Florida’s Stucco Disaster, Part 2

Thousands of homeowners in central Florida are facing a stucco disaster. Cracking stucco, water entry and the resulting rotting of wood frame structures has become a nightmare for homeowners and home builders. One national builder has set aside more than $40 million to repair improperly installed stucco. In most cases, the structural damage is concealed and can’t be discovered without destructive inspection.

During the 2005-2010 construction boom, shoddy workmanship and lack of supervision, combined with lax or no inspections, resulted in a perfect storm of stucco disasters. Here’s a link to a recent news story1 about the problem: http://www.wtsp.com/story/news/investigations/2015/06/24/floridas-billion-dollar-stucco-problem/29073195/.

See the sidebar on Page 14 for a link to another news update.

Stucco takes time. It’s very time-consuming to properly install the backing and accessories. Production builders live by the “cheaper is better” model. Anything that takes time tends to go by the wayside in the world of production building, where a two-story home is built in 30 days.

In the past year, I’ve conducted more than 100 destructive inspections of improperly installed stucco on homes in central Florida for homeowners who are making construction defect claims. I’ve learned every possible way you can imagine to improperly install stucco, and some ways that you or I couldn’t imagine.

As home inspectors, we face a dilemma. Most of these defects can’t be discovered or proven until you break things apart. Many of them, however, can be seen without performing destructive inspection. As consumers become aware of these issues with stucco, their expectations increase regarding what they want a home inspector to tell them about stucco. 

In this second part of a two-part article,3 I’ll share some of the points you can observe in the course of a visual home inspection that will help you and your clients avoid an expensive problem. Fixing theseproblems isn’t cheap. Removal and replacement costs can range upwards of $50,000. Part 1 (published in the May 2016 issue of the Reporter,) covered issues involving lack of drainage, no drainage at horizontal returns and stucco that’s too thin. This article will cover improperly installed paper-backed lath, improperly installed control joints, and lack of casing beads and caulked joints.

Improperly Installed Paper- Backed Lath (photos 1-5)
It’s common to use paper-backed lath over wood sheathing in Florida. The paper and lath are offset so that the paper can be lapped over the paper and the lath can be lapped over the lath. This takes time. It’s much faster just to slap it up any which way. If paper is lapped over wire, this results in thin spots that are prone to cracking. These cracks have a distinctive shape and configuration that you can observe. If you see long horizontal cracks about 2 feet apart, it’s likely that this is the cause. You can’t successfully patch these cracks. In my experience, they redevelop and admit more water, causing more corrosion of lath and more cracking and damage.

Photo 1: Parallel horizontal cracks 2 feet apart indicate improperly lapped paper-backed lath.

Photo 2: Example of extreme damage.

Photo 3: Destructive inspection showing improperly lapped paper-backed lath at a horizontal crack.

Photo 4: If you see cracking parallel to a rake edge about 2 feet down from the top of the wall, you can be reasonably sure that’s due to running the lath at an angle at the top of the wall.

Photo 5: Lath run at an angle overlapping the horizontal pieces causes cracking at the thin areas created by improper lapping.

Improperly Installed Control Joints (photo 6)
Control joints are installed to allow stucco to shrink initially and then expand and contract. The typical W-shaped joints are designed to move in an accordion fashion to accommodate the movement. Key points to installing control joints include cutting the wire lath at the joint and wire tying the joint to the stucco. It’s much faster to just staple the joint to the wall, which prevents it from moving. 

Any paper backing on the lath has to be under the perforated flange of the control joint to allow the stucco to lock onto the joint. If you don’t install these joints correctly, the joint can’t move and when the stucco moves, a crack develops at the joint that admits water and causes damage. Ironically, preventing cracks is why we install the joints in the first place.

If you see a vertical crack at the control joint, it’s probably installed improperly.

Photo 6: Separation at control joint. The crack here admits water, which causes lath to rust and expand, leading to more cracking and damage.

Lack of Casing Beads and Caulked Joints (photos 7-17)
ASTM standards required casing beads at intersections with dissimilar materials such as windows, soffit returns, etc. This was almost never done in central Florida during this time period.  The purpose of the casing bead is to provide a gap that can be caulked. Without the caulked joint, hairline cracks invariably develop that admit water and cause damage.

