The Brad Weisman Show
Welcome to The Brad Weisman Show, where we dive into the world of real estate, real life, and everything in between with your host, Brad Weisman! Join us for candid conversations, laughter, and a fresh take on the real world. Get ready to explore the ups and downs of life with a side of humor. From property to personality, we've got it all covered. Tune in, laugh along, and let's get real! #TheBradWeisman #Show #RealEstateRealLife
The Brad Weisman Show
YUCCO STUCCO - The STUCCO on Your HOME w/ Rick Herbert
Hi This is Brad Weisman - Click Here to Send Me a Text Message
YUCCO STUCCO!! Lot's of questions out there about Stucco on Homes. Many times there's bad things happening behind it and it's extremely costly to repair/replace. Rick walks us through the truths and the myths about Stucco.
Want to be in the know about the lasting debate of Stucco versus Vinyl Siding? You're in for a treat as we have with us Rick Herbert from L&L General Contractors, who will not only clear your doubts but also give you some deep insights into these complex topics. Together, we dissect the current installation requirements for Stucco, the differences among its three types: Cementitious, Hard Coat, and EIFS, and the pitfalls of improper window and door installation.
Get ready for a rollercoaster ride as Rick enlightens us on the potential benefits of siding over stucco, especially with products such as Wolf PVC, Cement Board, and CertainTeed's wide plank, insulated vinyl siding. He shares with us how you can get in touch with him for a deeper understanding of these subjects. If Stucco has been on your mind or you're considering it for your home, this episode will provide you with a wealth of knowledge and direction. Join us!
#rickherbert #realestateandyou #bradweisman #realestate #realestateagent #stucco
---
Welcome to The Brad Weisman Show (formerly known as Real Estate and YOU), where we dive into the world of real estate, real life, and everything in between with your host, Brad Weisman! 🎙️ Join us for candid conversations, laughter, and a fresh take on the real world. Get ready to explore the ups and downs of life with a side of humor. From property to personality, we've got it all covered. Tune in, laugh along, and let's get real! 🏡🌟 #TheBradWeismanShow #RealEstateRealLife #realestateandyou
Credits - The music for my podcast was written and performed by Jeff Miller.
Hello, this is Brad Weizmann. You're listening to Real Estate and you we're back in the studio. We are here to talk about a topic that you are probably hearing a lot about out there, and if you have Stucco on your house, you will probably want to turn this off because you're going to puke in your mouth. But no, this is a really good show. It's called Yucco Stucco and I have the well, I won't say expert, because he told me not to say this, but we have Rick Herbert here from L&L. It's a construction. It's a construction group. Is it L&L group? What is it called now? L&l? general contractors, general contractors there we go. I didn't say that one at all. I got them all except for that one. But no, rick is the person that we go to when we have questions about Stucco and a lot of different things. Rick does everything, but one of the things that you excel in and that we feel that people feel comfortable working with you on is Stucco, and it's a big. It's a big thing. Today we're seeing a lot of issues with Stucco that have worked. That was done in the past. People thought this stuff was going to last forever and it didn't. So what? Tell me what's going on? Give me an overview of what's happening with Stucco a little bit.
Speaker 2:Okay, the installation method that was used years ago. I'd say years ago maybe like 15 years, 15 years ago or more. Right, the installation method that was used at that time was improper, okay.
Speaker 1:Okay, so the whole thing was improper.
Speaker 2:Well, what we found out was there was two big issues, okay. Number one the way windows and doors were installed at that time. Looks like it was missing some pan flashing, okay, and it even though window and door manufacturers might have said, hey, we require head flashing, okay, that wasn't done consistently Right.
Speaker 1:Is it the cut costs Is?
Speaker 2:that why this stuff happens. It looks like that, yeah, so I would say we've seen a lot more evidence of it on a track builder.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Okay, but you know, in some large, very large custom homes we've seen it also, and in some cases I don't. I couldn't answer that question, except it doesn't make much sense.
Speaker 1:So not all Stucco failures look the same.
Speaker 2:No, they're quite different. So there's a. There's a couple things Is number one if, when the Stucco is installed, there's requirements today. So the requirements today are, you know, there's multiple layers of vapor barriers, there's a rain screen which is like a drainage mat and then there's a required thickness of the Stucco itself, the base coat, the, the uh part coat and the finish coat, so altogether it's about an inch thick today. Oh wow, where? Um, the last house that we did the remediation work which is removal the Stucco, the full thickness of Stucco was a half an inch, oh wow. So that's like that's half the thickness that it is today, yeah. You know. And, um, if you have that, you know. So the body of that Stucco needs to have strength. Yeah, it's held together with wireless or some cases it's, you know, exterior or EIFS. Efis is more of a um, isn't it more pliable, isn't it? It's a foam based Stucco, okay, okay. So there's three different things that we should start with Cementitious Stucco Cementitious.
