Traditional stucco in Yonkers, also called hard coat stucco. On a hillside lot the lowest four feet of wall takes splash, road salt and piled snow, while everything above it takes only weather. Those are two different loads and they are worth building differently.
Almost every Yonkers property sits on a slope, which means the stucco wall starts at a different height on each elevation. Above the exposed foundation, the wall gets three coat stucco. Where that wall meets the ground is where nearly all of the damage happens, and it happens for reasons that have nothing to do with weather.
Splash carries grit off the ground and drives it into the finish. Road salt gets tracked and thrown up through winter and attacks cement chemically. Snow cleared from a Yonkers driveway ends up piled against the wall for weeks at a time, holding moisture against it in freezing conditions. As a traditional stucco contractor in Yonkers we build that zone differently from the rest of the elevation rather than running one specification top to bottom.
Four loads that only apply to the bottom few feet, and none of them is weather.
Rain hitting the ground within about three feet of a Yonkers wall bounces back carrying soil and grit with it. That is abrasion rather than wetting, and it wears a finish coat away from the bottom up.
Salt used on Yonkers hills through the winter gets thrown and tracked onto the lower wall. It does not simply sit there. It crystallizes inside the surface and forces the material apart from within.
Clearing a sloped Yonkers driveway puts the snow somewhere, and that somewhere is usually the base of the house. A wall held wet and near freezing for weeks is a different condition from a wall that gets rained on.
Above that line a Yonkers elevation takes weather and nothing else. Specifying the whole wall to survive what the base survives is money spent where it buys nothing.
Roughly four feet above finished grade on each elevation, which on a Yonkers slope is a different height on every side of the house. Below that line the wall is being abraded and salted. Above it, it is only being weathered.
Full three coat thickness with a denser finish below the line on each Yonkers elevation, because abrasion and salt attack the surface rather than the body of the coat. The finish there is chosen for wear rather than appearance.
The change in specification happens in the build, not in the look. Texture and color run continuously through the line so the wall reads as one surface, which matters because on a Yonkers house you see the base and the upper wall in the same glance.
Look at any stuccoed house on a Yonkers hill and the damage is at the bottom. Not spread across the elevation, not at the top, not around the windows. The lowest three or four feet, on the elevation nearest the driveway, facing whichever way the snow gets thrown. That pattern is so consistent it is diagnostic, and it tells you the wall was built to one specification when the loads on it were never uniform. Fixing the base without changing how it is built means doing it again in five years.
The slope runs through the whole city, so this applies from Ludlow and Nodine Hill up through Dunwoodie to Crestwood and Beech Hill.
See stucco contractor Yonkers for our other stucco work in the city, or traditional stucco NYC for how the three coat system is built up.
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Because the bottom takes loads the rest of a Yonkers wall never sees. Splash drives grit into the finish, road salt crystallizes inside the surface and forces it apart, and cleared snow holds moisture against the wall near freezing for weeks.
Usually about three to four feet above grade, which is roughly how high splash carries. On a Yonkers slope that line sits at a different height on each elevation because the finished ground level does. It is also higher where snow gets piled from a driveway.
Yes, and chemically rather than by washing. Salt from a Yonkers hill soaks into the surface in solution and crystallizes as it dries, and the crystals expand as they form. That pressure works outward from inside, which is why salt damage spalls rather than stains.
Yes, and on a Yonkers house it should be. Full three coat thickness with a denser finish below roughly four feet, and a lighter build above it. The change happens inside the wall. Texture and color run through unchanged so it still reads as one surface.
Not if it goes back the same way. A Yonkers base that failed once under salt and splash fails again under the same loads, usually within about five years. The repair only holds if the specification changes too, which costs very little at the point the wall is open.
