01
Movement
A crack that has been the same width for five years and one that opened last spring need different answers. A dated photograph today is worth more than a guess later.
(214) 807-0414Request an assessmentStucco guide
How to read a stucco crack before anyone quotes you for it.
Nearly every stucco wall in the Metroplex has cracks in it, and most of them mean very little. The useful skill is not spotting a crack — it is reading width, direction, location and movement, because those four things separate a wall that needs a coat from a wall that needs opening up.
In short
Hairline cracking, roughly the width of a business card edge, is ordinary. A crack you can push a fingernail into is a different conversation.
- DirectionVertical hairlines distributed over a wall usually read as shrinkage. Diagonals running off a window or door corner read as movement, and that is structural until shown otherwise.
- LocationCrack at a floor line, at a roof-to-wall junction, or below a window sill: those are the three places where water, not shrinkage, is the first suspect.
02
What is behind it
Stucco is the finish, not the waterproofing. Weep screed, flashing and drainage plane behind it are what keep water out, and they are what a serious assessment is trying to reach a conclusion about.
03
What paint does
Elastomeric coating bridges a hairline and hides everything else. If the crack is moving or water is behind it, coating it delays the diagnosis and makes the eventual repair larger.
Questions
Useful answers, without overpromising.
Should I be worried about cracks in my stucco?
Most hairline cracking is cosmetic. Worry is warranted for diagonals from openings, horizontal cracks at floor lines, cracks that have visibly widened, and any crack with staining below it.
Can a crack be repaired without recoating the whole wall?
Often yes. Whether a targeted repair reads as a patch from the street depends on the texture and the age of the surrounding finish, and that should be established before the work rather than after.
How do I tell whether a crack is still moving?
By dating it. Photograph the crack with something in frame for scale, note exactly where it is, and photograph it again after a season — cracking in this climate opens and closes with the moisture in the ground under the building. A crack that is the same width a year later is a different thing from one that has widened, and that comparison is worth considerably more than any single opinion offered in front of it.
There is a stain running below a crack. Does that change the answer?
Considerably. Staining below a crack means water is getting in and finding its way back out, which moves the question from the appearance of the wall to what is behind it: the drainage plane, the flashing above, and whether framing has been getting wet. It is the one visible feature that reliably turns a cosmetic crack into something worth opening up.
Assessment request
Tell us what is happening at the property.
Short, routing-only questions. Nothing here asks you to diagnose the roof yourself.