Speaker 1:Stucco. Hey, hugo, write that down. I want to use that for a lot of things that sounds fancy Can. I just use that for anything you think. Yes, cementitious, you know that's very cementitious of you. You like that?
Speaker 2:That worked pretty good, well, go ahead. What are the other ones? Um, then you have a hard coat Stucco which has a Stucco over top of a cement base but has an Elastomeric finish.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Okay, which is flexible?
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And then you have um, your EIFS, which is a foam base, and that's the one we see a lot of right, yeah, like, for instance, example, a lot of times office buildings.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Yes, in this vicinity we'll have exterior insulation board up, yeah, very thick, sometimes inches and a half, and then you'll see you'll, you'll have a gray motor coat over top of that and then they put its synthetic finish on top. So it's a good product. It's meant to be, you know, durable, but it's also meant to have a insulation factor. Okay so, but Stucco itself is a guy I feel is a good product. Right, it was just. It looks as if the products that were used were not used right, weren't used right, and the, the, the mason's at the time, some of them didn't do three coats. So when I say three coats when you put up your wire laugh, and you do a scratch coat. That's considered one process, Gotcha. The next coat will be your brown coat, almost like a plaster coat that gives you your thickness and your body of the Stucco. And the last coat is your, your finished coat. It's the, it's the you know, the creamy cement finish or the creamy like last America finish, and if that was done properly with, with flashing done, the right way, you know you might have some issues if it's excessive cracking, but you typically wouldn't have what we have today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there's some really bad pictures I've seen. I mean, you did my parents house, yes, and you know I saw what was behind their wall and that's the thing too it's you never know how bad it is. I mean, you can do those core samples. And I saw you did that with my parents house and he was having an issue opening his windows. Yeah, because it was actually swelling right. I guess it was swelling the wood that much that his vinyl windows were starting to come in and he couldn't get the windows up. Is that something that, if somebody has that situation? they should look into if they have stucco right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so today they require us to have a, an expansion joint around every window or door, at the soffit areas, wherever stucco would meet a dissimilar material like wood etc. And it's about three eighths of an inch thick, that that expansion, and we have to have a carot in there and caulk so it allows for that movement, because that window, when it heats up, is going to move. Yeah, it's, it's vinyl. And today you see there's a lot of black windows out there. Yeah, they're really moving.
Speaker 1:Oh, I didn't even think about that because of the heat and the heat, oh my goodness. Yes, so it's important.
Speaker 2:You know it's not one thing and you know we've seen homes that were done. Okay, in Chester County, for example, that one house is completely ripped off, yeah. The next house, two out of four sides were absolutely fine when they did the motion test and two to the elevations were had to come off, yeah. And in that situation what we've seen is the way the sun, if the sun warms up the home, if it's rise it out yeah, interesting.
Speaker 1:So like a southern exposure area might be better. So, okay, I have it. I'm just going to say, hypothetically, I have a house that's just full stucco off all four sides. What am I looking for? What? Now I get into my house, I listen to this podcast, I go back to my house, I start crying first, actually, but then after that I like okay, what, what am I looking for? What are the signs?
Speaker 2:What I would say to you. If anything is over 15 years old, I would have it tested by a third party.
Speaker 1:Okay, and how does that work?
Speaker 2:Well, what I what I believe is that I believe that stucco is also a storm chasing contractors dream Okay, got it. So you almost want to do a little separation. You want to hire a third party testing company? That's not a contractor a contractor, Got it. So you don't want recurb to say that house needs to be ripped down without having someone else Providing the data got you, and then that makes sense for anything that you do.
Speaker 1:Don't. Don't. Don't hire the contractor. Hire the the expert at it first and then call the contractor to repair the issue. That makes sense to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a lot of times the, the testing companies now will give very good data to support what needs to happen and it gives the homeowner Just just a better view. Yes, I want to rip this off. Right, do I want to do repair, and it comes down to a lot of times. Do you want a warranty?
