Stucco is a beautiful choice for your home’s exterior.

A combination of sand, lime, Portland cement and water, stucco provides a durable weather-resistant substrate to protect your investment from the elements. However, with the Texas heat, severe weather and dramatic changes in temperatures your homes stucco exterior can begin to fade, crack, fracture and chip. Additionally, it can become stained and discolored from atmospheric soil, mold and mildew.

Experts in stucco maintenance

ServiceFirst Painting has the expertise to revive your homes beautiful appearance and curb appeal. Painting and maintaining a stucco home with its rough and textured surfaces can be a daunting task but you can count on ServiceFirst Painting to complete the project right the first time, on time. Outlined below are a few challenges faced when painting a stucco home and the expert advice from ServiceFirst Painting.

Problem: Prolonged moisture can cause mold or mildew to stain and discolor the stucco, as well as prevent the new paint from bonding to the surface resulting in flaking or peeling.

Solution: In order to eliminate the mold and mildew a “mildew bath” is required consisting of a mixture of bleach and water applied to the affected areas. Allow the solution to work for 15 minutes and agitate with a brush if necessary.

Problem: Ultraviolet radiation from the sun causes the binders and pigments in the paint to break down resulting in chalking and a loss of color. Wipe your hand across the stucco surface of your home. If a pale colored residue comes off on your hand then “chalking” has taken place and it is time to repaint the exterior of the home.

Solution: When painting stucco, particularly when chalking and significant color fade has occurred, the following process is recommended in order to achieve superior results. ServiceFirst Painting will pressure wash the surface to remove the chalking and compromised paint, atmospheric soil and other contaminants. Once the surface is clean and dry it may be necessary to apply a masonry primer. Sherwin-Williams Loxon coatings can help solve many of the challenges found with stucco including bridging hairline cracks, and resisting high pH, alkalinity, efflorescence, chalking, fading and mildew for beautiful color and sheen that lasts. Now it’s time to begin painting!

Problem: Many of our customers will decide to change the color of their stucco in order to update the appearance of their home and improve the drive-up appeal.

Solution: If a significant change in color is desired then two coats of any of the products listed above may be required as well as back-rolling to achieve the desired result. Failing to apply two coats of a quality product and back- rolling during application can result in pinholes or “holidays” in the finish. All of these Sherwin-Williams products mentioned above come in a wide range of colors to suit your style.