STUCCO NEWS.NET

Hi Mr. Bullard, I spoke with you a while back. My Jacksonville, Florida HOA neighborhood is looking into updating the existing coquina on homes with a coat of fine sand stucco. Some residents are wanting to just paint over the existing coquina to match the new neighborhood paint color without incurring the costs of smooth stucco. Can you give me some insights for pros/cons of paint alone if no repairs are made, how the paint will hold up/look like with no repairs, any other concerns you think we may have, etc. Please feel free to call me to discuss if you would like.

Paint should hold up fine, if you use a good masonry primer like loxon from Sherwin Williams. I have heard great comments about loxon.

Whichever or whatever, the walls can be recoated with a chemical bonder, that is, an acrylic bonding admixture in the mortar.

This should be fairly easy to do, as long as the stucco hasn't been painted. It wouldn't hurt to chip the wall for insurance that the new stucco won't fail. If the new stucco is poorly done, you can do more harm that good.

I have written about coquina stucco in the past, and probably erroneously.

Usually when one refers to coquina stucco the stucco has small shells broken up dashed on the wet mix of the finish coat, like dry dash pebble dash. The shells or shell fragments can also be mixed into the mortar as an aggregate.

Whichever or whatever, the walls can be recoated with a chemical bonder, that is, an acrylic bonding admixture in the mortar.

This should be fairly easy to do, as long as the stucco hasn't been painted. It wouldn't hurt to chip the wall for insurance that the new stucco won't fail.

This isn't to be confused with coquina blocks, a sort of lime cut into blocks that were coquina shells harvested from low lying areas near Saint Augustine. More about coquina blocks here in this facinating article here.

Here in Virginia, a sea shell stucco was used many years ago called tabby stucco. Tabby was used on the Eastern shore and near the bay. Since there is no tabby near me, I can't supply pictures at the moment.

Here's how tabby was made, or at least how I believe it was made. I wasn't there so I don't really know for sure.

Sea shells were used for making lime years ago. Sea shells can be harvested at the shore of a river or the bay. Oyster shells were used, also. Oyster shells gave the walls some iridescence, that is a unique colored sparkle. When limestone is heated to make lime, or in this case, shells are heated to make lime, the fire is so hot that water is evaporated at the molecular level. The lime is called calcined. The lime now can absorb water and can be used to make lime putty. Lime was made in kilns. Not off the subject, but the Mel Gibson movie, "apocolypse" shows the Mayan indians made lime by standing firewood on end, and heating the limestone on top of the firewood. Yes, the Mayan Indians discovered lime and building techniques in parallel to the ancient Romans.

I think that a lot of the shells didn't get hot enough to calcine, that is, didn't release enough water to make lime. These crushed shells were probably used as an aggregate, and the stucco was made from shell lime and shell aggregate. In other words, this is like lime and sand stucco, with no sand or very little sand.

When I find some of this old tabby stucco, I can take a picture to publish. I have heard of people tearing off the tabby, because they thought it was ugly. This will probably wait until I can travel down to the bay. Tabbly was used in the 1800's, but I am sure there still exists some.