What Goes Into a Parging Job That Survives an Edmonton Winter
Anyone can trowel cement onto a foundation, but making a parge coat that survives an Edmonton winter is another matter. The difference shows within a few seasons: a properly installed parge coat stays bonded, smooth, and intact, while a poorly done one cracks, bubbles, loses its bond, and starts coming off in sheets. Since parging exists to protect the foundation from Edmonton's harsh weather, a parge coat that fails leaves the foundation exposed to the very conditions it was meant to block. Understanding what goes into a lasting parging installation is what lets an Edmonton homeowner tell good work from a job that will fail. Depend Exteriors installs parging built to last, and this is what that takes.
A parge coat lives in one of the hardest spots on a building, at the base of the wall where moisture, snow, salt, and freeze-thaw all concentrate. Surviving there takes more than slapping on cement, and knowing what the job actually requires is the key to a parge coat that holds through the Edmonton winters.
It Starts With the Substrate
The most important part of a lasting parging job happens before any new cement goes on, in the preparation of the surface underneath. A parge coat is only as good as its bond to the foundation, and that bond depends on a clean, sound substrate. Proper preparation means cleaning the surface of dirt, dust, and loose material, removing any old parging that has lost its bond, and patching damage so the new coat has solid concrete or block to grip. A parge coat troweled over a dirty, loose, or failing surface cannot bond well, and it fails no matter how good the cement is. This is the step that separates a lasting parging installation from a quick one, and it is the step a rushed job skips. Depend Exteriors prepares the substrate properly, because the preparation is what the whole parge coat depends on.
Removing failing old parging matters especially on a retrofit. A common mistake is to trowel new parging over old parging that is loose or coming off, which simply bonds the new coat to a failing layer that then takes the new work with it when it lets go. Proper preparation removes the loose old material down to sound substrate first, so the new parge coat bonds to the foundation itself, not to a failing coat. That thoroughness is part of what makes a retrofit parging installation last.
The Bond Depends on the Prep
A parge coat is only as good as its bond to the foundation, so cleaning the surface, removing loose old parging, and patching damage before applying new parging is the step that most determines whether the coat lasts or fails.
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New Over Loose Old Parging Fails
Troweling new parging over old parging that is loose or coming off simply bonds the new coat to a failing layer that takes the new work with it when it lets go, which is why proper prep removes the old material down to sound substrate.
Parging Needs About 28 Days to Cure
A parge coat needs roughly 28 days to cure fully before it is painted or sealed, and it needs the right temperatures to set, which is why spring and early summer are the ideal season for parging in Edmonton and a late-fall job risks freezing before it cures.
With the surface prepared, a lasting parge coat depends on the right bonding, materials, and application. A bonding agent applied to the prepared surface helps the parge coat adhere, adding to the mechanical bond a clean substrate provides. The parging mix itself, cement, lime, and sand in the right proportions, has to be mixed correctly, since a poor mix is weak and fails. The coat is applied in the right build, a base coat and a finish coat rather than one thick layer, at the proper thickness, and troweled to a consistent texture. And the finish is worked to match the look the homeowner wants, whether smooth, lightly textured, or heavily textured. Each of these is a point where an experienced hand produces a better, longer-lasting result than a rushed one. Depend Exteriors brings the materials and the troweling technique that make a parge coat both durable and good-looking.
Curing and the Edmonton Season
The final piece of a lasting parging job is curing, and Edmonton's climate makes it matter. A parge coat needs to cure properly to reach full strength, and that means applying it in the right conditions and giving it time to set before it faces water or freezing. The ideal season for parging in Edmonton is spring and early summer, when the temperatures support proper curing, and a parge coat generally needs about 28 days to cure fully before it is painted or sealed. Applying parging too late in the fall, when a freeze can hit before the coat has cured, risks a parge coat that never reaches full strength and fails. An experienced Edmonton contractor times the work to the season and the weather, so the parge coat cures properly and lasts. Depend Exteriors works the parging season correctly, which is part of why its parge coats survive the winters that follow.
