Howdy,

I've got a stucco house that is around 70 years old. Most of the stucco is original. The last time it was painted, the homeowner used a latex paint.

That last paint job is now almost 18 years old and it is time for a new coat of paint.

The stucco has some cracks and patchy fading in areas. I figure that those areas were patched in the past and faded differently than the original stucco.

A contractor told me that latex paint is the worst thing to use on stucco but didn't say what paint was supposed to be used. Does anybody have any experience in this?

It very rarely gets below freezing and hits in the 100Fs consistently during summers here. It is typically dry but every 5 years or so there will be a very wet winter.

(PS. If Red Pear Realty reads this, I tried to get to your ihatestucco.com site but got a 404 error.)

I am currently going through similar with a 1930s Spanish revival and have been told Sherwin Williams Conflex elastomeric coating/paint.

Would love to hear what you have been told re stucco repair for as our bids have been wildly different. I have a guy from Shreveport coming to see my house next week for another opinion …

I'll fill you in when I get a more detailed bid tomorrow. But it sounds painful at this point.

I would like to know what's best as well to advise others.
Consumer Reports does rate exterior paints but not specifically when applied to stucco, not even masonry.
History proves in Aggieland that these paints are rated in order for best value = first costs may be more but labor is less, coverage best & life longest.

Devoe
Benjamin Moore
Behr - the higher end groups

Of the three types of paints, I would think a stucco guy would know best
https://thestuccoguy.com/what-paint-on-exterior-stucco/

I managed a commercial building with stucco many years ago and we used elastomeric paint by SW.

The salesman just left.

He quoted ~$39,000 for a 'full wall restoration' for 4,000 sq ft of 'dressable' wall area. In my case, this includes the detached garage, the house sides, and the side of the house under a patio roof. It's a one story house.

The full wall restoration includes heavy and light stucco repair, raking the soil back from the bottom of the walls down to 4"-6" below grade, power washing the stucco walls to remove the old latex paint, then application of Tex-Cote primer coat and a Cool-Wall finish coat. The cost includes painting of wood trim in eaves and around windows and removal, but not replacing, the existing plastic gutters.

The salesman didn't call it an elastomeric but he had a sample of the two coats and it was stretchy and flexible.

Sherwin Williams Sherlastic works good from a waterproofing aspect. You'll have to check with your contractor if he knows if it attracts more dirt than usual paint and what kind of maintenance is recommended.

The "full wall restoration" means that they will repair the cracks and damaged stucco areas. I figure thatbis about 5% of the total stucco area that will be restored.

I had a third stucco guy out today to look at my 1935 house.

Background. Our house has an addition that was built in 2005-ish with stucco that is obviously newer. We were hoping to repair/re-stucco the original part of the house - where the vast majority of our stucco issues are - and then re-paint the entire house in the Sherwin-Williams product. Our quote - from a different stucco guy - to re-stucco the entire house was $$$$$$$. The newer portion has some hairline cracks that we have been advised (by pros and TexAgs pros!) would be cured with the Sherlastic.

So the third stucco guy recommended re-stuccoing the whole house, but his price was WAY more reasonable than the other whole-house bid we received. He felt that even superficial hairline cracks would do better with a new stucco surface than Sherlastic. Though he did remind us during the conversation that he is a stucco guy and not a paint guy ...

We are still leaning heavily toward re-stuccoing the original part of the house and then paint for the newer portion.

Happy to share additional info if anyone has questions.