Most stucco in Brooklyn is on the back of the house, and the back of a Brooklyn house faces everybody else’s. Gardens either side, rear windows across the block. Stripping that wall is done inside a shared space, so the protection goes up before anything comes down.
A Brooklyn block is a ring of houses with their gardens meeting in the middle. Your rear yard sits between two others, divided by fences that barely reach shoulder height, and looks across at the back windows of the houses on the next street. What happens on your rear wall happens in view of, and within reach of, a dozen households.
As stucco removal contractors in Brooklyn we treat that as part of the job rather than a courtesy tacked on at the end. Breaking up old cement throws debris and dust, and neither respects a garden fence. The wall is sheeted before stripping begins and the work is kept damp, so what comes off stays in your yard and the dust stays out of your neighbors’ kitchens.
Four things that follow from stripping a wall in the middle of a block.
Brooklyn gardens back onto each other across the interior of the block. A rear wall is visible from dozens of windows and sits above two neighboring yards, which makes any strip on it a shared event whether anybody intended that or not.
Debris dropped from a second or third floor clears a garden fence easily. Unless it is caught at the face of the wall, it lands on the patio, planting and furniture next door.
Broken cement produces fine dust that carries across the whole block on a light breeze. On a warm Brooklyn day that means straight into rear windows opened for the air, several houses away.
Sheeting hung down the wall keeps falling material in your own yard, and keeping the stucco damp while it comes off holds the dust down. Both are set up before the first piece is broken, not after the first complaint.
Sheeting hung from above the work area down to the ground catches falling material against the wall. On a Brooklyn rear elevation that is what keeps debris in your yard rather than on either side of the fence.
A note to the houses either side and across the yard, giving the days the strip will run. People close windows, move furniture and bring washing in when they know. It costs nothing and prevents most of the friction.
Wetting the surface ahead of the tools keeps the dust down while old cement is broken up. It is slower and messier for the crew, and it is the difference between a quiet week on the block and a difficult one.
A stucco replacement on the back of a Brooklyn house is your project and it happens in everyone’s space. The neighbors will remember how the week went long after they have forgotten what the new wall looks like, and so will you, because you still live beside them. Ask how debris will be kept off the gardens next door and what will be done about dust before any quote is accepted. A contractor with a clear answer to both has worked in the middle of a Brooklyn block before.
Blocks built as rings of gardens behind attached houses run through Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Fort Greene, Bed-Stuy and Crown Heights, and the same care applies to every rear wall in them.
See stucco contractor Brooklyn for our other stucco work in the borough, or stucco removal and replacement NYC for how a strip is tested and sequenced.
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Not if it is set up properly. Sheeting hung down the face of the wall catches falling material before it can clear a fence, so debris lands in your own yard. Without it, anything dropped from the upper floors of a Brooklyn rear wall ends up next door.
By keeping the stucco damp as it comes off. Wetting the surface ahead of the tools stops fine dust from lifting and drifting across the block interior. On a Brooklyn block, where rear windows face each other across the gardens, that step matters more than anywhere else.
Yes, and we do it with you. A short note to the houses either side and across the yard, giving the dates, lets people close windows and clear gardens. Most friction on a Brooklyn block comes from surprise rather than from the work itself.
It can, because on a Brooklyn block the houses behind yours face the same interior space. Dust from breaking up cement carries across the gardens to their rear windows. Damping the work and sheeting the wall keep that effect small enough that most people barely notice it.
It becomes the landing zone, so it gets protected first. Planting beds, paving and anything that cannot be moved are covered before the strip begins. Sheeting down the Brooklyn rear wall directs debris into a defined area where it can be cleared without damaging what is underneath.
