Stucco Repair in Richfield, MN

Stucco repair in Richfield usually means working on a house from the 1950s. Wikipedia's entry for the city notes that the majority of Richfield's 10,000 single-family homes were built in that decade, when farmland was sold to developers building homes for returning veterans. The population went from 3,778 in 1940 to 17,502 in 1950 and 42,523 in 1960. A wall that has stood since then has seen a lot of freezing and thawing, and often more than one owner's attempt at a fix.

What we usually find on Richfield walls

• Hairline and map cracking across older finish coats, which lets water in a little at a time
• Cracks running off window and door corners, where stress concentrates in a wall
• Old patches that do not match in color or texture, sometimes in a mix too hard for the wall around it
• Seams where an addition meets the original house, a common place for gaps and failed caulk
• Damage near the ground, where snow sits against the wall and soil may have built up over the decades

Each of these is fixable, but the repair depends on what caused it.

Fixing cracks the right way

A crack is a symptom. Before we fill one we look at why it formed. Some are shrinkage cracks in the finish coat and can be sealed and blended. Others follow movement in the structure or framing and will reopen unless that movement is accounted for. Where an old patch is cracking at its edges, the likely cause is a mismatch between the patch and the original stucco, a problem the National Park Service describes in detail for older walls: rigid patches set into softer stucco expand and contract differently and crack. We cut out failed patches and rebuild them so the new material works with the wall.

Additions, porches and remodels

Many Richfield houses have grown since the 1950s: a bedroom over the garage, a back addition, an enclosed porch. Those joints between old and new construction are where water most often gets in. The Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry's re-siding fact sheet calls for flashing at the head and sides of window and door openings, at wall-roof intersections and where porches, decks or stairs attach to wood-frame walls, and for kick-out flashing when re-siding. When we repair stucco at these joints we check that flashing too, because a patch over a missing flashing will not last.

Grade and the bottom of the wall

One of the causes the City of Woodbury identified in Minnesota stucco failures was grade above the wood framing. On older lots, years of landscaping, mulch and new patios can raise the soil line until it sits against the stucco. We look at the bottom edge of the wall on every visit and will tell you if regrading or moving a bed would protect the repair.

Apartments and multi-unit buildings

Richfield is not only single-family homes. The city has about 5,000 apartments built in the 1960s and early 1970s. Stucco on multi-unit buildings faces the same weather, and recoating can refresh a whole facade when spot repairs would leave a patchwork. We can quote individual repairs or a full recoat for owners and associations.

Close to home

Richfield borders south Minneapolis, so visits here fit easily into our schedule. Census estimates show 61.6% of Richfield homes are owner-occupied and 87.8% of residents lived in the same house a year earlier, which suggests many owners stay put and want repairs that last rather than cover-ups.

Services for Richfield homes

• Crack repair and patch replacement
• Recoating and color coats
• Flashing corrections at additions and porches
• Moisture testing where damage is suspected
• EIFS repair

Call (612) 482-6637 for a free written estimate.

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