Stucco wall repair/painting

Hello,

I am looking for someone to paint the exterior or my home, which is lime stucco.  It would require some prep work for fine cracks before painting.  I would be grateful for some recommendations.

Thanks so much!

For exterior painting and stucco repair, I recommend hiring a professional who specializes in lime stucco. Look for contractors with good reviews and experience in stucco work. 

^ seems like an AI response.

Mark Tirandola did a great job on our stucco. 

(AI cannot paint a house.)

We were happy with Tirondola Painting for our stucco and I believe that they also did some repairs as part of the prep. The end result was very good! (We were in the middle of a more extensive home renovation, so I'm not completely sure where one contractor's work ended and the next one started.)

Just having gone through a large stucco project (we were very happy with Rene at Exterior Solutions NJ), I have learned that you really should be using an elastomeric paint on the stucco, not regular exterior paint as most of the painting companies around here do.

Elastomeric or masonry paint may be fine for stucco using Portland cement -- the newer stucco is Portland cement.  However, old stucco buildings in the US and most stucco buildings in Europe are lime stucco (old style -- do not contain Portland cement). Lime stucco has greater need for breathability than Portland cement stucco. Therefore, one should use only water-based exterior paint.

On any historic stucco building, or if you know you have a lime stucco home, you should use a high permeability water-based exterior paint.  One such paint is: the BM Regal Select Exterior Paint - High Build Flat Finish N400, which has a water-vapor permeance rating of 57.68 perms (ASTM D1653) and a dry film thickness of 2.3 mils.

I am just a home-owner, who found this out the hard way.  In the late 1990s, a reputable painter recommended and used elastomeric paint on my old lime-stucco home.  He was skilled, and the house looked beautiful when the job was finished.  It took about 3-4 years, for the stucco surface to get swollen on spots, blistered and cracked all over.  Because it took so long for the cracking to occur, I did not realize at first that the cause was the elastomeric paint.  It was not until decades later, while talking to a restoration expert, that I made the connection. Because elastomeric paint has a low permeance rating as compared to water-based paint, my old lime stucco retained moisture over time, which is what caused the blistering and cracking of the paint coating. 

My painter probably never found out about it. I had given him good feedback for a job well done then, and I have not seen him since. I suppose painters keep recommending this stuff for the same reason: their customers give them good feedback when the paint job is just completed.  This is the reason why I took the time to write this long comment now.