Learn how to fix a stucco patch at the bottom of a foundation

Hi guys, Kirk and Jay here with Kirk Giordano plastering today. I want to show you guys some common stucco stuff, and when I say common, it's common for stucco to chip off at the bottom. It's typical, in fact, especially when you've got the scenarios that we have here on this side. Notice there's no weep screed. It doesn't have to be. Weep screeds were code in 1975, and actually so the house is a hundred years old now when they called me out, and they said how come this is separated that's well you got two coats of stucco on it originally you see the porch there that's the finish that was on this whole house and by the way folks a lot of people call me and say hey Kirk I got a real rough finish can you make it smooth like Santa Barbara and I tell them sure we can do anything anybody wants out of stucco in order to make this wall smooth you first have to put a half-inch to seven-eighths of stucco over it means you've got a pressure wash it we've got to apply a bonding agent then we got a skim coat it then allow that to set and color coat it now notice over here this wall here it's two inches thick you've got an inch here and then you got another inch plus the color coat could they have got this smooth like Santa Barbara smooth mission finish absolutely but they did a skip trial instead now I was I'm looking at this planter box this planter box is ready to fall I didn't notice that until Jay pointed that out to me and I said well I'm sure it doesn't have dirt in it he said that that's full of dirt anyway you see my little buddy right here that black widow ah what I was doing yesterday is I was pulling this stuff out and I told her I said gee you know if it were me I mean granted I don't normally talk cost but I told her look a couple hundred bucks I'll fix this side and a couple hundred I'll fix the other but if you really want to do it right I'd advise you take it off of here you know a couple hundred more and we see some wood that's damaged or beat up because they've allowed this stuff here to grow in there and what happens is this grows in there and over 50 years it push it stays wet it pushes the wood out a little bit each year make sure that spiders not coming down on me each year this keeps the wood wet you could have some wood rot there but it's pushed it out quite a way so what we're gonna do today is got my handy-dandy gloves on I'm gonna pull some of this nasty stuff out here then we're gonna scrape this we're gonna pull back the dirt about two inches I'm gonna kind of clean this foundation up a little bit better meaning I'm gonna take a water hose a wire brush and scrape all this and pull all this stuff out and don't put a bonding agent on here some wire and build this out five inches and kind of pyramid it down and give it the same texture it's more cosmetic what I'm doing because they don't want to get into opening the wall and all you folks who call me and say Kirk how come you didn't do this or that I do what folks tell me to do I recommend things and whatever they say Kirk this is what I want that's what we do anyway we're gonna go ahead and prop a ladder there who knows I don't plan on pounding on this wall but at the same time I don't want to be unfortunate how that thing fall on my head and kill me that's about 80 pounds of dirt right above me that sure looks like it's coming off oh we're gonna go ahead and turn that camera off and next time you see us we'll have this prepped or we'll show you how to prep it and again guys I see this often don't panic it's not that big of a deal but don't allow plants to grow next to your wall and up and that's a big no that's a cardinal sin guys you never want to have planter boxes on your house you can see right here where the planters the plants started to grow all over and even over there those are all falling off too I just happen to notice that cuz Jay pointed this one out when she gets home I'll tell her how are you I get rid of those forget it all they do is rot out the house all right guys here's where we're at now taking a wire brush and a wire brush and mess out of this then I'm hitting it with water because I got to put weld Crete on this to both and plus I'm gonna put some wire there and I don't want it dust and dust will affect the adhering of the stucco big time so we don't want that we got to have it so it adheres earlier I was doing this and Jay says dad don't move and he says that damn spiders on your neck I hit my head so hard on this I thought what are you trying to do man dude just knock that ---- off me got me nervous now but anyway back to playing around here do that and you can put the well Crete on it this is gonna have to set now for at least all 10 minutes 15 minutes because I want this well Crete to dry plus it give me time to put some wire on here and hammer tack it or concrete nail it into this concrete that we have here and when we get to that stage I'll show it to you all right guys now that we have all this prepped they mix me up some bud with a lot of accelerators in it we've got three scoops of luminite what is luminite that is an accelerator to harden this up in five minutes and it's a good thing because it is raining on us right now but by the time we only need about ten minutes and and this coat right here is gonna set that's what looks pretty wet right now which is good now I can use skill rather than muscle because if it was somewhat dry I'd be using muscle to put this on and it looks like that's all we need right here but it's still five inches thick so what I'm gonna do is use this whole bucket I'm gonna keep compressing it because I don't want airspace in the back it's gonna take me a while to do this so rather than bore you guys with back and forth which will take about another 10 minutes I'm just gonna keep pushing it in pushing it in pushing it in so this starts to set up and when it starts to set up and it won't go back any further than it's touching that wall and by that time maybe ten minutes this will be set where I can do this quick tech texture and show you that all right guys change of plans it is pouring down rain wasn't supposed to rain till about five six hours from now anyhow what I'm gonna do is is scratch this and that is already pretty hard if I had another 15 minutes I could finish this up and the other side but no need I'm in no hurry for this stuff generally what I'm gonna do it when I come back you'll see I'm gonna round this off here and finish it but again pouring down rain like this it's dangerous and I don't want that planter box to fall on my head so we'll see you tomorrow okay guys we are back over here it's been about five or six days we're in California we're getting our winter in the springtime it is what it is I looked at this expected it to be washed out but it's not we had a little bubble down here where the rain hit it so what we're gonna do now is I'm gonna put my so-called second coat on and as soon as I get this second coat on I'm gonna I'm gonna give it about all because the coat underneath this will dry out this coat I'm gonna give it about 15 minutes then I'm gonna kill some time on the other side and we'll show you how we do the texture to match this so we'll see you guys in about five more minutes all right guys we are putting the conclusion on this now and it's a week later and I'm still worried about that planter box so I stuck that ladder back because all that dirt in there is still wet now it's even heavier and all I did is put a second coat I kind of like to pyramid my bottoms down just a little bit not so it's very noticeable but so it really holds if you're gonna go this route because it doesn't have the expansion screen okay we're actually four inches thick two because of the two coats of stucco and two just because they never used a screen they had a planter here so now I'm matching it with the texture similar to what they got here and actually the texture the mud everything we just now use was pretty wet because of all the rain so we had to improvise and why we improvised we had enough time to go ahead and caulk a whole bunch of cracks around the house do the other side there and this side is finally ready guys one thing if you're gonna do this don't wait on the mud to dry you could be here all day even us experience guys if you're not certain do something else and just keep busy got a multitask all the time that way you're not sort of waiting for paint to dry or stucco to dry anyhow this texture here now is what we call a fine skip trial finish that's what they used when they did this about ten years ago so I've come here I'll put my finish on it to match theirs and I just I just kind of look up at it and it's it was a skip trial and they just kind of drug it tight and made it flattened it's a pancake but that's okay we can match that and right here where the door was I just rounded that right off round it right off give that bottom a little bit of a pyramid so it gives it more strength and there you have it guys anyhow my name is Kirk I'm with Kirk Giordano plastering Jason and I thank you for watching and as usual I'll see you guys on the next quick fix