Poor Window Fill In Repairs
Anyone who is familiar with
remodeling and home building, can clearly see that someone removed two
windows and then filled them in with stucco.
In case you haven't figured it out by now, these repairs are going to
create problems for the homeowner in the future. The stucco should have
been chipped back a couple of inches around the perimeter of the window
so that the new stucco wire lath could lap, at least a couple of inches.
By lapping the new wire lath over the existing wire lath, you will
eliminate window perimeter cracks like these in the future. There's a
good chance that that these poor window repairs will leak and damage the
interior framing, it's only a matter of time.
Home Repair Tip: I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the first
thing you need to do is remove the stucco patch. After you have removed
the stucco patch, and you need to chip at least 2 to 3 inches around the
perimeter of the old window opening, so that you can expose 2 inches of
the metal wire lath.
After that, you will need to install the proper wire backing and then
apply a specified building paper. Now here's where it gets tricky,
you're going to need to apply some type of caulking around the old and
new building paper to make sure that water won't leak behind it and onto
the wood framing. Take your time and make sure that you do this
correctly, otherwise you could have problems with wood rot in the
future.
After that you can safely apply your metal wire stucco lath and then
apply your three layers of stucco.
I don't know if you've ever heard the saying," You can pay me now or pay
me later," but this situation is a good example of a poor home repair
that could lead to additional damage in the future, if it's not fixed as
soon as possible.