kurt

It's about hard polymer additive mortars, hard vitrified brick, underlying concrete substrates that hold water, the deleterious effects of water in masonry, and expansion/contraction in extreme weather. Maybe some freeze/thaw....you get much freezing there in Comer? Acid rain might play into it, but I think it's more just plain lousy design. Brick doesn't want to do what it's being told to do in this case.

I'm jealous. Wouldn't it be great if we could always take core samples as part of the job?

I wouldn't say overdone. Conservative, certainly.

Probably a lot of reasons, all based in the general resilience and stability of the average wood frame assembly. Think how much total crap we look at every day that's holding up just fine.

Stacking the wood with spacers so air can circulate freely around each piece.

If they do it right, it'll last another century, at least. There's no set formula or number; depends on too many variables...height, access, size, how much decorative masonry has to be "touched" or outright replaced, sometimes windows tie into it, etc. Start collecting bids then check back to tell us what average replacement costs are for Brooklyn.

There's some culture misalignment there, but it would have been worse if you shit your pants....

I've seen it where the first floor is wood siding and the entire upper floor is "stone". The Holy Triumvirate of Simplicity, Honesty, and Propriety is nowhere to be seen with this material.

The birds don't poop on that part.....

The dimension to the door...... Does it have to be >16" from any part of the door when the door is open, or is the measurement from the door opening?

I used one of their systems for a septic retrofit years ago; worked great. Fantastic, in fact. In theory, they should all work fine; the principles and materials are correct. Methods may be where it fails. Someone messes up the install, it can't work right.

I think it's a flat roof with a crenelated cornice. Those aren't scuppers. It looks like there's a downspout coming from an interior drain or inlaid gutter arrangement behind the copper crenelations.

If it's like every other wood lath stucco I see, stripping and starting over is the best idea. If u can find it in the budget, do it. Patching just begets more patching and it looks like crap. The best way to do it is a whole new discussion.

There's usually a cover on them. They should be covered, I guess.....lots of air rolls out of the house if they're left open. They don't do anything to hurt draft, though. They're almost always associated with a metal liner.

Low budget = contractor's method. Wood lath stucco was/is a mighty lousy way to do it. The one's I see are all series of patches. Termites. There's always some termite damage somewhere in the wood lath jobs.

Whether or not stripping the old stucco is "easier" is a mildly complex question hidden inside a simple word. Maybe. The contractors advice is the basic quick and dirty patch. It'll look like shit unless he takes maximum care and then it will only look slightly less shitty. What's the existing stucco substrate; wood or expanded metal lath? Sheathing? Is it the stuff with the canvas on 1x6? Framing methods, i.e., balloon or platform? Describe what you're doing with the house, how much you want to spend, you wanna go *green* or not, where are you taking it long term, and the general standard of care you're expecting.

No. They're everywhere in 30's and 40's houses.

I got vertigo looking at it.

No, yours looks like brick to me. There's stretchers and headers, and this process is pretty rare in Chicago. There's a new one on Kedzie just south of Logan square, east side; took a leaker, wrapped it in foam, and they "roll" out the imprint with a dryvit like material. Maybe it is dryvit....I don't know. After the new one, I've only ever seen one other. It's a mess. The long term mess is you got an old skin fired brick and lime mortar assembly that was probably needing some serious lime renourishment, pointing, repointing, or similar brick repair. Some of those old one's out in the country had crappy sand, lime quality debatable, and very irregular brick. Someone got the brilliant idea to just wrap the whole shebangabang in stucco, which doesn't breath or allow moisture transfer. I'm just making a WAG, but that old building is still soaking up moisture from the earth, the moisture is migrating around as it does, it's trapped behind the new moisture resistant stucco stuff, and you know what happens next. Could be decades, but my guess is the long term is delaminated stucco and foam. Or, maybe just cracks. Regardless, it's not going to work like the brochure says.....imho.

Kibble just nailed it. It's a brickface job. That explains the weird cracking; it's the stucco skin cracking, not structural settlement. I kept staring at those pics of the perfect mortar joints and brick, but it didn't sink in that it's not even brick. They got two technologies at odds with each other; old brick and lime mortar overlaid with high tech Portland cement skin. Long term, it's a mess.

Yeah. Sure looks like newer brick, no headers.

I don't know if it's Hardi material, but it doesn't look like any of the Hardi Panel materials I've seen. Cut and pasted from Hardie....most current.... "Rainscreen application for panels - Effective September 1, 2013, James Hardie will require that HardiePanel Vertical Siding is attached over a minimum 3/8" furring to create an air space behind the panel." That confirms my largest suspicion. No air, it can't work right.

I scanned it. Nothing definitive other than a couple spots that one might barely construe as anomalies, and which would require excavation to verify. So far, for me anyway, IR just points at where I should dig. I'm thinking the lack of fasteners and zero air space in the "drainage plane" are the problem. If they refasten/nail more fasteners, then they're perforating the WRB. My view of this is it's looking like trouble.

You know, that could be. I think that might be going on in some areas.

I hadn't weighted that as much as I should be. I think you're right.