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, right, because if we do a repair yeah, it's just a repair in a certain area there's no warranty involved now what you're saying is that I'm just taking a certain area there's maybe a crack in it or showing something going on. You're saying you'll just, you'll, you'll repair it, but you're not tearing it all off right we make.
Speaker 2:We might cut an area up, a little windows three foot by three foot, yep and repair the damaged wood, put it back together and then basically just Restuck over that face of it Gotcha. But we really haven't changed the process of what caused the leak to happen, gotcha, gotcha, and we've done that and what and when we do that, of course the cost is less. Yeah, there's no warranty, right, if we were, if we do a remediation. For me the remediation means top to bottom, right off the right on that specific elevation, gotcha, not mean that the entire house has to come off right, it just means that out and and what that does is Then I can have it, I can have somebody else, I could have a Borough township, I could have you know, like a company like craft codes, for sure they could inspect it.
Speaker 1:Right, it was done properly To today's code standard gotcha, and then that way it goes back together, and then you want that for a little bit of time. Yeah okay, interesting. You know, and I know with my dad's, it wasn't easy to. You guys knew where the issue was, yes, but it wasn't like it was like an easy fix of finding the problem. It was a water problem coming off the roof, from what I remember, and I remember also you saying to my dad you know it's gonna be here here and here and he's like I don't know. You know, and then he would call me and I'd say, yeah, I'm pretty sure Rick is right about that, because I've seen it have before and at the end of the day, their house looks. It looks Amazing, it looks like it was never an issue. And I saw that you guys Toured all the way down to the wood and I remember seeing the wood was basically put your finger through it.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's the part that blows my mind there. Well, there's one thing when plywood is bad, but there's another thing when the structural wood behind it's bad, that's a problem. That's holding up the exterior of your home Absolutely, and and that's where we see we get a lot of issues with pests.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, ants, yeah, really do a lot of damage once the wood gets soft termites.
Speaker 1:Yeah, then they love it and they just tear it apart, yeah.
Speaker 2:so it's like kind of like you're kind of feeding it to them, yeah we found that we found an issue that that really kind of stands out and I'll bring it to you. So when homes were built, say 15 years or more ago, yeah, they were using OSB, which is oriented strand board. It's a, basically shavings of plywood glued together, yep, and it forms of plywood sheet, yep. It is about half the cost, maybe more than half the cost, of a really a traditional piece of plywood, yep. So it was very common for people to use that. Well, it's a sponge, yeah, right. So I'm not telling me that was. That's what caused the stucco problems, but any moisture that gets behind the stucco.
Speaker 1:Now, it, it's just, it just sucks it in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's wicking then too the vapor, the vapor barriers that they use back then, compared to ones that are using now, the standard is quite different. Yeah, they're much better.
Speaker 1:Like a house wrap type thing, or yeah, gotcha, and they a lot of times.
Speaker 2:they'll consider, they'll want us to do two layers today, oh wow. So one's almost like a sacrificial layer, you know. And then the other layer is is the protection Rain screens, like I said, and then the important part is like, around, like, around, like that television screen right there. Yeah, that was a window. They what code requires today which is outstanding for, like your, your cavity? So if you have a window that's outside the cavity, before you put it in the way, we waterproof the entire cavity. Yeah, so what it what it does get to it? Yeah, it's meant that it can drain out. It doesn't go anywhere near your water to structure of your home. Yeah, so I like the process and it does work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you know, there was always. Everybody kept saying well, it was never meant to be used here, it should be in Florida. It was meant to be in Florida because our temperatures are varying too much here in the Northeast. Is there any kind of validity to that? I think so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, because I see, here's the, here's the issue. When water gets in, like so if you take a cup or a gallon of water and you pour it on something that's pours like a stucco wall and then it snap freezes. So when someone water freezes, expands.
Speaker 1:Expands right.
Speaker 2:That's where we see cracking, especially in some stucco's. Okay, I say something like cement stucco.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I think it's an outstanding product, but when you get it wet, if it's snap freezes now, it's not a traditional like you know.
Speaker 1:No, it's it's. It's like we get around here Sometimes we get 45 degrees and rain and that night it's down into the teens and that that's definitely a quick freeze.
Speaker 2:And they. And if you look at, there's a stucco industry standard that basically says you know, a hairline crack and stucco is typically normal because, yeah, homes do a little settling and when that happens that's going to occur. It's when it grows, yeah and more. We always tell people, if there is a hairline cracker, gets a little bigger, you should, you should at least do some maintenance with that. Got you Stealing it, caulking it, whatever. Right, I know it's not always, but then it doesn't look attractive, doesn't?
