Stucco Contractor & Plastering in Biggs, CA | Chico Elite Stucco

A coating goes over a wall that is already sound, and it renews color and helps the surface shed water. Elastomeric coatings stretch a little as the wall moves under heat and cold. Acrylic coatings are a tougher relative of house paint and hold their color well. Either one can keep a finish looking even for roughly seven to ten years, though a film on the surface cannot bridge a crack that keeps opening and closing, and it cannot dry out a wall that is already damp. Before we price a coating for you, we check the bottom of the wall and how water leaves the ground beside it, so nothing is sealed in behind the new surface.

We install three-coat stucco on new walls and additions. Before any plaster goes on, the wall receives a water-resistive barrier. That is a layer of building paper or wrap that catches whatever water gets past the plaster and carries it back out, keeping it off the wood behind. Over wood-based sheathing, California requires the equivalent of two of those layers behind stucco.

Metal lath goes on next, a steel mesh that gives the plaster something to grip. The scratch coat keys into that mesh, the brown coat flattens the wall and the finish coat carries the texture and color. Those three together come to a nominal 7/8 inch, and that thickness is what lets the wall take a knock and hold water off the lath. Code minimums require 48 hours of moist cure on each of the first two coats, 48 hours between the first and second coats, and 7 days before the finish coat. Those figures are minimums for your job, not a promised finish date.

Most houses in town are single story, sitting on a slab or a low crawl space, so the bottom of the wall is close to the yard. Lawn irrigation and planting beds against the house can keep that lower band damp, which is why a repair at the base often pairs with nothing more than matched color and texture higher up. On an addition, we build a sample panel before the wall is finished so you can approve the match. Integral color is pigment mixed into the finish plaster itself, so the color is part of the material and a scuff does not show a different shade underneath.

An inspection on its own tells you whether you are looking at a cosmetic problem or a wet wall. It can include moisture readings at the wall base and around windows and doors, along with a tap test. A tap test listens for a hollow sound where the plaster has let go of the lath underneath. You receive written findings that name the condition we found. Owners ask for one before a sale, after a wet winter, or when the same patch keeps coming back.

We repair localized damage by cutting back to sound plaster and lath, then replacing the steel mesh where it has rusted through. A crack that keeps moving takes elastomeric sealant. That is a flexible joint filler that stretches with the gap instead of splitting across it. Impact damage takes polymer-modified mortar, a patching mortar with added binders that grips the old plaster. At the edge of town, farm equipment and vehicle strikes break corners and lower walls often enough to be a regular cause, and we work the texture back in once the damaged area is rebuilt.

A wall that is past repairing comes off entirely. Tear-off runs one elevation at a time, so the building is never fully open. Once the old plaster is down, the sheathing and the framing behind it are inspected before new barrier and new lath go on. Sheathing is the wood skin of the wall, the surface the whole plaster system is built on. Construction from before 1980 gets tested for asbestos and lead before anything is disturbed. Biggs has enough older housing that this step is routine here.

Some problems sit behind the plaster rather than in its face. Moisture is mapped before the wall is opened, and then we check that the barrier laps in the right direction so water runs down and out. Flashing is checked at the same time. Flashing is the metal or formed pieces that steer water away from windows, doors and rooflines, and it is often what needs rebuilding. Where mold is visible, a qualified independent specialist handles that assessment, since testing and removal are their own trade. With standing ground water nearby, drainage is the first question we ask.

Storefronts, shop buildings and agricultural offices usually have to stay open while the work happens. We phase the elevations so customers and staff keep using the entrance, and we plan scaffold and lift access around the public sidewalk. Dust control keeps the plaster work off an open doorway and a shopfront that people walk past all day.

We install adhered manufactured stone beside a plaster field as a wainscot, an entry surround or a column base. The stone is built over lath and a scratch coat, so it bonds into the same system the plaster does. One water-resistive barrier runs behind both the stone and the stucco field. Where the veneer stops, the wall still needs a weep detail so any water behind it has a way out.

Builders and owner-builders bring us in before the wall is covered. The lath inspection is a hold point, which means nothing gets covered until the lath is signed off. Flashing and barrier work therefore has to line up with the window and roofing trades rather than follow them at leisure. Casing bead goes on before that signoff. Casing bead is the trim piece that gives the plaster a clean stop at an edge. We phase elevations so no single area holds up the whole build.

We shape plaster details such as bands, sills, window surrounds, corbels, quoins and score lines. The trim is coated as part of the plaster system, so it becomes one surface with the wall. Reveals are the recessed lines that break up a large wall surface, and they are laid out before the finish coat so the detail sits in the plaster. A modest amount of trim suits a plain farm-town elevation.

Interior walls and fireplace surrounds take plaster finishes too, for rooms where you want a hard troweled surface instead of paint. Mineral plaster is a lime or cement-based material that colors the room through the finish itself. A hand-troweled finish takes its final surface from the trowel, which leaves the slight variation you see across the wall. In an occupied house, we contain dust and protect floors before the room work begins.

A wall can be sound and still look tired, chalked pale by sun or marked by old patches, and that wall needs a new finish instead of a tear-off. A redash is a fresh finish coat with real thickness, troweled or sprayed over sound plaster, and it restores both the texture and the color. A coating is a paint film on the surface. A fog coat is a thin cement wash that recolors a wall without sealing it. Before the wall is dashed, we match the texture from a sample so the long valley-floor sun does not leave one elevation looking separate from the rest.