Best material for patching outside of house

[harrythehair]

Before painting our house (concrete outside walls), I need to patch small cracks. What is the best material for this? I'm looking for something that goes on smooth and actually works. Thnx. Harry

[Joseph Meehan]

How old is the home? What part of what country is it located? Is the outside wall block or poured? How large are the "cracks" (how long, wide and deep)? How long have they been there and are they growing?

[harrythehair]

House is in S. Florida (hot & humid) and built in the 50's, cinder block. Cracks aren't that wide and there's not alot of them. I would like to paint the house before the rainy season starts (which is almost too late.) Harry

[Joseph Meehan]

While I can think of a lot of possible materials there is a wide range. I kind of thought you were in the South. Hopefully someone from that area will have some suggestions. If not try checking at some of the local hardware stores. Ideally you want a hardware store that has been there before the Spanish arrived and they original owner is still there. He will know what is bests. The big box stores may have someone who knows if you are lucky, but more likely they will have someone who knows what they have and will point you to whatever sounds good to them.

[Norminn]

I put in a good deal of time in patching and painting when hubby was building manager of our condo. We bought a bucket of latex stucco patch at the box store - we used textured (sand) but it is available plain. Used it for pretty substantial repairs as well as for cracks. Older building, good deal of hairline cracks, and chinks from being hit by mowers, etc. We had a hole in the wall where an old fire extinguisher cabinet had been removed - used a concrete paver and s.p. for "mortar" and can't tell it isn't original. This was '91 and looks fine. If you use it heavily, it shrinks so you might need another coat. Let it dry. Hubby and I made several repairs in preparation for painting contractor to do the painting. They used a brushable caulk for hairline cracks, and it looked kind of translucent when it went on. No sign of it, texture-wise, after painting.

Contractor sprayed on some kind of bleach solution prior to pressure washing, which I thought was odd. The old paint job was horrible, with a lot of peeling and mildew under the peeling paint. Six years now and it still looks great. We had gotten one estimate, with elastomeric this-and-that which came in at $27,000!!!!!! Pretty scary. We went with the low bid, $6,000, but in this case I knew when I met the contractor that he would be "the one". One coat primer, one coat semi. Two weeks, full time, for prep and painting!

Be sure to follow label, use good brand of paint from a paint store. Ben Moore my fav., but our condo used Porter. Porter did inspection, as part of the warranty, to assure prep was done right, but that may be for commercial accounts. Good deal.

[Norminn]

In this part of Florida, about 99% of structures are concrete block and stucco, so just about everyone knows the routine :o) The only wood siding around is probably well over 50 years old.