Speaker 1:It's the only thing I gotta say is I need then you kind of point out where the crack is. When you do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's the one thing.
Speaker 2:We get asked all the time is it okay to paint a stucco? And we tell people that Alastomeric coating, which is a great type of a paint, to put in stuff with great product and it is breathable. If you read the specifications, it's a breathable product, but I'm still cautious. Yeah, tell anybody. Yeah, put something more on top of it to trap the moisture in.
Speaker 1:Yeah right.
Speaker 2:The reason I say it. When we take stucco off, what we see is just because the product, the product on the outside and the house on the inside, whether it's warm or cool, wherever it gets sandwiched together. We just see so much destruction.
Speaker 1:Well, that's what the temperature difference is. It's like anything. I mean, you know, my dad talks about this in my house because he says, down the base, because he does HVAC, and he said, you know, my basement's so cold because I have the air conditioning kicking upstairs. He actually tells me to turn my electric baseboard on a little bit. He said, because what I'm doing is I'm creating a situation where it's so cold down there but it's dry, cold and it could be creating condensation behind my drywall and I'm like what I'm going to turn my baseboard? He goes, yes, to dry the air out, because it's actually you're creating a cold, damp space, and so that's interesting. So my thing is this I remember when I was building my house, you know, if you wanted to upgrade to stucco, it was expensive. So you know, a lot of houses are vinyl siding and now what's amazing is I'm seeing like over here in Spring Ridge they're replacing all the stucco with siding. What is siding? Okay?
Speaker 2:Yes, it is Well. One of the reasons why siding is okay is because when, if you see the way it's installed, it's installed a lot of times horizontal or vertical, but it's installed that when it's nailed it's not nailed super tight Right, so it can move. It can move, it can have, and behind it there's a decent vapor barrier, and it's those vapor barriers are tied in the flashings to protect the windows and the doors or any gaps, and what that does is just allows moisture to travel out, drain out, or it doesn't sandwich it so much that it doesn't allow it to dry and it also breathes, doesn't it?
Speaker 1:I think there's air behind vinyl siding.
Speaker 2:So we do a lot of. So we have a lot of clients that have us take the stucco worst over, near off the walls, and then we will do. James Hardy, cement board siding is a favorite, a great product, and so there's a Wolf PVC portrait siding. So these are upscale siding products. Yeah, they look nice and, in some cases, some of the communities that we work in now, if they have a nicer home. They were requiring these two blocks yes. Yes, but what we've seen lately is like certainty has just come out with a more upscale, wide plank, beautiful vinyl siding yeah. It's insulated oh that's great, and it's called sort of plank. I mean, I just did a job with it.
Speaker 1:Nice, we're really happy, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And the nice part was the labor was a lot, so the material was not the same price as the upscale products, but the labor was better.
Speaker 1:Got it Because it's because it doesn't take as long time because, it's not all those processes, yeah, yeah, and y'all now with the stucco. When you're using all those processes, do you have to come back each time to put those different layers on, or do you do?
Speaker 2:So you're supposed to allow it to dry in between Right, right, so the stucco coat. So when you do a scratch coat and you let it, dry for a day. It allows the cement to kind of open up If there's any little hairline cracks. And then the next coat, when it goes in the cream, the cream of the cement fills in those cracks, bonds it together, makes it strong. And then the final coat, which is your finished coat. You let the brown coat, the middle coat, it say, dry out for a couple of days, yeah, and you put that final coat on. It just knits it very well. So when you try to take it off, if someone really did it well, it's difficult.
Speaker 1:You can tell, you can tell it's put on right. It's not easy. Interesting, really interesting, so okay, so I'm building a new house today. Yes, do I use stucco on another thing? What about the applied stone?
Speaker 2:Well, I would share with you. The applied stone is equally the same problem.
Speaker 1:It is.
Speaker 2:So a lot of times it hides the problem much easier, much not easier. It hides the problem more than the stucco does.
Speaker 1:Gotcha, you don't see it Because it's different colors on the outside, so you don't see any kind of mold coming through.
