Home Inspections in Huntington BeachMichael Sedillo Property Inspections provides home inspections in Anaheim, Santa Ana, Huntington Beach, Mission Viejo, San Clemente & Surrounding cities & areas. Email Your Home Inspector or Call 949-728-8292

Stucco Home Inspections

It is very rare to find a stucco home without cracks. Home Inspectors almost always find cracks in stucco. When I find cracks in a home during a home inspection the things I look for are: location, size, and is it live. Ther field cracks and the corner cracks tell a different story. Field cracking can be a result of hydration during the curing stage or misapplication of lathing material under the finsish coat. Corner cracks are usually associated with movement of the framing; either from lumber shrinkage or ground soil movement. By corners I mean, around windows, doors, and at points where the wall transitions from side of house to patio soffit. If I find significant cracking I make sure to look below at the foundation stem wall. If that is cracked significantly as well, then it's safe to assume that the soil is experiencing movement. Is it wet? Is there erosion from a slope or a misdirected rain gutter without a splash block? Is it a live crack? Sometimes you see a stucco crack and its been painted over or maybe it's slighty dirty. This tells you it happened a while ago and whatever the cause, the initial cause has stopped. Live cracks mean that it's cracking now and may continue to crack. Dead cracks tell you it cracked once and then settled down. The stucco manufacturers association recommends only patching cracks larger than 1/16". Oftentimes the patch is more unsightly than the crack. In any case, only patch the crack if you are planing on painting the house because matching the color and texture is difficult and best left to a professional plasterer. Call me and I'll evaluate it for free.

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Home Inspections performed in Anaheim, Santa Ana, Huntington Beach, Mission Viejo, San Clemente, Irvine, Garden Grove, Orange, Costa Mesa, Westminster, Tustin, Aliso Viejo, San Juan Capistrano and surrounding cities.