Stripping stucco produces debris, dust and, wherever water is used to keep the dust down, a gray cement runoff. On a Yonkers hillside that runoff does not stay where it lands. It heads down the lot to the street, and the street in Yonkers is part of the city’s storm system.
On a flat site, water used on a job soaks in close to where it falls. A Yonkers lot is rarely level. Anything wet on the wall runs down the slope, picks up cement and fine grit as it goes, crosses the sidewalk and reaches the gutter. From there the nearest catch basin is usually a short way down the hill.
As stucco removal contractors in Yonkers we plan the strip around where that water would go before any is used. The City of Yonkers counts its streets, curbs, gutters and catch basins as part of its storm sewer system, and anything entering that system other than rainwater is prohibited. Cement water from a strip is not rainwater, so it is kept on the property.
Four things that follow from stripping a wall above a slope that ends at the street.
Chunks of stucco land and stay. Water used on the work does not, and on a Yonkers slope it carries cement and fine material with it as it moves downhill across the lot.
Yonkers code defines its storm sewer system to include streets, curbs, gutters and catch basins. Cement water reaching the gutter outside the house has entered the system, whether or not it reaches a drain.
The city treats any discharge into that system that is not entirely stormwater as illicit. Slurry from a stucco strip in Yonkers falls squarely into that category, however small the amount looks.
Water is used only as far as dust control needs, as a fine mist rather than a hose. A catch line on the downhill side of the lot stops whatever does run before it reaches the sidewalk.
Before any work, we follow the fall of the lot from the wall to the street and find where water would enter the city system. On a Yonkers hillside that route is usually obvious once someone walks it.
A filter barrier across the fall of the ground below the work area holds back grit and cement water before it can reach the sidewalk. It goes in before the first piece of stucco comes off.
A fine mist on the section being stripped rather than a running hose. At the end of each day the sidewalk and gutter in front of the Yonkers property are swept clean of anything that got past.
It is easy to forget on the day, because the wall is the job and the street is somewhere else. But on a sloped Yonkers lot the street is where the water ends up, and the city regards what arrives there as its business. Ask anyone quoting a stucco replacement where their wash water goes and what stops it reaching the drain. A contractor who has thought about the slope will have an answer before you finish the question.
Streets fall steeply through most of the city, from Ludlow and Nodine Hill through Dunwoodie to Crestwood and Beech Hill, and every one ends at a catch basin somewhere below.
See stucco contractor Yonkers for our other stucco work in the city, or stucco removal and replacement NYC for how a strip is tested and sequenced.
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No. The City of Yonkers prohibits any discharge into its storm sewer system that is not entirely rainwater, and water carrying cement from a strip does not qualify. On a sloped lot that water has to be limited and caught on the property before it reaches the street.
In Yonkers, yes. The city code defines its storm sewer system to include municipal streets, curbs, gutters and catch basins as well as the drains themselves. Cement water running along the gutter outside a house has already entered the system before it reaches any grate.
With a fine mist on the section being worked rather than a hose, and a catch line below the work area. That keeps dust down while producing very little water, and on a Yonkers slope whatever does run is stopped before it leaves the lot.
The City of Yonkers, through its stormwater program, which exists to meet the state and federal permit covering the city’s storm sewer system. The city takes reports of illicit discharges and complaints about construction runoff, so a gray trail down the street from a job is visible to exactly the people responsible.
Rain picks up loose grit and cement dust left on the ground and carries it downhill. On a Yonkers job the work area is cleared and the catch line checked before rain arrives, so what reaches the street is rainwater rather than the remains of the day’s strip.
