gallons of paint you would probably laugh. But in all seriousness, I could do just that in conclusion, yes it would look super thin and probably wouldn’t change the color much but the point of the exercise is that it’s possible.

With that being said forget about the # of coats that probably won’t make it on the surface of your home anyways. You want to focus on (DFT) dry film thickness. That number should be anywhere from 3-4 mil thick including sealer. (DFT) is a measurement in mils (One 1/1000 of an inch) of how thick a coat of paint is after it’s dry.

Measuring

Sounds complicated but it’s really quite simple. You need the actual square footage of the paintable surface of your home. You or your painter should be able to come up with a reasonably accurate number consequently don’t hire a painter if he didn’t measure.

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