Speaker 2:Exactly, you don't see it. So if there are cracks in the stone veneer A lot of times it happens it forms along the crack of the, around the mortar joint, and so you may see, you may not, Okay, but what we tell people the same thing is that you know, testing is a great idea, especially below your windows, down at your sill plate. So I've had clients call and say well, this, this report's a good report. My entire house, all the windows up top. They tested well. I got a couple problems down at the bottom and we dug into it. So all the water starts at the top, saturates the, the stoners. Oh my gosh, and it comes down and it gets jammed up right at where the basement foundation meets the first floor, and that's dangerous, because what happens is, when we take it off, we've we realize it, oh my God, the, the sill plate which holds up all the vertical studs, is rotted through. Oh geez, and that happens a lot of times. Yeah, that's tough to replace, so we have to go inside the home, into the basement, and basically jack up. Oh my gosh, I'm just feeling a little bit to get that out.
Speaker 1:Yeah Geez, see, this is why it's called Yucco Stucco. I'm telling you now, but you said it's, but it's, but it's not a bad product, it's just you got to do it right. You got to do it right, I just.
Speaker 2:We just bought a home here. Why missing? And and the chimney, the exterior columns to our. We have a closed porch out back and two fireplaces inside. We, you stuck, we had a designer helping us with what she wanted it to look like. And it came out beautifully Awesome. So we got some of those things, but we followed code, had it inspected there you go. You know and then. But yeah, I believe in the product Cause.
Speaker 1:I'm amazed by trade, but I also know that to your point.
Speaker 2:If you had a question before, like were they trying to save money? It looks like it. Yeah, because the components that I am adding to it right now which I'm not adding, I'm just doing what it's supposed to be done they don't cost a lot, right?
Speaker 1:It's just that they weren't doing it's just, it's amazing, we go faster. Well, and I think too, like you know, back when they started doing Stucco here I think maybe it was coming from, probably down south, was where the idea was we're coming from. And then they're like, oh, we can do this, we got this, this is no big deal. And now that that's that system of doing that, that cheaper way or that bad workmanship way, that can't be done anymore. It just doesn't work.
Speaker 2:No, well, if you go to, you got Arizona, New Mexico, any of the Southern you know even the. Carol, well, I shouldn't say it in the Carolinas is where it really started. It started, the damage really showed up in a big way. There's a lot of humidity there. It's nice and warm, yeah, and at some time it's you would find it well with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because, like Arizona, like you said.
Speaker 1:I mean, they don't get the moisture we get, so where's it? You know it's not going to be trapped behind there. Yes, amazing, totally amazing. So one thing I'm really happy about is actually I'm happy that my house is completely vinyl, because I was too cheap 22 years ago to put anything on but vinyl and I haven't had any problems Not going not going with so, there's one other thing I want to bring up before we let you go, because Hugo had a question about it and I was kind of asking about the, the luxury vinyl. right, we were talking about that a little bit. What do you? That's a newer product. Yes, when do you see that? Where are we going with that? Is it really everything it's cracked up to be?
Speaker 2:We have great success with it. We use it quite a bit. But what I think everybody does have to understand it is not waterproof. It's not waterproof, okay. So what does that mean? But if you have a, you know I have an older dog, my wife so of course, what's he going to do? You know he's, he's peeing on the floor.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, right, so I'm going to go to the vinyl plank.
Speaker 2:Certainly you can clean it up, but if you leave it, if God forbid, you miss an accident and it stays there, it will do its damage. Oh what, really? Yeah, it will do its damage. So I I know that they say it's waterproofed. Yeah, yeah, but what I've? I'm the guy who rips it up, yeah, so I've seen what happens when they say it's weatherproofed and it something was wet and it may. I don't know how long, maybe it was two days, three days or one but taking it up and it the corners were curled. Oh, wow, and it lifted a little bit and it starts to delaminate Interesting. So you know it's, so it's not.
Speaker 1:PPP proof? It's not. No, not at all. It's not PPP proof. Okay, so then, and what's, what's amazing? And the reason? It's a mentitious product. A cementitious product. We're going to have to use that word more and more as we as we go. But hey, I want to thank you for coming on the show today, man. I know you're doing a great job out there. We use Rick for all kinds of things, susan, and I do. I know our company does. You know he's the one guy that actually calls you back when you actually call for an issue or you have a. You want to get pricing or something. So definitely look at L and L. And then what'd you say is L and L? You're using construct, not construction. So contract, general contracting, that's what it is. So you're doing a great job. We really appreciate it so much. So that's it. There was YACO STUCCO. If you have any questions, get in touch with Rick Herbert. If you need his information, just let me know. I will get it to you. You can talk to me through Facebook or text 4-8-4-2-5-6-5-8-3-6 and we'll get you all the information you need. All right, that's about it, thank you.
