Crummy coping

causes catastrophe

in Alexandria, Virginia

April, 2016-This really hurts. This is a big stucco addition we did 4 years ago in Alexandria, VA.
The leaking coping has caused the stucco to fail, as well as rot the framing underneath. My beautiful natural color stucco is ruined, when it should last for centuries.

This is 3 stories up so this is the best picture I can get. Underneath this coping is bare wood framing. which I am sure is severely rotted after 4 years of leaky coping. You can follow the black water stain up to the source of the leak. Note the wall is saturated, and is badly cracked all the way to the ground.

I cut some old coping to illustrate what is going on. The coping going up the wall barely overlaps the level coping at the bottom. Water runs freely into the gap.

More about crummy coping here

This isn't home improvement, this is home destruction. This is easy enough to do right by cutting the bottom coping a few inches long and bending it up the wall, the sleeving the top piece over the bottom. This shoddy work was done by a roofing contractor that blamed me for their incompetence and stupidity.

Keene's cement

A super hard plaster that is water resistant and scrubbable.

I am scrubbing this wall as hard as I can wiyh a wet pot scrubber. Not even a scratch. Keene's cement can be used for shower finishes. More about Keene's cement here....

Here I am scrubbing cheap drywall the same way. I easily scrubbed off the acrylic paint, amd the paper is dissolving on the drywall. A little more scrubbing, and I am through the gypsum core. More....

Non-Profit Stucco Links

Technical Services Information Bureau

A non profit resource for plaster and stucco. California translation: "Scrub" means stucco finish coat. "Putty coat" means white coat, or finish coat of interior plaster.

Portland Cement Association

Standards for Installation of cement stucco.

stuccodamage.com

Kevin says a lot of things that need to be said.

Copyleft: Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.
Thanks for reading all these years.