Howdy Folks, Kirk and Jason here with Kirk Giordano Plastering.
The question is, with these recent storms which are the highest in what, 30 years?
Can excess rain cause cracking in Stucco? Yes, vibration is the next, but rain is the first
I'm going to show a house we did about six months ago now this, this got nothing to do with the rains,
Actually, a little bit. What happens, this is an addition right here, and they didn't do it
right, to begin with. We did a maintenance-free color coat a maintenance free color coat is
1/8 to 1/4 inch thick, and what that does is it unifies walls. Now, if you notice this wall here,
it's uniform now, because we did this color coat about six months ago. Somewhere like
that, but what I was telling, Ernie here, he's search and rescue pilot for the Navy, was
this crack here, we can cover it, but it's gonna come back, because there is no amount of stucco, and he says
today, he says well, what if you what if I paid you to triple, up the stucco? I said dude, if I put two
inches of stucco here. it's not going to fix this. But anyway, this is not the point of this video.
The point of this video is the the recent rains, in Santa Cruz, piers disappeared, and the cement boat
at Rio Del Mar, gone. Just some of the things I noticed. People are moving out of houses because of
the basements flooding, this is the worst storm in 30 years guys, but what we have here, I'm going to
show you the worst case on this, because we're just doing some minor touch up, now the concrete, the rains
lifted the concrete, now this concrete has wire and rebar in it because Ernie, does things like I do.
Way over the top, so the concrete and rebar are six inches thick here, or one inch thick here? What's
gonna crack? What's gonna give? What's the weak link in this chain? The stucco, so what I told him it's
dude we'll just take this off right here, what we do is we just scrape it off now; this is the
worst part on the house we scraped that off guys now you notice see all this blue in the back of
here, I just happen to use a bonding agent called Weld-Crete on this particular house, you can use
Quikrete, it's white it won't show. But as I told him, and we were doing another one of Jason's
jobs and we were talking about the exact same thing, I'm gonna put both the video here we did
for the original color coaat and how we did it, and Jason's job, which is we're doing the same thing
I was telling the folks, I said, guys you've got concrete here, and if we get some rain, this could
happen, I didn't expect a 30-year monster storm. Anyway, so we this is it's such it's really simple
to fix guys, but here's the point, scrape it off. Put a little bit more bonding agent on here and you
can see the bonding agent, I just pulled this off, and we match the color, when it's wet it darkens
just like a brick, because it's maintenance-free. I'm gonna take you guys around here and show you
a couple other things, Okay guys, and over here, um I we had to go to a minefield to get here, this is stamped
concrete, also it looks like flagstone it's not. We got a little bit of buckling here because again
hundreds of tons of water here lifts it up, and so we got that little bit and we got this little bit.
now, Ernie my buddy here, he's search and rescue. This is how he treats us, he's like guys, I got coffee I
got donuts, I got water for you, and I thought what a guy. Makes it, so I don't mind coming
back to do this little touch-up for nothing. But it's normal guys; this stuff is not what
a color coat maintenance-free finish is supposed to repair. This is cosmetic it got, it did its job,
it got rid of all the bad stuff, That's funny Jay and I were coming here, and we've seen a
whole bunch of police cars, how many of you guys do this? Jay was driving. I was a passenger and I
thought oh crap, I put my seat belt on and then I made a joke. I said there must be a donut shop
around here, I kid you not, there was Krispy Kreme there were like five cars, now I got buddies who are
police officers, they're gonna hear that and say Kirk, man, what are you trying to say? But anyway
getting off of that and back on to reality. Over here can you focus in on that Jay? All right now
that wall doesn't have a crack, why? Because it's both, even though it's into the concrete it
still does not have the cement where it locks it in. But it is locked in, in the foundation itself
this is how cold it is guys, I got three shirts on and I'm cold right now, it's about eight o'clock
in the morning, the sun is shining yesterday, was hail and rain and today the sun is shining.
I'm thinking wow it's cold guys; now I know people in the UK would say Kirk you bloody wuss; one guy did
say that, and I thought I would humor him. I said dude, what's that mean? And he said
that means you're a half wuss and half puss. And I thought man, he's on to me. But man the cold beats
us up. Anyway we're gonna, we're gonna come around here I'm going to show you one more thing because
Ernie the guy here, oops watch yourself, Let's walk this way Jay, can you focus on that chimney
there? because it will zero in now, Ernie had told me he said Kirk, I'm gonna get a new roof
and they told me that if you come in before them, they do the roof it's going to crack and
I said well, Contraire mon frere, that there's some truth to that if it's a brand new house,
it it will crack like an egg. But this house has been here 60 years, it's already settled, so they
can come before us or after us, I said, your choice. So they came before us and no cracks on the wall.
