STUCCO NEWS.NET

Water pools in the center of this 8 year old patio. Water will find a way. The concrete has sagged in the middle, and cracks in the concrete down to the slab underneath, causing water to run out of the stucco on block wall. This patio also catches water from the adjacent solarium.

With water pouring out of the wall, it is impossible to repair the stucco unless the patio is re-done. I even took a video of this, and you can hear water coming out of the wall.

I have seen this condition a lot on jobs I went out to estimate. Of course, I can't fix the stucco. I wish I took pictures.

We stuccoed a house with a concrete roof deck. The plans called for a 10^o slope. The contractor left a zero degree slope. Just the rubber membrane on the roof was $ 40,000 9 years ago. It will deteriorate quickly in the cold mountain climate. The homeowner has to push the water off with a squeegie after it rains.

The same goes for roofs that are level. A rubber membrane roof usually only lasts 5 years when the roof is level.

I see this condition everwhere I go, and it drives me crazy like backwards flashing over windows.

I just backed away from a stucco job that had a new roof that was level. There were other red flags about the job, but I could see where the stucco would fail with excessive water running off the roof, particularly without and adequate drip edge.

A big apartment project near my house has level roofs. This may be corrected with tapered insulation under the membrane, but I doubt it. This was built to fail.

Level roofs and patios didn't happen much in the old days. I have to tell the blind man the error of his ways.

A flat roof doesn't mean a level roof. These membrane roofs with pooling water don't last. I didn't have to go far to take this picture, This is an apartment building near my house. It isn't hard to slant the framing slightly, or even put tapered insulation underneath. I see this everywhere I go and it is the road to failure.