LESLIE: Alright. Now we’re going to Tennessee where Jean has a stucco question. What’s going on? How can we help you?
JEAN: Well, the house was built in 1914. And the outside exterior walls are covered with stucco that has the kind of swirly bumps where they throw the trowels on it. And it looks like it’s in good condition, so I was thinking we could probably just spraypaint it a nice color. It’s still kind of golden, like it used to be, but wherever the branches of the shrubs went against it, it’s kind of yucky and gray-looking.
But I know that when we painted our patio slab, we had to do some treatment to it before we could paint it. Does stucco need some preconditioning besides just hosing it off with soap and water?
TOM: Well, the first thing you need to do is to make sure that there’s no algae attached to the stucco. And so I would probably do a very light pressure-washing and then clean the stucco, and let it dry for a good couple of days in warm weather. And then I would prime it with an oil-based primer and then paint the stucco using a good-quality, exterior topcoat.
You can’t cut any corners here. You can’t take any shortcuts. But if you do it once and you do it right, it’s going to last you a long time because that siding is not organic. You may find very well that paint can last you 10 to 12 years, as opposed to maybe 5 to 8 if it was wood.
JEAN: Alright. Well, thank you.
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