First Time Home Buyer - Stucco Control Joints
My wife and I are closing on a 3500 sq ft home in West Austin. Built in 2006 on mostly limestone area. There are no control joints and our inspector said none are needed at time of inspection. I read a post of yours regarding expansion joints (assuming that is same as control joint) and was wondering if homes void of control joints are a common thing? Seems like adding them after the fact is a fairly invasive procedure involving demo, adding the joints and then basically re-stuccoing the house. Would love to hear your thoughts on if you think this is a red flag for us. The house is in great condition and the minor cracking mostly spider and around corners that can be just simple maintenance.
Expansion joints weren't even invented until the 1950's. For the most part they do more harm than good.
These expansion joints are easily removed because they are put on wrong to begin with. The joints are supposed to be put on first, then the lath. It is a lot faster to put the lath on first. Putting the lath on first limits the movement due to expansion to none.
We filled in the joints with my flex-con mix, and then coated the whole wall.
If you haven't seen our method for re coating painted stucco, here it is: Recoating old stucco, painted and unpainted
Putting on our color cement finish coat. Sure looks a lot nicer without expansion joints.
There is no such thing as expansion joints made by a stucco manufacturer. USG, a large manufacturer on expansion joints says that there must be a gap in the sheathing for the expansion joint to work. I have never seen such a gap. This means all the expansion joints in the world are put on wrong.