A lot of professional contractors believe that painting stucco will make moisture-related problems worse over time, since another layer of material on top of the stucco can lock water in for longer. [2] X Research source Painting your stucco is more likely to be a good idea if you live in a hot, dry area. If you live in a more temperate climate with frequent rain, this is not a recommended route.
It’s natural for a crack or two to develop over time, but if you’ve got dozens of cracks to fill, it may be time to replace your stucco and you probably shouldn’t paint it. [4] X Research source
This is strictly for small damaged areas that were hit with an object, or bumped against one too many times. If you have big sections of stucco just falling out on their own though, it’s time to hire a stucco specialist to redo your exterior.
If you use a higher pressure setting or a thinner nozzle, you may damage the stucco. You may also damage the stucco if just hold the wand in one spot for too long. If you see any chalky, white dust on the stucco, that’s efflorescence. Scrub all of that stuff off with a wire brush or mix a masonry soap into your pressure washer’s tank before using it. If you paint over efflorescence, it’s going to reappear over time. [7] X Research source
If the stucco surrounds any windows, doors, gutters, or porches, tape off any areas you want to keep dry and lay down a drop cloth before you get to work. It may help to get an extension rod for your roller if part of your stucco extends up to a second floor.
Use flat acrylic if you want the stucco’s texture to stand out, or satin acrylic to give the surface a bit of shine. [9] X Research source You don’t need any special kind of “stucco” paint if you’re curious. Regular exterior acrylic should be fine. Just don’t go cheap! If you have stucco indoors, you can use interior acrylic. Unless you installed the stucco yourself though, it’s extremely unlikely that indoor textured wall is actually stucco. The odds are much higher that it’s drywall compound. [10] X Research source
You really don’t want to use a brush for the entire job. It’s just going to take forever and it will be really hard to cover the wall entirely.
You can cut the trim with a synthetic brush if you’d like, or lay down a drop cloth on the floor and hold flat lengths of cardboard against edges you want to keep dry while you paint. Cover each area you’ve painted with a second coat of random strokes after you backroll it. This sounds weird, but stucco has a bunch of different little angles in the texture, so pick the sprayer back up and just sort of randomly spray around the wall in a bunch of different directions. This will fill in any minor spots you missed. [13] X Research source
This is the main reason most people don’t paint stucco outside of hot and dry areas. It can be extremely expensive to repair this kind of issue, and the repaired stucco may not match the rest of your home all that well.
