Stucco repair cost dataset

The same damage in each system

The repair itself differs by only $271, and that is the small half of the story. Traditional stucco is cement over lath over building paper and it breathes: water that gets in gets out. EIFS is a thin acrylic coat over foam glued to the sheathing and it does not, so water that got past a failed sealant joint years ago is still there. ⚠️ The last column is the line worth insisting on rather than the line to cut, and the check that decides which system you have costs nothing: knock on it. Solid and cold is traditional; hollow, with a slight give under a fingernail, is synthetic. When the calculator is set to a synthetic wall and anything more than crack filling, it prints the warning whether or not that line is ticked.

Four jobs, and why the small one costs most per foot

The total rises down that table and the cost per square foot falls, which is the honest shape of this trade and not a discount. ⚠️ Traditional stucco goes on in coats that each have to cure before the next, so a repair of any size is several visits to the same wall, and the call-out, the mixing and the setting up are paid every time. That is also why having three damaged spots done in one visit is the cheapest decision available here.

Matching, access and lead paint

Nobody can match a patch into a thirty-year-old wall: the colour is in the mix rather than on top, the texture is applied by hand, and the wall around it has three decades of sun on it. So the two rows underneath the finishes are the real decision — repaint the face for $368 more, or re-coat it for $2,041 more. ⚠️ Painting commits an unpainted traditional wall to being painted for the rest of its life, which our exterior painting cost calculator prices as a recurrence. Height is not a surcharge either: three coats means separate days, so the access has to stay up in between.

Line items

50% of the reference total comes from estimated rather than official figures. The reference job is a 40 square foot patch on a traditional three-coat wall at ground level, sand finish, with the debris taken away: 12 trade hours and $34.35 a square foot. ⚠️ This project’s regional index carries no plasterer occupation, so the model uses brickmasons, the nearest trade it does carry — the regional multiplier is the strong part of the model and the absolute rate the weak one.

The reasoning behind each figure

Call-out and assessmentestimated, ±45%

• Getting a plasterer to the house, and the look at the wall that has to happen before anything is priced honestly.
• ⚠️ On a synthetic wall this visit should include a moisture reading rather than a glance. A meter costs nothing to run and it is the difference between pricing a patch and pricing a wall.

Elastomeric crack filler and textureestimated, ±52%

• Flexible filler worked into the crack and textured over to match, priced across the area being treated rather than by the foot of crack, because the texturing is what takes the material.
• It stays flexible on purpose: a rigid filler in a moving crack simply cracks again a couple of inches to one side.

Building paper and metal lathestimated, ±45%

• Two layers of building paper lapped like roof shingles, and galvanised lath nailed through into the framing.
• ⚠️ The paper is the actual water barrier of a traditional stucco wall — the render is a rain screen, not a seal — so how it is lapped matters more than how the finish looks. Lapped the wrong way it channels water into the wall instead of out of it.

Scratch, brown and finish coatsestimated, ±42%

• Cement, sand, lime and the pigment for an integrally coloured finish, across the area being rebuilt.
• ⚠️ Three coats means three visits or three days: each has to cure before the next, and a wall rendered in one go in a hurry cracks along the joint between what dried and what did not.

Finish coat across the elevationestimated, ±44%

• A fresh finish coat corner to corner, which is what makes a repaired wall read as one wall.
• Priced across the whole elevation rather than the repair, because stopping halfway leaves a line that catches the eye forever.

Plastering work

• A base allowance for the kind of job plus hours per square foot that run from 0.03 on hairline cracks to 0.22 on a section rebuilt, multiplied by the finish factor and the system factor.
• ⚠️ Synthetic walls carry a 45% uplift, and it is not the rendering: it is the care. Cutting into foam board without damaging the drainage plane behind it, and rebuilding the sealant joints that are the whole waterproofing of the system, is slower and less forgiving than working on cement.
• Smooth troweled finishes carry 50% more than a sand float, because there is no texture to hide a difference in and every trowel mark shows.
• Increased by 35% on a pre-1978 house, where cutting into painted render brings the work inside the federal lead programme.

