Tips for inspecting stucco walls

Stucco is a unique touch to a home's exterior, but you have to keep your eye on a few problems that can occur. Here's how to watch for those.

• Once a year, examine your stucco walls for cracks. You can ignore hairline cracks, but seal larger ones.
• If you find a long crack, attach a length of duct tape across it with epoxy.
• Watch the tape over the next two months. If it splits or twists, the wall behind the stucco is shifting and the foundation may be settling, which could cause significant damage to the entire house. Have an expert evaluate the problem.

• Do you have a white crumbly or flaky crust forming on your stucco? It's efflorescence. Salts inside the material are being leached out by moisture coming from inside. Get professional help from a mason or stucco specialist.
• Gray or black stains on stucco are most likely mildew. To get rid of them, just clean the area using a solution of one part household chlorine bleach and three parts water. Wear rubber gloves and protect any nearby plants or grass with plastic sheeting.

• If you find a crack that is no more than three millimetres (1/8 inch) wide, fill it with acrylic latex caulk. Clean out the crack using a stiff brush. To keep the caulk from smearing, cover the crack with a strip of wide masking tape and slice the tape with a utility knife to remove the area that needs filling. Put a tube of caulk into a caulking gun and fill the crack. Smooth the surface with a trowel or putty knife. Before the caulk hardens, remove the tape. Fill larger cracks with premixed stucco repair compound.
• Stucco remains fresh looking for decades, but over time it can become dingy and stained with age. Freshen it the old-fashioned way with whitewash. Make whitewash by mixing white Portland cement with water to the consistency of pancake batter. Wet the stucco with a hose and apply the mixture with a masonry brush or a whisk broom.
• If you want to give your home a new look, you can colour the whitewash with masonry dye. But if you do, plan to do the entire wall in one session using the same batch of dyed whitewash because it will be almost impossible to match the shade using a new batch.
• You might think coating your stucco with a sealant is great way to prevent moisture problems, but you should never treat stucco with sealant. It keeps stucco from breathing and might hold moisture in instead of keeping it out, which can cause serious damage.