Why? Because the house has already settled, it's been here 60 years; however, I didn't anticipate they
might have to put on a new skirt, so I told Ernie, hey don't worry about it man, we'll get up there and
I'll just color-coat that whole side right there and then the back side is similar, that's no
charge man, we'll just take care of it for you so that's what we're gonna do guys. I'll take you on
the other side to show you uh how we're going to do it. I want to point out one thing guys because
of these recent rains a lot of my neighbor's houses flooded and they were in Alameda, where the
water table's close; it's only like two feet off the ground, so a lot of my neighbors are moving out,
because the house is flooded, but if you see the this tar right here? Now notice it looks like
it's from the early ages, there was this much water here, guys, it was up to here; cars were going by
real slow again, it's a 30-year storm the last thing I want to do is, I want to point out something in the
front too, I'm just kind of flexing the knowledge guys, to tell you what to anticipate if you do a
color coat. All right guys, I just want to show you the front here because Ernie said how come
we don't have any cracks in here? Well the porch is existing it's 60 years old, right in here it
flexes, so there's no cracking, there's no cracking here, there's no crack in here, and again we had the
worst storm in 30 years for over a month. Right here is no cracking how come no cracking right here?
because there's an expansion here, a natural expansion this is already separated from the
from the stucco, always put a piece of wood in here guys if you're going to butt the stucco the
concrete next to the stucco. We're going to put in this video my own place and I'll explain that a
little deeper. Also, I want to point out with what we're doing on a couple jobs here, we've got like
three weeks four weeks of solid rain we had flash floods in Santa Cruz, for example the boardwalk as
well as Rio Del Mar those bridges are gone the docks the wharfs, they're gone because of all the
rain we've had. We do need the rain, I'm gonna point something out even with stamped concrete
this is four inches to six inches thick, it's got wire on Dobies plus I re-barred
it, this is like 25 years ago. I do everything in excess you see this crack here? This crack here
is brand new; how do you know it's brand new? There's no dust, dirt or moss in it. And why'd
it come after 25 years? we've had an abundance of rain right now California is hit with the most
rain it's had in like a hundred years, do we need the rain? Absolutely, we need it some of the side
effects of the ground, when it's so saturated it will lift, and it will lift and crack even concrete
and this has been underneath has been beefed up, as I like to do things. I'll show you another thing to
prove that example of the rain and how it'll crack your stucco house. Well let me see here, let me
show you something here, we got a situation where my buddy, he's got the concrete next to the house
and so what's gonna crack guys, four inches of solid concrete or one inch of stucco? Now this is
wood, I'm just proving a point this has a piece of wood here, that wood acts as an expansion, so if you
have that on a house you're less likely to get a hairline crack on the house itself when the stucco
or when the concrete meets the stucco, what will crack four inches of concrete or one inch of stucco? You
can bet you but it's going to be the one inch of Stucco. Another point guys, now this was in here
a long time now, I used to have an inch right here it was, it was so bad I had to put this
little piece of wood right here, because I couldn't close the gate now, now it won't close, why? Because
wood expands to guys. if you have cracks in your stucco, caulk them, that's a simple solution, caulk
those cracks because if it if the water, the rain water goes through the cracks, it could hit wood
and it could expand that wood, that wood expands, breaks the paper, so do your caulking, and if you
see your stucco house which you probably will in California right now hairline cracking don't
worry about it, but just put some caulking in it because this is what happens guys; all this rain
expands and it just cracks stucco and concrete and tar too. The roads are cracking, everything now we
had I'm just throwing this in here guys. We had a flash flood yesterday and this whole
area was white with hail, Jay just happened to be on the roof there, and I was thinking, I said, wow
this is kind of cool huh? We got all this hail and rain, he says, no Dad, it's not cool. I'm up here and it
got drenched but he was wearing his rain gear, but the point is, guys, the cracks are normal right now
because we are in a wet, wet winter. We do need the rain anyway I just thought I'd prove that
and prove a point here, because too many people are panicking. Don't panic guys, it's necessarily,
normal. All right guys after all that rambling, let me show you how we repair this stuff, what you got
to do is you got to wet the wall, wet it it's wet and if you paint on it, the paint will show because
this is porous, and this is sealed anyway, I'm going to fix that too while I'm here, just like we got a
bunch of tar out on the other side, anyway what you do is Jay mixed up this cement right here
this is color coat, what you do is you get it just right, where you wet this, you wet this it fits on
the money then it's on the money. Will there be a varied discoloration? Sure but not as bad as it
looks now, like say this painted surface here where they dripped paint from here all I gotta do is is
cover this and while I'm at it, Okay, while I'm at it here's the bottom piece all right, so I'm
going to take it right to it and come up to it and feather that in, and once that's, feather it in.
