Using stucco to refinish the exterior of your house: part 5 choosing the color

In the last blog I discussed some stucco textures I was experimenting with.

In addition to texture, stucco color is a consideration.  The stucco liquid color has a base number of 1319 and the colors that can be had are at this link.   Unfortunately, they cannot be found in my area and the only way to get them is by going through the pro desk at Lowe's.  And to top it off it only comes by the case.   Seeing as I could not get a single bottle of a color to try out and because it takes awhile for the color to reach its final color when it is in the stucco, I contacted quickcrete and they sent me stucco samples of what all the colors look like.  This is shown below:

Based on the color chart, the colors seem to be light colors.  I think there are other ways to color stucco though.  When comparing the color chart to my garage stucco it turns out it really is white without coloring.  Since I like the result I'm going to go with just white finish coat for the color.  If I end up not liking it I can always respray the house with color additives.

Other than that, since my compressor tank did not come in until after the weekend and because I spent an entire Sunday fixing my sister's air conditioner (which by the way was quite a pleasurable experience for me since I like to trouble shoot) I did not get any more practice in.

The compressor tank I bought can be found at this link and is shown below.

 

The ideas is to hook the stucco sprayer directly up to the two tanks before the regulator so that there is large air flow (CFM).  The direct connection is what is recommended in the directions for the sprayer.  The double tank is my idea to have less cycling of the compressor.  Although the down side is longer to fill up the tanks.  The PSI for the sprayer should be from 100 to 120 PSI.  My compressor turns off and on at 130 PSI and 100 PSI and I think this will be ok for the sprayer.


I did manage to spend some time putting plastic on the eaves to prevent the stucco sprayer from coating them.  I found that this product works good for covering eaves when I cut it down the center line for the entire 50' length.  The tape used is poly stucco tape.

 

I have a bit more covering of the eaves and doors and maybe a crack repair and then maybe some more stucco practice to make sure I can get a good consistent stucco texture.  But then it should be go time for the whole front of the house.

That's all for now,   See the results of stuccoing the house in the next blog.

Happy Building!

The Dr.

Using stucco to refinish the exterior of your house: part 4 choosing the texture

In the previous blog I discussed how I gained some practice with applying stucco without applying stucco to the house. This idea came from the stucco book.   In this blog I will focus on stucco textures that I'm considering. An article that shows examples of stucco textures is at this link  Of course experimenting with textures means another weekend of practice before I actually apply stucco to the house.

Before a texture can be done, the stucco has to be put on the wall. I mentioned last time that I was not going to use a hopper because the air compressor requirements were too steep. But a lot of work is necessary to get the stucco on the wall and I was really wishing I could use the hopper because it would be much faster.  For example see this video.  It was also expensive at $260. But that is small compared to the $12000 stucco job I am doing. When I was reading the stucco book, I found out the hopper is also referred to as a mortar sprayer. When I put that search term in amazon.com I found another interesting hopper I had not seen before. It was cheaper at $195 and it had the ability to be used with smaller compressors by plugging some of the holes. This prompted me to purchase the one at this link.  There is also more info on mortar sprayers at this link.

The first time I used the mortar sprayer, I was able to completely cover the piece of plywood unlike the last time I used the trowel to get the stucco on the plywood.   But I did use up one entire bag for one piece of plywood.  The mortar sprayer put a heavy dash texture on the plywood and this is shown below.

  

 

The first thing I tried was to use a darby to smooth it out.   The darby did not get the whole surface flat because there were depressions in some areas.  So if I wanted the surface flat I would have to come in with more stucco to fill the depressions and then smooth it out with the darby.   Once I smoothed the surface out I resprayed the stucco covered plywood with the mortar sprayer with a quick dash coat and then after about 15 to 20 minutes I knocked it down with the trowel.  The result looked very pleasing to me.

I know I was hesitating at the expense of the mortar sprayer above, but the idea of saving time with a sprayer and getting a professional look overruled the hesitation, so I went all out and bought a $355 stucco texture sprayer available at this link.  This stucco sprayer has too adjustments to control the texture of the stucco and can go from a smooth finish to a heavy dash.   The smooth finish result is shown below:

 

 

The finish in the picture can be improved I think.  Its a little bit dashy and that's probably because the stucco mix I used could have been runnier.  The sprayer comes with a funnel to measure flow of the mix and there is supposed to be a steady flow through the funnel but I didn't quite achieve that because I was experimenting.  Another improvement would be my air compressor cycles too much.  I have on order another air tank so that my compressor will have two 20 gallon air tanks.  Also the instructions mention tapping directly form the air tanks instead of the pressure regulator which I was not doing.  Correcting these problems may provide a better spraying experience.