Why the Contractor Makes the Difference
Every part of a lasting parging job, the substrate preparation, the bonding, the mix, the application, the curing, comes down to the care and experience of the contractor. A parge coat is simple to do badly and takes real skill to do well, and the Edmonton climate exposes the difference within a couple of seasons. Depend Exteriors, family-owned since 2013 and led by journeyman plasterer Hasan Yilmaz, does parging with the preparation, materials, technique, and timing that make it last, and backs the work with a 3-year workmanship warranty and a 5-year manufacturer material warranty. That care is the difference between a parge coat that protects an Edmonton foundation for years and one that fails and leaves it exposed.
What a Failing Parging Job Looks Like
The value of a proper parging installation is easiest to see by looking at what a poor one does. Within a season or two, a badly done parge coat starts to show it: hairline cracks appear and widen, sections begin to sound hollow as the coat loses its bond, patches bubble and bulge away from the wall, and eventually the parging crumbles or comes off in sheets, exposing the foundation it was supposed to protect. Every one of those failures traces back to a step that was skipped, the surface that was not cleaned, the bonding agent that was left out, the mix that was wrong, or the curing that was rushed in the wrong season. A homeowner who has watched a cheap parging job fail has seen firsthand why the preparation and technique matter, and it is why a proper parging installation is worth doing right the first time rather than paying twice. Depend Exteriors does the job so it does not fail, which saves an Edmonton homeowner the cost and frustration of redoing it.
The Warranty Behind the Work
A contractor confident in its parging stands behind it in writing, and Depend Exteriors backs its parging installation with a 3-year workmanship warranty on the labour and a 5-year manufacturer material warranty, delivered as written warranty documentation after the project. That two-part warranty reflects the care in the work, because a parge coat installed with proper preparation, bonding, materials, and curing is one a contractor can stand behind. For an Edmonton homeowner, that written warranty is the assurance that the parging installation was done to last, not just to look good on the day it was finished. It is the difference between hiring a contractor who does the job right and hoping a cheap job holds.
Doing It Once, Doing It Right
The real economy of a proper parging installation is that it is done once and lasts, rather than done cheaply and redone. A parge coat installed with proper preparation, bonding, a correct mix, careful application, and proper curing protects an Edmonton foundation for many years, while a rushed one fails within a season or two and has to be torn off and redone, exposing the foundation in the meantime. Paying for the job to be done right the first time is cheaper than paying for a cheap job and then paying again to fix it, which is the situation many homeowners find themselves in after hiring the lowest bid. Depend Exteriors does parging installation to last, so an Edmonton homeowner pays once for a parge coat that protects the foundation for years rather than twice for one that fails. That is the value experience and proper technique bring to what looks like a simple job.
For an Edmonton homeowner choosing a contractor for parging, the questions worth asking are about preparation, materials, and timing, because those are what determine whether the parge coat lasts. A contractor who prepares the substrate properly, uses quality materials and a bonding agent, and times the work to the season is one whose parging survives the winter, and that is the standard Depend Exteriors holds on every job.
A parge coat that survives an Edmonton winter is the mark of a contractor who did every step properly, and that is the standard Depend Exteriors holds on every foundation it coats across the Edmonton area, backed by its licence, insurance, and written warranty.
For an Edmonton homeowner, the choice of who applies the parge coat decides whether it lasts a season or a decade, and the difference lies entirely in the care taken at each step. Choosing a contractor who does not cut those corners is the surest way to a foundation coat that holds.
A parge coat that survives an Edmonton winter is no accident; it is the result of doing every step right. For a lasting parging installation, contact Depend Exteriors at (780) 710-3972 for a free on-site assessment.
About Stucco
Construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water
Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is most commonly used as a decorative and protective cladding for exterior walls and canopies. Stucco can be applied over construction materials such as metal, expanded metal lath, concrete, cinder block, or clay brick and adobe for decorative, protective and/or structural purposes.[2]
In English, "stucco" refers to a cladding for the outside of a building and "plaster" to a cladding for interiors. Other European languages, notably Italian, do not have the same distinction: In Italian, stucco means plaster, and serves for both.[3]
Stucco used as an exterior coating on a residential building.Rock dash stucco used as an exterior coating on a house on Canada's west coast. The chips of quartz, stone, and colored glass measure approx. 3–6 mm (1/8–1/4").
The basic composition of stucco is lime, water, and sand.[4]
The difference in nomenclature between stucco, plaster, and mortar is based more on use than composition. Until the latter part of the nineteenth century, it was common that mortar as well as plaster, which was used inside a building, and stucco, which was used outside, would consist of the same primary materials: lime and sand.
