Stucco and elastomeric paint

Does anyone here have experience with elastomerics or other paint types on historic stucco? At this point I am more than a little confused and basically don't want to muck up a nice old home.

Thanks for any info! Halp!

J

We went through the same research process about 4 years ago and ultimately decided against the elastomeric paint for fear of some of the issues mentioned.  I will try to remember to look for the leftover paint cans to see what kind of paint we ended up with.  Also, the prep that was done on our house was different than what most of the 'usual suspect' painters in the area proposed.  (Sorry, I don't remember the details now.) Our sense was that those others (Wilburs, Rutgers, Independent) did not really specialize in stucco, even though they do a great job for wood homes.  We ended up using Mark Tirondola who got particularly good reviews for stucco work and we saw several stucco homes they had done which looked very good.  So far, it still looks great and we have a ten-year warranty on the stucco portion.   They also did some non-trivial stucco repairs for us before painting.

(Edited to correct spelling of Tirondola.)

Thanks for the info! I fell into a Googling fit last night and pretty much decided against the elasto once I read this: https://www.nola.gov/getattachment/b680a921-602c-46a1-bbaa-2f884465c574/Elastomeric-Paint-Analysis-VCC-Staff-Recommendatio/

If you know what brand etc. y'all ended up going with (SW? BM?) I'd be ever so grateful. Will also look up this Tirandola guy.

Feels good to have made a decision! 

I poked around in our garage and basement and couldn't find the cans, although I think they are there somewhere.  I'm pretty sure that it was Benjamin Moore and my (possibly faulty) memory is that it was a fairly standard paint type, rather than something special for masonry.  But that may not be correct.  

I'm also looking for my scanned copy of the receipt for the job, which I know I have ... somewhere!  I'm pretty sure that it specified the paint type also, as well as a brief description of the prep method.

But definitely ask the painters that you speak to about what kind of paint they recommend and why, as well as how they would do the prep.  I think our prep involved a dry method using a wire brush of some sort but some companies used chemical methods.  

PM me for the address if you'd like to drive by and see what our house looks like almost four years later. (The job was done in fall, 2011.)

It also seems that some people repair/place the stucco, then paint over it, whereas others mix the pigment into the stucco and do not paint over it, which is clearly what was done on our house.  It's definitely in need of more than trivial repairs and a redo though, so I was just about to start looking into folks that do such work.  Glad you started the thread @JDidot and I look forward to gleaning as much wisdom as possible from you folks on all this.

I just pm'd you @sac.

Thanks!

My understanding is that when stucco is first done, the color is mixed in as you say.  And that can last a LONG time.  But, sooner or later, it needs work and then it is easier and less costly to paint over the stucco than to completely redo it in most cases.

At some point, I asked a stucco guy what it would cost to completely redo ours and I think the answer was into six figures while repainting was probably one-tenth or less of that cost.  And paint jobs last much longer on stucco than on wood homes.  Ours has a ten-year warranty and will likely last quite a bit longer than that.  The previous paint job, which was a few years old when we moved in in 1994, had lasted about twenty years. (Our house is about 100 years old, but I don't know the history prior to that.)

Thanks for all the help. I wound up talking up some neighbors with stucco homes during some garage sales this weekend, and they used "regular" BM paint (not elasto). Now that I can fit a paint type with a visual I'm ready to get this project started! Thanks again.