Our Process
Inside a stucco repair on your Slavia chimney
Sounding the stucco for hollow spots
Cracks show where stucco has failed at the surface, but loose stucco can look perfectly sound. Preservation Brief 22 describes the test plainly. Areas that have lost their key echo with a hollow sound when tapped gently with a wooden or acrylic hammer or mallet, and the testing is done systematically on every side.
Our specialists sound each face of your Slavia chimney that can be reached safely, mark the hollow areas and measure them. That map sets the size of the repair on the estimate, so a patch is never sized to the visible crack while loose stucco sits just beyond its edge.
Squared edges that keep a patch sound
A neat stucco repair is squared off with a butt joint, cut with a cold chisel, a diamond blade saw or a masonry bit, and the brief is specific that the new patch must not overlap the old stucco. A feathered edge spread over the existing finish is thin, weak at its margin and quick to crack.
On your Slavia chimney we cut clean edges around each repair and bring the new coats up flush with the surrounding surface. Where the stucco is scored, the patch is squared to follow the existing lines, which also helps the repair disappear into the pattern already there.
Drainage at the base of the stucco
Stucco over framing is designed to let water that gets behind it drain out. Florida's code (section R703.7.2.1) calls for a corrosion-resistant weep screed placed no less than 4 inches above soil or 2 inches above paving, of a type that lets trapped water drain to the exterior.
Drainage details like this are easy to bury under a patch or a thick coat of paint. When we repair stucco at the base of a framed chimney wall on your Slavia home, our crew keeps the existing drainage path open and tells you if earlier work has blocked it.
When full restucco is the better repair
Complete replacement is rarely the first choice. Preservation Brief 22 treats it as necessary mainly when deterioration is extreme, with the bond lost across a large share of the surface, or when earlier incompatible repairs have compromised the stucco so badly that patching would not succeed.
If sounding shows that much of the stucco on your Slavia chimney has let go, our team explains why a full restucco is the sounder repair and what it involves, from the backing to the final coat. When the call is close, you get both the patch option and the restucco option in writing.