Animal or plant fibers were often added for additional strength. Sometimes additives such as acrylics and glass fibers are added to improve the structural properties of the stucco. This is usually done with what is considered a one-coat stucco system, as opposed to the traditional three-coat method.
In the latter nineteenth century, Portland cement was added with increasing frequency to cover surfaces in contact with soil or water. At the same time, traditional lime plasters were often being replaced by gypsum plaster. Lime is almost as good in balancing humidity as clay. It prevents moisture accumulation inside the building as well as in the wall by its excellent permeability, and is more elastic and workable than cement render.
Lime itself is usually white; color comes from the aggregate or any added pigments. Lime stucco has the property of being self healing to a limited degree because of the slight water solubility of lime (which in solution can be deposited in cracks, where it solidifies). Portland cement stucco is very hard and brittle and can easily crack and separate from the surface if the base on which it is applied is not stable. Typically, its color was gray, from the innate color of most Portland cement, but white Portland cement is also available. Today's stucco manufacturers offer a very wide range of colors that can be mixed integrally in the finish coat. Other materials such as stone and glass chips are sometimes "dashed" onto the finish coat before drying, with the finished product commonly known as "rock dash", "pebble dash", or also as roughcast if the stones are incorporated directly into the stucco, used mainly from the early 20th through the early 21st centuries.
As a building material, stucco is a durable, attractive, and weather-resistant wall covering. It was traditionally used as both an interior and exterior finish applied in one or two thin layers directly over a solid masonry, brick, or stone surface. The finish coat usually contained an integral color and was typically textured for appearance.
Then with the introduction and development of heavy timber and light wood-framed construction methods, stucco was adapted for this new use by adding a reinforcement lattice, or lath, attached to and spanning between the structural supports and by increasing the thickness and number of layers of the total system. The lath added support for the wet plaster and tensile strength to the brittle, cured stucco; while the increased thickness and number of layers helped control cracking.
The traditional application of stucco and lath occurs in three coats—the scratch coat, the brown coat and the finish coat. The two base coats of plaster are either hand-applied or machine sprayed. The finish coat can be troweled smooth, hand-textured, floated to a sand finish or sprayed.
Originally, the lath material was strips of wood installed horizontally on the wall, with spaces between, that would support the wet plaster until it cured. This lath and plaster technique became widely used.
In exterior wall applications, the lath is installed over a weather-resistant asphalt-impregnatedfelt or paper sheet that protects the framing from the moisture that can pass through the porous stucco.
Following World War II, the introduction of metal wire mesh, or netting, replaced the use of wood lath. Galvanizing the wire made it corrosion resistant and suitable for exterior wall applications. At the beginning of the 21st century, this "traditional" method of wire mesh lath and three coats of exterior plaster was still widely used.
In some parts of the United States with a warmer climate (like California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and Florida), stucco is the predominant exterior for both residential and commercial construction. Stucco exterior (with wood frame interior) became a popular alternative in the southwestern United States during the 1970s, as the masonry labor costs for adobe rose.[5]
Iranian relief plaque with confronted ibexes; 5th or 6th century AD (the Sasanian period); stucco originally with polychrome painting; Cincinnati Art Museum (Cincinnati, US)
Maya wall panel depicting Ix K'an Bolon; c. 790 AD(Late Classic period); limestone, stucco and paint; from Pomona (Tabasco), Mexico) Dallas Museum of Art (Dallas, Texas, US)
Stucco has also been used as a sculptural and artistic material. Stucco relief was used in the architectural decoration schemes of many ancient cultures. Examples of Egyptian, Minoan, and Etruscan stucco reliefs remain extant. In the art of Mesopotamia and ancient Persian art there was a widespread tradition of figurative and ornamental internal stucco reliefs, which continued into Islamic art, for example in Abbasid Samarra, now using geometrical and plant-based ornament. As the arabesque reached its full maturity, carved stucco remained a very common medium for decoration and calligraphic inscriptions. Indian architecture used stucco as a material for sculpture in an architectural context. It is rare in the countryside.