  

When using the sprayer, I found out the surface that the finish goes on needs to be smooth to some extent as the texture coat will show irregularities in the surface.  I also found out that the surface needs to be somewhat resistant to the material thrown at it with the sprayer, in other words wet/soft stucco may not make a good surface to spray the texture coat on because it may splash and make dents in the surface.  Finally, its absolutely necessary to where a air mask such as the one at this link.

The good news is there is good potential with this sprayer.  I like it better than the knock down dash I had done earlier.  Furthermore, the sprayer coated the whole sheet of plywood and only used half a  bag of stucco.  Using the sprayer will mean about a $500 savings in stucco materials compared to the other mortar sprayer method and my inexperienced trowel method and will pay for itself.

Since I bought the other mortar sprayer from Amazon, I was able to return it and get my money back.

Well that's all for now,  Next blog.

Happy Building

The Dr.

Using stucco to refinish the exterior of your house: part 3 stucco practice

In the previous blog I detailed the preparation of the house exterior for stucco.  I did not prepare the entire house exterior since I really wanted to get the front of the house done first so that the paver's that I will be installing wont get ruined.  They haven't arrived yet.

In this blog I describe my experiences with practicing applying stucco.

I only spent 1.5 hours this weak practicing.  That's because the grant seafood festival was in full swing this weekend and I really needed some fried oysters.

 

And don't forget the lobster roll, mmmm so good.

Anyway since I am learning how to stucco, I have watched a number of videos on stuccoing.  A few videos I ran across that were interesting are video video  and this video.  Here is a bonding agent video.   I also read about stucco colors at this link  and this is an interesting how to link.  I also got two books off of amazon.com (link and link) which are good and have a few details that are not on the internet but probably not necessary to have bought them.
  
My house has 2500 sq ft of wall and since one bag of white finish stucco covers 76 square feet or 33 bags is needed I decided  to buy a cement mixer to make the mixing process easier.   The one I bought can be found at northern tool at this link.  It is common to read that a mortar mixer should be used to mix stucco.  But the $250 cement mixer is a lot cheaper and I have found it works good.

Assembling the cement mixer was time consuming.  Getting the customer to do that job must save the manufacturer a lot of money.  To top it off, there were bolts missing, the seal was broken in the box and the directions were full of errors causing me to make errors in assembly steps.  But the mixer works well mixing stucco....very happy with it.  Here is a pic with the stucco being mixed  in it.

 

            

So to practice stucco I bought a bunch of stucco tools.  I bought a smooth darby, serrated darby, a hawk, a hard rubber float, two red sponge floats, a soft yellow sponge float  and  a dash brush.  I also bought the cheapest sheet of orientated strand board (osb) to stucco.   After mixing the stucco I applied it to the wood board with my steal trowel and then ran over it with the smooth edge darby.  So glad I bought the darby, it was pretty easy to get the surface flat with it.  Although I see kirk apply finish coat without a darby so maybe I need some more practice.

My first attempt at stuccoing a wall is shown below:

  

I didn't quite cover the whole sheet of wood with one 80 pound bag.  I must have put it on thick and at this rate it would require 80 to 100 bags to stucco the house.  Hopefully, I can spread it thinner because it is $14 a bag.

Also it dried very white and I am now thinking about getting some off white colors to make the white more appealing.

Next I tried all the floats I had.  I liked the wet sponge float effect the best.  It seemed to leave streak marks so went over it with a dry red sponge float.  The combination looks good an the effect of the float seams to  lighten the stucco up and fill in all the small holes making it look as if it were painted.  Here is a video about using a sponge float.

Next weekend the dash brush will arrive.  And I will give the knock down dash texture a try.  Also I hope to experiment with different colors of white. 

I also read about some texture machine methods that looked interesting.   One is the hopper used in conjunction with an air compressor (the air compressor requirements seem to make this not feasible for me) at this link,  The other is a Gracco texture machine available for rent at home depot at this link.   I don't think I'll use any of these but I always have the option to go over the whole house with these if I choose once I'm done.  I think it is important to have a smooth flat surface with these machines and there advantage is that they are fast.

That's all for now,  See what texture I chose in the next blog.

Happy Building,

The Dr.