Stucco above grade or below grade.
Just a general question. When applying stucco to the outside of a home does it go below grade, to grade, or above grade?
Stucco should always, always finish above the grade. An exception is on real old historic work, where the stucco finished below the grade, and historic appearance is valuable. Another exception is if a homeowner wants the stucco to finish below the grade and I can't talk them out of it.
Here are a couple of examples where stucco was below the grade and should have been above the grade:
This 1960's house was badly deteriorated at the bottom. Also, there were plants growing up through the stucco. We cut the bottom off and supported the bottom with a weep screed, which allows drainage. Then we patched the stucco back. If this was done originally, we wouldn't be here.
The reason this stucco failed was the stucco was down tight to the concrete slab, causing the stucco to buckle as the house sagged. We have done a lot of patch work due to this condition. Even if the wood framing doesn't sag, if the stucco is down to the footer, the bottom saturates.
We leave a drainage gap on the bottom of our jobs
Casing bead is drilled out at the bottom for drainage. They used to make this already drilled and the drilled casing beads were called weep grounds. Now they are made out of plastic and I would rather not work with plastic.
Our weep grounds are aligned with the finished wall thickness. In case you are wondering, the reason the wall has two different levels is the bottom has that ugly fake brick concrete that we are covering up.