What are stucco buckets ?

Stucco buckets is a condition caused by water penetrating a stucco wall, and the water running into an adjoining ceiling, deteriorating the ceiling. We had this condition damage our ceilings for years until I found out what was going on.

For more details please follow the links below:

Journal of Light Construction has an excellent article about Stucco buckets here : Avoiding stucco buckets.

Here is another great article on stucco buckets on this informative site, Stuccometrics : Stucco buckets.

Here is how we avoided stucco buckets on this recently finished house.

Holes are drilled in casing bead for weep holes.

We drilled holes in our casing bead for weep holes.

Casing bead is dropped down about an inch and a half.

Casing bead is dropped down about an inch and a half from the edge. This provides a drip edge so water doesn't run back on the ceiling. The face is covered with tyvek and tar paper.

Scratch and brown

Scratch and brown.

Stucco bucket avoided.

Finished ceiling. Water that runs down the face can't run back to the ceiling. Holes are drilled to allow water that saturates the stucco to escape.

Finished bay window.

Finished bay window. Finish coat is white portland and white sand and is porous as a sponge. This ceiling won't fail.

Thanks so much dear readers, for reading all these years, and for all the comments.

My Book - Stucco and the blind man - Table of contents

Chapters one and two

Introduction; About windows and doors.

Chapter three

Evil EIFS

Chapter four

All about lath for plaster and stucco

Chapter five

Mortar and sand

Chapter six

About interior plaster

Chapter seven

Bonding plaster and cement mortar.

Chapter eight

Planning a plaster or stucco project.

Chapter nine

Decorative features from a 24 year old website.

Chapter ten

Glossary of plaster terms.

Chapter eleven

Flashing for stucco.

Chapter twelve

Chimneys.

Chapter thirteen

Pay per leads.

Chapter Fourteen

Stucco Art

Chapter Fifteen

Identifying the age of materials

Addendums

January, 2024

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.