I'll show you how we, we match, that it's just a sand finish, say like it right here. Okay,
let me get a little bit of mud on this guy here this is how simple it is guys.
I already did say I'm going to take this spout and put it back where it was or
put it right here to cover this, That's the best way to hide it is to cover it
You cover it up with something like that, and no problemo, you'd never see it.
So get way up here come on down; that's how easy it is, guys? It's not a big deal
and this is a standard color it's uh, what color is this Jay? Chablie, chablis, base 100, base 100 is,
hmm, xx 12. base 100 x 12, and it's a pretty simple color to match, when you start getting into those
fancy colors, there's a lot of bleeding, a lot of discoloration and it's very very tough to match it.
If you need to, but again guys, this is rain this is lifting, it's normal you fix it like so, you take a green sponge float, and where they got a little carried away with the paint like right
here, anytime you wet stucco you could see if a painted surface, so what they did is they got
some booboos here, we just get them out; we just float them out like so, and when this dries, is it
going to match a hundred percent? Not really, but is it going to be better than what they have of
course. let me get it right here too they got it all right now here's what I do I take a green
sponge float, and all this is is I'm bringing back the aggregate, I'm bringing the sand out.
Boom, there's nothing to it guys, if you know how to do it. And again all this stuff, it just takes
practice let's go back right here for a sec, all right you got to wet the wall in order
to do this if you try this on a drywall you're just gonna have an eyesore.
Now what we're going to do is now that I'm done here, we got to go up on the roof
because even though I said uh yeah, we won't get cracks on the wall if they do the roof because
the house is settled, they, they got it here and there, so we're going to go up there next and
I told my buddy, hey don't worry about it, man no, no charge, don't no worries, we'll just get
up there while we're here and just uh re-spread that little area. The roofers actually didn't do
bad, it just did match the color, so we're gonna go up there next all right guys we thought we'd show
you one last thing since we're on here, these talk videos are a drag, but say for example now I told
him not to worry about the roof it won't crack, I didn't tell them this because I didn't know
about it. Anyway they put a new skirt here, so they they patched around here and they just used raw
stucco, so again the hose is here to wet this, what happens if I try to put stucco a color coat on a
dry finish? it absorbs instantly, I'll show you one last thing, and I'm just taking some of the stucco
out of this bucket, put it on this hawk because I'm going to just spread out the whole chimney here.
If I go from here to here, just where it's beat up like say here, and leave it at that,
That would probably blend in. But I'm here so, I'm gonna hit the whole thing.
All right a note too oh last time I was here I told my buddy I said man, you better take that
spark arrestor off, and take it down and clean it, and he said why would I do that?
I said, well you see the chimney across the street? Now that chimney, when it rains it bled, that just
means that all the oh say soot, soot will come off and when the soot comes off, it'll bleed down the
side of the chimney, so when I got here, he says oh you know what I took your advice, I had cleaned
that and I thought good job man, because if you had not cleaned it, other than us redoing this
the whole front would be streaked, so Okay, I just applied this and what I do is I take a
sponge float this is sand finish the sand finish is done with a sponge float you bring out the sand
or the aggregate here we go boom hit it here take it up hit it down here and just float it
this is we just again this is called a float and it's to float it or bring out the sand,
and that's what I'm doing here, imagine what we did already about six months ago
well that's all there is to it. Beautiful, beautiful, all right you see that guys?
Nothing to it, you guys will need to call us, unless we did the original work
and that's it, it's I'm gonna hit this here and here and we're done. Anyway, my name is
Kirk, Jason's on the camera, we thank you guys for watching and as usual see you guys on the next one.
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We'll see you on the next one.