howdy folks Kirk to Jason here with Kirk Giordano plastering, today I want to show you some loose
stucco but I'm over here to show you something else also this is a well-built house it's only
about 15 years old but we have some stucco separating the integrity of the stucco I
looked at the place yesterday I'd give it a nine it's built extremely well we're gonna walk around
I'll show you this because you can see that the house was built extremely well however we have
a an issue over here and by the way guys we are on top of the world we're above Grizzly Peak in
Oakland and that's high high altitude it's it's it's really high and what we're dealing with this
right now it's it's really cold too it's about I say 50 degrees and it's just really cold up
here can you focus on that Jay okay you folks you see we have some stucco buckling here and
this is a color coat buckling why the homeowners that Kurt I've watched a few of your videos and
I sent him a video of why this happening so well can you explain it a little bit more in depth and
I thought sure I can in fact I'll explain it to you folks more in-depth oh why did this happen
here there's only two areas on this whole house and this is a humongous house about 5,000 square
feet over there too we have it on the pop out on that bay window there's a little bit of this
same happening why is this happening well you can't repair it unless you understand why it's
happening now my my thing was I walked around the entire house and I looked at every square
inch thinking you know you're responsible for this once you do the fix because the fella said
I've had it fixed about five times and it keeps coming off keeps coming off so I looked at it and
I said okay here's why it happened number one the the fellas who came here to do the initial
stucco work they did a great great job but they had about 12 guys I used to have about 15 guys
there was a time where I'd work nine months and then three months for the government my
taxes were like twenty thousand a year paid taxes because I had a lot of guy a lot of guys a lot of
responsibilities now I just work with Jason on the camera and my other sons my brother one guy
maybe anyway when they did the base coat here they did a great base coat they still try out the base
coat and that's a smooth base coat I mean that's smooth as a baby's butt that's really smooth you
want to give the base coat a float finish with a hard rubber float and give it a little bit of
porousness right now this is very smooth but they could have allotted for that meaning how do you
account for such a smooth finish well you either put a bonding agent on it or you keep a water hose
they lost their mechanical bond on here now what's the mechanical bond that is when you're applying
the finish here and by the way this is a Santa Barbara to coat finish right here that they got
two coats I can see it right here they've got one fat coat that's 3/8 to 1/4 you can't watch
everybody on a job doesn't mean they did a bad job but what they originally had here when they
did these two coats or some of its to coat this is obviously one coat work and it's too thick
but that's not why it's separated it's separated because they didn't have the mechanical bond I'll
show you guys something weird or but it's it's a fact that tree over there that tree emits a yellow
type of dust when is sometimes and that dust goes all over how do I know cuz I got the same tree and
that dust covers everything so when they did this wall two things is why this is separating from the
base coat number one it's too smooth and they when the guy whoever did this area here he didn't have
a water hose with them and what you do is you wet the wall and you wash the dust off if in fact the
dust came from that tree and got on this because nothing adheres to a dusty surface so the fellows
here they put it on dry they put it on dry with an it lost its mechanical bond and they obviously did
not have the weld Crete or a bonding agent there's a little number of audience you can use and they
put it on too thick so they put it on thick and what would have happened was this is about
15 years ago the thick coat would have spider check and what a spider checked and spider check
is different from hair lining guide hair lining happens when the houses move the rain lifts them
and they drop constriction and expansion that's called spider checking or hairline this is spider
checking so spider checking will have occurred everywhere here where they put that the Santa
Barbara on much too thick but that's not why it's separated its separated because it didn't have the
mechanical bond okay how are you gonna give it to the mechanical bond first thing we're gonna do is
we're gonna scrape off all this and yes I am gonna wear a mask because I don't know what's in here
I don't want to know it's Santa Barbara smooth mission finished I know that or any of the other
color coats that have the same properties they have silica sand silica sand is very fine it's
kind of like talcum powder you do two coats and you can get a smooth like this but this is also
painted so once we remove all this and remove all that I'm gonna take a pressure washer because if
I were to just take a wire brush what I want to do with the pressure washer is I want to micro
score this wall that means I want to get all the dust off that we can see and more importantly the
dust that we can't see if I use a wire brush and I can wire brush this to the cows come home and it's
not gonna do it it'll microscope it fine lines in it but it won't remove the dust if I put another
two coats over a dusty surface I'm just as guilty of ignorance as the first guy who did this now
the contractor again great job he even got a weep screed following the stairs I give that fella a 9
or almost a 10 because you can't watch everybody on the job so when we come back we're gonna
pressure wash this well and when I say pressure wash I'm talking about 3500 psi pounds that means
a gas-powered pressure washer because an electric pressure washer won't get the dust and dirt and
grime off plus it won't micro score this I don't even know if microscope a word but that means
get all the stuff off and scratch the surface so our new finish will and here in fact I'm gonna be
using a bonding agent anyway guys you can't repair something if you don't know why the heck it even
happened I know why this happened and that's a long drawn-out story of all why it happened but
you got to know it in order to repair it so we're gonna go ahead and remove all this stuff here just
like this here it comes right off we're a mass if you guys do this because this stucco is really
not good to inhale so anyway i'ma get a mask on we're gonna get this off we're gonna pressure
wash it we'll just show you a second of pressure washing but we'll show you how to repair it too
okay guys we've spent about four hours scraping this wall mage and Lou my brother okay now when
we get all the loose stuff off of what we think we hook up this pressure washer and this is not just
a gas-powered one it has a lot of power and what I generally do is we're going to continue to try
what we couldn't get off with a hammer and chisel we got to try to get off with this now watch
you get the idea and again guys this is the result of guys just not applying the proper
mechanical bond which can be a bonding agent like one of these guys here there's a bonding
