If you are a homeowner or property manager thinking of painting your exterior and you have stucco, understanding that this painting scope is different from others is essential. You will not want to hire a painting contractor without experience in stucco painting.
Ideally, a stucco painting contractor has years of experience painting stucco, selecting the right products, and applying the right methods. If done properly, stucco has a great look. That said, it is crucial that your contractor takes the time to ensure a proper finish is achieved. Stucco is a premium finish when compared to siding or other typical finishes.
Stucco painting is most frequently done via a spray-applied method. This is the most cost-effective and generally consistent method. However, fine touches for certain areas with a roller or brush may be warranted.
Crack Repairs and Corrections
Stucco is prone to cracking and damage over time, and if you want to ensure a lasting finish, it's key to repair cracked stucco. A full-service painting contractor will include for the minor repairs required in of stucco painting services.
Some of the typical methods for stucco replacement or repairs include filling compounds, exterior-grade caulking, foam or additional lath, and rigid insulation for applications to the exterior. These can be trimmed down or reused to both aid in redefining the structural backing properties of the stucco and restore its aesthetic.
With certain exterior envelope conditions, the utilization of specific mastics/caulks to ensure building envelope integrity may be warranted, subject to the architect's considerations. However, in general, sufficient structural backing is just that: a product suitable for ensuring that a crack or damaged area is repaired to make aesthetic repairs lasting.
For instance, a typical application will have material placed into the crack, cut out, and stuccoed over to ensure the surface is solid and meets the same level of architectural and structural quality as before.
Blending new stucco for repairs with old stucco is known as feathering but does not indicate the follow-up painting process.
If necessary, the stucco on the exterior of the building may need to be removed for serious repairs, including installation of the lath. If the damage is serious enough, the lath might need to be torn out, with a contractor providing additional framing/structural services to the wall/facade.
Minor repairs, including of smaller general carpentry works, might be necessary with a painting contractor's scope to facilitate a complete stucco painting service. This is typical where repainting is a temporary cosmetic remedy.
Typical Problems with Stucco Painting
The most common problems with stucco painting are due to the application method. What is key to understand is that stucco has many different textures and angles to which the paint should be applied to ensure a uniform and consistent finish. Furthermore, roller applications and/or brushes may be ineffective in getting larger areas. Proper spray patterns from various angles are required to ensure a thorough painting finish and consistency throughout the exterior of the building.
Your stucco painting contractor must make several passes at different angles to ensure the finish is correct. Viewing the stucco from various angles is essential to ensure the finish is consistent with the human eye. Viewing the finish in different sunlight, such as at different times of the day, might also help ensure a consistent finish.
The stipple and texture of the stucco exterior may facilitate different spray distances and angles at those distances to get the right finish.
Photo Above: Brilliant Colours Professional Painters fine work with a stucco painting project on a home exterior. Typical spray-applied application with a vibrant color that is sure to turn heads!
Overspray from Spray-Applied Stucco
We also take precautions around adjacent surfaces to prevent overspray. Overspray can occur in a windy environment and cause homeowners or property managers serious hassles to clean up. In addition to the paint mix, changes in air pressure or nozzle adjustments can also adjust or reduce overspray.
Properly painting a stucco exterior may involve wind-block (plywood/cardboard) to facilitate a tidy stucco painting installation. Winds at the corners of buildings can be especially troublesome for overspray and the fact that the wind will carry the spray pattern from the stucco painting process and have it land either on the surrounding landscape or on windows for example.
Matching Existing Finish Levels for Stucco
Re-texturing stucco to have the same finish for serious repairs is going to leave your stucco looking a different color… Stucco can also fade with time due to sunlight, but it also gets dirty and needs cleaning, for instance. When this happens, sometimes the best route is to make all the necessary repairs possible to ensure that the stucco re-painting catches everything.
It is possible to fine-touch a stucco repair and match the adjacent colors, but blending is very difficult.
Unlike wall touch-ups, where the shine of the light on drywall can result in seriously unattractive swathes of discoloration(whole wall repainting), stucco can be blended in paint color through skilled use of the spray-applied paint application to some degree.
Stucco repairs are often done in a very unsightly manner and with considerations on fading, dirt, and general light angles, blending colors can be done but is difficult. The services of a skilled contractor are needed.
Choose the Right Stucco Painting Product
Obviously, the correct product should be utilized. At Brilliant Colours Professional Painters, we work with Sherwin Williams products for stucco painting, using products specifically designed for exterior stucco applications. Manufacturer suggestions are often warranted.
