Stucco & Exterior Repair in Sherman Oaks
Stucco repair and re-stucco in Sherman Oaks built around the water path: paper laps, flashing at each window and a weep screed that still drains.
Cement plaster on a Sherman Oaks house lets a little water through by design, and a double layer of building paper behind it is what carries that water down and out. Our scope traces the route from the roof edge to the ground: how the paper laps, where it meets each window, and whether the metal strip at the foot of the wall still drains. If the lot slopes, the wall facing uphill gets the same trace from the yard above.
Paper laps and window heads
Building paper works like roof shingles turned on their side. Each upper course overlaps the one below, so water running down the back of the plaster never meets a seam it can enter. Windows interrupt that pattern, which makes them the usual entry point. At each head we look for a metal or membrane flashing tucked under the paper above and lapped over the window flange. Where a roof edge dies into a wall, a small kickout flashing should turn runoff away from the plaster. A missing one leaves a dark streak below it, and the scope lists that corner by name.
When the yard drains toward a wall
On a sloping lot, the wall that faces up the grade receives whatever water the yard sends its way. Soil creeps against the plaster, sprinkler heads aim at the base, and a downspout may empty right beside the footing. Each one keeps the bottom of the wall wet. Our fix starts outside the stucco: pull the grade back, turn the downspout into a pipe that carries water off, and reset sprinkler heads so they water the planting. Then the base of the wall is repaired. Where the ground keeps pushing water toward the house, a shallow swale or a drain line is quoted with it.
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A crack can come from either cause, so we read its shape first. Fine random lines across a field of plaster usually trace to shrinkage as the coats cured. A crack that runs diagonally off a window corner or steps along the base, paired with a door that binds, points lower. Then we check the floor and stem wall for level before saying the footing moved.
The paper decides it. A small cut beside the damage shows whether the building paper is intact and the lath still bright and fastened. Sound layers mean a patch blended into the wall around it. Torn or rotted paper across a broad stretch means stripping that wall to the framing and rebuilding the layers, and the written scope names each wall and its repair.
We dig along the foot of the wall until the weep screed shows, then check that its holes are open and that plaster has not been troweled down over it. Soil and mulch come back far enough to leave a clear gap. If the screed is bent, rusted or missing, a new one goes in before the base patch.
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