agents and a bonding agent will work but when you're doing a color code you don't really need
a bonding agent I use it sometimes just for different reasons but if the mechanical bond
is you have to have this wet and you have to have your finish wet and you apply that
and that's how it hears so the owner asked me how come it look like sags too and I said well
they used a paint which was in the last America how to he said howhow do you know and the last
Americans usually all acrylic and that won't allow the water to penetrate and there's a big
issue of should you seal a house or should it be breathable not this video we're not getting into
that but the water went in on the top it comes down and there's nowhere for the water to go
so it bubbles it and every year the cracks get bigger because of its falling the water gets in
it freezes it pushes it out a little bit that's what happened originally water shouldn't even
get behind it but that's another story - and why it bulged in so many areas anyway we're going to
continue taking this off we're gonna apply a bonding agent then we'll show you how we put
it back together alright guys for the sake of video I always start from the top work my way
down which I was doing but here's what you want to do now because because we're doing two coats
of Santa Barbara Santa Barbara by the way is just the name of La Habra color coat that has silica
sand in it all companies have their own names like Bhima has marble Western has its Omega has theirs
everybody every major manufacturer has a type of finish that is say silica sand which is again
called Santa Barbara and that's the most most popular I guess because it's been out the longest
but they all have the same sand grips you got your fine which is smooth your medium which is 2030 and
then your heavy which is 1620 knows numbers just indicate the aggregate or the sand so what we're
doing is we are putting that first coat on it and I just thought I'd show you on video the
first coat and just kind of feather into it and because we're matching a smooth finish here if
this had heavy sand when I go to do my second coat you'll see a transition you see a lot of
sand here cat faces and stuff this is not a perfect Santa Barbara but it's close enough
so we're gonna match that finish and when I take it up here on the joint if it's a heavier sand
say like twenty or thirty my joint would show but when we're all said and done you we won't see the
joint and we're feathering in as best as possible and lastly guys to some areas yeah I know it folks
gonna call saying well how do you know you got enough done well I pressure wash as much as you
can all shoots in your face by the way when you're at a corner like this then we use a chisel to get
the rest then we have to pressure wash again to get the dust of the chisel off so there's a bit
to it anyway when we get to the second coat and we're matching this finish we'll show you that
part too alright guys we are back with the Santa Barbara smooth mission finish best to do it two
coats generally what I do is I'll do the first coat and second coat double it up depending on
the weather here just for the sake of showing you guys I put the first coat on let it set a
good idea for the second coat is to know your mud and if you know your mud you can realize that you
know it's it's always a good idea to wet the wall first and right here I'm just going upward I'm
filling it up and going upward why because they have got sharp corners which means they did it
just like I did they come here upward come here upward you create the bull nose then you brush it
afterwards we created take it here put your second coat over in this this videos not so much about
how to do a Santa Barbara smooth mission finish if you know how to do say veneer finishes which
have a lot of lime in it and so does the Santa Barbara finishing or smooth mission or any any
type of smooth they have a lot of lime so they you have to know how much to trial and waters
necessary things of that nature it was more about sometimes you get somebody who's on your crew and
they're anxious to get home and no big deal in that I said when I started this video I had a big
crew at one time like 15 guys and there's always somebody who wants to go home and watch cartoons
or do whatever they do because I remember when I was a young buck and working on the crew all
I wanted to do was go home not watch cartoons but watch Gilligan's Island so you got to watch
everybody and the fact one person didn't wet the wall down or prep it properly that's what you get
when you have a big crew see where I'm going with this I've got this is going to be painted is it a
Santa Barbara again this this here this color here is a different base what's that mean well
you got base code 100 base coat 200 and that just means the color of the material base 100 is white
base to hundra it's gray and I could see we're already on to the second bag not much here but
it's it's the finish set takes quite a while to do very very similar to again the veneers I show how
to how to do bonier finish this guy's in quite a few other videos and we also show how to do Santa
Barbara smooth mission finish but that's not what this video is about this it is just about loose
stucco and some of the reasons why stucco can become loose usually as I said when I started
this it is a matter of absorption whether or not it's has a bonding agent or you're just going
over a brown coat absorption is everything with a Santa Barbara or any other finish you don't
really need a bonding agent so it's the absorption that really matters guys you can't have dust on it
you can't have Moss dirt you can't have anything because nothing adheres to a dusty surface now
what I'll do is I'll finish my my Santa Barbara high end and yeah I'm using a green float you
could use a lot of different tools spray bottles water hose if you know what you're doing and such
this again what we do with with the Imperial finishes we put it on we bring it back to life
and now I make everything a little smoother this is just again how we do a Santa Barbara
take it take it got any fat which you always kind of have a little fat move that fat around
the water here a little water there that's the advantage of the Santa Barbara you can
bring it back to life, but only for a while it's the holiday holidays we've
just fill up fill them up and again when you're doing quarters always
go upward you go downward you pull it off see where this is going and
just get your joints out two hands no such thing as a one-handed plaster. Come here to bring it
back just like veneer interior finishes you can see up there where what we've already done it's
just going back over it back over, but again, yeah, it's not about the finish. It's about why
it failed, okay, guys? This is the completion of it. It's getting dark. We have about a half-hour
to get that mixer home, so as usual, Jason and I thank you guys for watching, and we'll see
you guys on the next one once again, folks we thank you for watching, and I really enjoy all
your comments if you guys like this video, please click the like button down below and also if you
enjoy what we do subscribe to our channel so we can keep making these videos for you my name is
Kirk and Jay, we thank you for watching, and from the entire Giordano family we'll see on the next one.