In Roman art of the late Republic and early Empire, stucco was used extensively for the decoration of vaults. Though marble was the preferred sculptural medium in most regards, stucco was better for use in vaults because it was lighter and better suited to adapt to the curvature of the ceiling. Baroque and Rococo architecture makes heavy use of stucco. Examples can be found in churches and palaces, where stucco is mostly used to provide a smooth, decorative transition from walls to ceiling, decorating and giving measure to ceiling surfaces. Stucco is an integral part of the art of belcomposto, the Baroque concept that integrates the three classic arts, architecture, sculpture, and painting.
The Greco-Buddhist art of modern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan made extensive use in monasteries and temples of stucco for three-dimensional monumental sculpture as well as reliefs. These were usually carved from a rough modelling over a framework and then painted. Similar techniques are used for the life-size statues decorating the gopurams of Hindu temples in modern South Asia.
Since stucco can be used for decoration as well as for figurative representation, it provides an ideal transitive link from architectural details to wall paintings such as the typically Baroque trompe-l'œil ceilings, as in the work of the Wessobrunner School. Here, the real architecture of the church is visually extended into a heavenly architecture with a depiction of Christ, the Virgin Mary or the Last Judgment at the center. Stucco is used to form a semi-plastic extension of the real architecture that merges into the painted architecture.
Because of its "aristocratic" appearance, Baroque-looking stucco decoration was used frequently in upper-class apartments of the 19th and early 20th century.
Beginning in the 1920s, stucco, especially in its Neo-Renaissance and Neo-Baroque materialization, became increasingly unpopular with modern architects in some countries, resulting not only in new buildings without stucco but also in a widespread Movement [de] to remove the stucco from existing tenements.
Stucco was still employed in the 1950s in molded forms for decorating the joints between walls and ceilings inside houses. It was generally painted the same colour as the ceiling and used in designs where a picture rail or rat rail was in use.
Modern stucco is used as an exterior cement plaster wall covering. It is usually a mix of sand, Portland cement, lime and water, but may also consist of a proprietary mix of additives including fibers and synthetic acrylics that add strength and flexibility. Modern synthetic stucco can be applied as one base layer and a finish layer, which is thinner and faster to apply, compared to the traditional application of three-coat stucco. Imitation stone stucco can also be produced using the traditional application, but with marble dust being added to the mixture.
Applying stucco
As with any cement-based material, stucco must be reinforced to resist movement cracking. Plastic or wire meshlath, attached with nails or screws to the structural framing, is embedded into the base coat to provide stiffening for the stucco.
Where stucco is to be applied to a structure of wood-framing or light-gauge steel framing, the framing is protected from moisture damage by applying a cement based primer, or a vapor-permeable, water-resistant weather barrier; typically an asphalt-saturated paper or one of a variety of manufactured plastic-based sheets, known as "building wraps" or "stucco wraps". The properties of the weather barrier must not only protect the framing from rain and moisture, but at the same time allow the free passage of any water vapor generated inside the building to escape through the wall.
A wide variety of stucco accessories, such as weep screeds, control and expansion joints, corner-aids and architectural reveals are sometimes also incorporated into the lath. Wire lath is used to give the plaster something to attach to and to add strength. Types include expanded-metal lath, woven-wire lath, and welded-wire lath.
The tools used to plaster walls
If applied during very dry weather, the layers of stucco are sprayed with water for one or more days to keep a level of moisture within the stucco while it cures, a process known as "moist curing". If the stucco dries too soon, the chemical hardening ("hydration") will be incomplete, resulting in a weaker and brittler stucco.
Ling, Roger, ed. (1999). Stuccowork and Painting In Roman Italy. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Wadsworth, Emily (1924). "Stucco Reliefs of the First and Second Centuries still Extant in Rome". Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome. 4 (4): 9–102. doi:10.2307/4238518. JSTOR4238518.
Beard, Geoffrey (1983). "Stucco and Decorative Plasterwork in Europe". cite journal: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
When is the best time to install parging in Edmonton?
Spring and early summer, when temperatures support proper curing, since a parge coat needs about 28 days to cure fully before it is painted or sealed. Applying it too late in the fall risks a freeze before it cures. Depend Exteriors times parging installation to the Edmonton season so the coat cures properly and lasts.
Why is my parging coming off in sheets?
Usually because it was applied over a dirty, loose, or failing surface without proper preparation, so it never bonded to sound substrate, or because it was troweled over old parging that then let go. Proper prep removes loose material down to solid substrate first. Depend Exteriors prepares the surface correctly so the parge coat bonds and stays.
