Did any of the professionals test the depth of the cracking? Sometimes as a shortcut, water is added to change the color, instead of adding product and correctly achieving the desired color. A real professional can mix the right color match, or, many stucco suppliers will blend for you. Just bring them a sample.

tyvek has a product called stucco wrap. it is rippled, to promote shedding of water. felt (tar paper)is also used behind stucco any product for stucco ( stucco wrap or felt) required two layers. the top layer the stucco adheres to, the bottom layer next to studs, is the bond break. this allows any moisture to be drained from behind the stucco. from link below: The solution to the bonding problem is pretty straightforward�the use of a "bond break"�an additional layer of building paper between the stucco and the water management layer building paper (two layers of building paper). The best bond break between building paper and stucco, is, you guessed it, another layer of building paper (Figure 1). Similarly, a building paper bond break should be used between plastic building papers and stucco. For reasons that are not quite understood3 plastic building papers do not make as good a bond break as paper building papers (Photograph 7). The use of a second layer of building paper as a bond break is not ubiquitous�it should be. Stucco, today, needs every edge it can get. http://www.buildingscience.com/documents/insights/bsi-029-stucco-woes-the-perfect-storm best of luck.

Just checking back and I see I have a few responses. Looks like the notification feature on the Garden Web is not working. Macv, We are not doing the stucco repair ourselves. We just wanted to educate ourselves to make sure we use the best techniques and materials to get a good repair when we hire a contractor. I have watched many so-called professionals come into our complex and their gross incompetence is staggering. Regarding painting the stucco. Since we live in an attached townhouse our HOA requires that all exterior surfaces are painted and match other units. After doing extensive searching I find we should wait anywhere from 60 days to one year to paint the stucco depending on the paint we will apply. Worthy, We do have existing kick out flashing and our chimney was properly flashed when we did a remodel 12 years ago. See picture below of kick out flashing. The water was actually entering behind the old 2x3 downspout (we replaced them with 3â round recently) through an original defect in the stucco. Check out the summons dated June 15, 1989 against the builder: 18.2 DEFECTIVE EXTERIOR WALL WATERPROOFING SYSTEMS: The exterior wall waterproofing system is defective and has caused or contributed to conditions of leakage and failure in that, without limit: the paper waterproofing membrane behind the exterior stucco directs or permits water entry into building framing at doors, windows trim, corners, angles, and elsewhere; stucco weepscreed was variously not installed, improperly installed or installed at elevations too close to roofing surfaces; the stucco contains areas in which the final stucco coat or layer is missing. Contains areas in which the scratch coat or layer is missing, was installed prior to installation of flashings or proper flashings at and around door openings and window openings, contains voids or openings, otherwise fails to prevent water penetration at the building exteriors and was not installed in accord with project plans. The lawsuit was settled 14 years ago and there is no way to go after the builder and our HOA said stucco is now the responsibility of the individual homeowners.

So we spent a good amount of time outside over dinner looking at paint swatches and discussing many variables. We think we might have a solution but wanted some opinions. We want our home to "pop" in a good way when we're done. We have decided to not make the shutters and just hang the old plywood when a storm comes through. Tell us what you think and if celerygirl or anyone else can do a mock-up to show us what this would look like, we'd greatly appreciate it! BASE COLOR - SW 6186 Dried Thyme or SW 6187 Rosemary (concerned that Rosemary might be a little too dark. All walls and gutters in this color. TRIM COLOR - SW 7746 Rushing River - columns, garage door, trim ACCENT COLOR 1 - SW 2824 Renwick Golden Oak (or something else that looks like the cedar wood color) - main fence color (which will be sealed). Maybe also paint on the side gables??? We're still unsettled what to do with those side gables. The one on the front of the house (above the garage) is small, but the sides ones are pretty large. ACCENT COLOR 2 - SW 6994 Greenblack - front door and top lattice of the fence to tie it all in. Plus we plan to replace the coach lighting and it will be painted greenblack along with the rod iron wall plant hangers, patio furniture, etc. will all be refreshed with greenblack. Question - should the gutters look best the same as the wall or trim color? We'd like to have it not stand out. Is 4 colors too busy? Funny how we started off saying we would definitely keep the trim white and we decided to not stick with the white and as soon as I logged back on I read the suggestion from raee_gw zone 5b-6a Ohio. Thank you!