Photo 7: No casing bead and no caulked joint between window and stucco. No small cracks here. The photos that follow are all related to this window. This crack doesn’t look like much, but the resulting damage is impressive.

Photo 8: Typical damage on a 10-year-old home.

Photo 9: Sheathing is gone. (Rotted sheathing has been removed.)

 Photo 10: Look carefully at interior surfaces at and below windows. If you see staining like this, I can assure you there’s structural damage concealed in the wall.

 Photo 11: I always pull up the edge of carpeting below windows using needlenose pliers. If I see staining, I know there’s concealed damage in the walls. In this case, I was inspecting stucco for the owner and was able to pull back the carpeting, revealing the large stain on the floor.

Photo 12: Here’s what the wall below this window looked like after it was torn open. Note the severe damage.

 Photo 13: It’s not just windows; all dissimilar materials intersecting stucco need casing beads and caulked joints. This intersection of a fascia and the stucco wall didn’t show any signs of damage other than some staining on the wood ceiling.

 
Photo 14: Here’s what it looked like under the stucco.

Photo 15: I typically measure moisture levels in walls below windows using a Tramex Moisture Encounter meter. I then compare the reading with a reading taken on the wall near the window. If I find elevated moisture levels below the windows, I know that there’s likely to be concealed damage.

Photo 16: This cracking is caused by multiple issues: water entry at the kickout flashing that’s not caulked, stucco that’s too thin and improperly lapped paper-backed lath.

Reference: ASTM C-1063 7.11.3 Casing Bead—Nonload-bearing members shall be isolated from load-bearing members, and all penetrating elements, with casing beads or other suitable means, to avoid transfer of structural loads, and to separate from dissimilar materials.

Conclusion
Florida’s stucco problem is real. It’s big and it’s getting bigger. Don’t let yourself be caught on the wrong side of a lawsuit because you failed to point out potential problems and explain the implications of the problem. Always make your client aware of the potential for significant concealed damage. Recommend destructive inspection. You won’t be very popular with agents, but you’ll sleep better at night. I’ve had to defend a home inspector in a concealed damage claim over stucco. It’s not pretty.

Photo 17: Destructive inspection can include drilling holes and measuring moisture with a meter, or simply breaking open the stucco to see what was done wrong underneath the surface. Both have their places.

Also understand that it’s useless to recommend “further evaluation by a stucco contractor.” These are the folks who created this mess. They’re likely to say it’s all just fine and you need a little patching. That’s just kicking the can down the road. For those of you in other parts of the country, the issues are the same, not only with stucco, but with artificial stone veneer, which is essentially nothing more than lumpy stucco. Similar disasters are widespread almost everywhere.

1. Pransky N. 10 News Investigates. Florida’s billion-dollar stucco problem: Your home may also be rotting away—and losing value—much quicker than you could ever imagine, part 1. Available at: http://www.wtsp.com. Accessed April 22, 2016.

2. Swanson B. KB Home to pay at least $23.5M in settlement with Florida over building violations: “Allegedly failed to make certain disclosures to homebuyers.” HousingWire.com. Posted February 11, 2016. Available at: http://www.housingwire.com. Accessed April 22, 2016.

3. Cramer M. Florida’s stucco disaster: What every home inspector should know, part 1. ASHI Reporter. May 2016. pp. 14-16. Available at: https://issuu.com/ashi932. Accessed April 22, 2016.

Mark Cramer is a home inspection veteran and a Florida-licensed contractor who has 25 years of experience performing home inspections, construction progress inspections, commercial building inspections and insurance inspections. Mark also works as a litigation consultant and expert witness in matters relating to construction defects and home inspection. He’s performed more than 100 forensic inspections of stucco failures. Mark has more than 5,000 hours of experience training home inspectors in classroom and seminar settings. A longtime ASHI member, Mark was one of the founding members of the Suncoast Chapter of ASHI. He’s held numerous local and national positions within ASHI, serving as chair of several national committees and as National President of ASHI in the year 2000.