Off-brand or stucco painting products not adequately chosen for the job may have a significant impact on the quality of the outcome of the job. We always take recommendations from professional painting product manufacturers with [plenty of experience in delivering the right products for commercial, multi-residential, and industrial projects.
Typical Product Types for Exterior Stucco Painting: Latex, Elastomeric, Epoxy, High-Performance Latex, Water Repellent
Painting Stucco Exteriors at Heights
Safety also comes into consideration for painting building exteriors as tall buildings will require scaffolding or ladder access to properly facilitate painting of the stucco.
If you need to paint a larger building, such as a commercial or institutional project, consider painting at heights. A scissor lift or man-lift could facilitate this. For ultra-high painting applications, specialized tickets are required to operate lifts over certain heights.
Working at height for exterior stucco painting scopes comes with its own set of inherent risks and drawbacks, one of which, being safety. At heights, workers need to have proper fall arrest systems and fall protection setups to ensure they are not at risk. This may require coordination with a general contractor to facilitate installation of tie-off points tied in with the building structural conditions.
Weather Conditions
Optimal conditions for wind and warmth are essential also, (eg. 10 degrees celsius and above). Subsequent passes for stucco painting should not be made unless conditions warrant as such, and the first pass resulted in a quality exterior stucco finish. Minimum optimal painting conditions are typical guideline standards for all painting contractors. When general contractors schedule exterior stucco painting services they should consider the extent to which the weather will affect the scope production and quality.
Photo Above: A stucco exterior painting project, completed by Brilliant Colours Professional Painters, in a brilliant purple-blue that is, again, bound to turn heads from the street.
Stucco Painting Mock-ups
Mockup areas of stucco painting can help too…. In some cases where there is concern that the following painting layer may be affect the layer behind the mockup, a stucco draw could be done.
Pick a contractor who takes the time to find a small area to mock up the stucco painting for your business or home exterior and ensures you are satisfied with the level of finish. You must also pick a painting contractor who respects adjacent surfaces and ensures that any overspray is taken care of….
In larger projects, such as commercial or multi-residential projects, stucco painting mockups may be specification requirements for projects. This means prior to the ordering of products and spray-applied finish of any stucco products, a mockup process needs to be completed for the consultant to be satisfied enough to review and provide any feedback.
Detailed Finish Stucco Painting Work
We ensure total project satisfaction by not only providing a professional installation but also taking the time to advise you on how the product will fade and wear in the sun, as it gets dirty, and what repairs will look like as needed. Furthermore, for those detailed stucco projects, we can take the detail necessary to ensure clean lines between surfaces, horizontal and vertical, making your stucco design truly unique.
Typical areas where detailed stucco painting services would apply include window battens, columns, soffits, around doors, canopies, mansard roofs, overhang roofs and more...
Likewise, spare paint is turned over which is essential for a stucco job, because damage and cracking with stucco is frequent, we make sure your covered for the future damages you might incur from basic home or business repairs and installations, like installing a garden hose.
Other Commercial and Multi-Residential Painting Considerations
Building exteriors based on the building classification dedicated to the occupancy may be subject to specific flame-spread rating requirements. Flame spread on the exterior of a building could be identified as the rate at which a flame can travel across a surface based on standard test conditions from ULC standards(S102).
Therefore, the consideration for flame-spread rating needs to consider not only the construction of the exterior wall assembly but also the coating that is applied on the exterior surface. So, while stucco, in general, is not typically considered a "flammable" material, the classification is based on the spread, where the coating over the stucco would also be considered in meeting the classifications for the building.
If an architect specifies a flame-spread rating to achieve for the exterior walls of a building, these conditions would need to be satisfied, and the painting contractor should be guided in the right direction for the selection of the right product to be applied on top of the stucco. The selection of substrate, or crack filling, for stucco applications and painting would also need to adhere to specific requirements of the original building exterior wall classification for fire-rating or flame-spread rating.... technically.
Conclusion
As a professional painting contractor, Brilliant Colours Professional Painters has a wealth of experience in home, light-residential, and commercial painting services. They pride themselves on outstanding exterior Winnipeg stucco painting services and are fully capable of taking on some of the city's most detailed work.
If you need a professional-grade contractor or have questions about exterior stucco painting for your home or property, please contact us. We ensure your stucco painting project is completed to the highest degree of quality, with the right product, the right surface preparation, stucco repairs, and a host of other exterior painting services. We are also well-versed in following the project specifications or architectural drawings for larger stucco painting projects.
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