Opening up to check for trapped moistureestimated, ±63%

• Probe readings around the openings and the low points, and opening a small area where a reading comes back wet, so the sheathing and framing behind can actually be seen.
• ⚠️ On a synthetic wall this is the item worth insisting on, and the reason is structural rather than cosmetic: the system does not breathe, so water that got in at a failed joint years ago is still there, and what it has been doing to the sheathing is invisible from outside. Patching over it prices the symptom.
• The band is a couple of probe openings at the bottom and a serious investigation across an elevation at the top.
• ⚠️ Included automatically when the system is not known, because nobody can price this work without knowing which wall it is — and the same opening answers both questions at once: metal lath and building paper behind it is traditional, foam board is synthetic.

Repainting the elevation to even the colourestimated, ±43%

• Masonry paint across the whole face, which is the other way to make a repair disappear when re-coating is not wanted.
• ⚠️ It is also a decision with a tail: an unpainted traditional stucco wall never needs painting, and a painted one needs painting again every so often for the rest of its life. Our exterior painting page prices that recurrence.

Access and protection — 1 storeyestimated, ±49%

• Ladders, boards and ground sheeting. Enough for work within reach from a low platform.
• Also sheeting the ground: wet render on a path or a planting bed is far easier to prevent than to remove.

Access and protection — 2 storeysestimated, ±52%

• Staged scaffold, because rendering needs both hands and somewhere level to set a hawk down.
• ⚠️ It also has to stay up between visits: three coats means coming back on separate days.
• Also sheeting the ground: wet render on a path or a planting bed is far easier to prevent than to remove.

Access and protection — 3 storeysestimated, ±40%

• Erected scaffold across the elevation, tied, for several days.
• Also sheeting the ground: wet render on a path or a planting bed is far easier to prevent than to remove.

Erecting and striking access

• Two hours on a single storey, seven on two, twelve on three.
• A three-coat repair means coming back on separate days, and the access has to stay up in between — which is part of why a small repair high on a wall costs what it does.

Debris removal and dust controlestimated, ±64%

• Broken render is heavy and there is more of it than people expect from a small area.
• ⚠️ Cutting or grinding cement render releases respirable crystalline silica, which is regulated work. The control is water on the blade and it is visible from a window: if a saw is cutting dry and making a white cloud, that is the thing to stop.

Lead-safe containment and cleaning verificationestimated, ±56%

• Ground sheeting held down, HEPA vacuum consumables and verification wipes.
• ⚠️ Outdoors the federal threshold is twenty square feet of disturbed painted surface, which a section repair on a painted wall passes easily.

Not included in this dataset

Whatever is letting the water in

⚠️ The single most important exclusion on this page. Stucco very rarely fails on its own: it fails where water gets behind it, and that is almost always a window head, a roof-to-wall junction, a missing kickout flashing or a failed sealant joint. Repairing the render without fixing the source buys a couple of years at full price.

Rotten sheathing or framing behind the wall

The investigation line prices finding out. What to do about it, if the answer is bad, is carpentry and it is not modelled here — and on a synthetic wall that has been wet for years it can be the larger half of the project.

Stucco over an entire house

Rendering a house that is not rendered, or replacing a whole wall system, is new construction rather than repair. Different quantities, different schedule, different price per square foot.

Mould behind the wall

Where a synthetic wall has held water against sheathing, what is found is sometimes a remediation job. Our mold remediation page prices that side of it.

An exact colour match

Nobody can promise one, and a quote that does should be read carefully. Integral colour, thirty years of sun and a hand-applied texture do not reproduce. Re-coating or repainting the elevation is the way to get a uniform wall, and both are priced above.

What your insurance will pay

Sudden damage and long-term water entry are treated differently by most policies, and which one a wet wall counts as is decided on your wall. This page prices work; it does not advise on a claim.