IMMEDIATELY AFTER a heavy rain, the stucco wall looks quite different than usual. Apparently the many places where moisture enters the stucco become easy to see. Those are the darker (wet) spots and lines that stand out against the lighter (drier) areas.
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| (As usual, click/tap on a photo to enlarge it.) |
In other words, the dark patches are where the surface is readily admitting moisture into the wall.
Below the jump, this post documents the water-intrusion situation in a new way.…
As stated above, I believe that the darker spots are wetter than the lighter ones. All the evidence supports this interpretation. First of all, there’s the fact that the cracks are dark. Predictably they’d be the last to dry out.
Second, those dark patches are concentrated on the eastern, sun-exposed portion of the wall. It’s well known that the sun’s heat damages stucco walls over time, by prompting daily expansion and contraction (which is why routine maintenance is so important). The following series of photos moves from east to west — one panel (between the pilasters) at a time. The darker places are clearly the heaviest at the beginning, in the eastern section, right?
A third reason to interpret the dark spots as being wet is the fact that the lower portion of the wall tends to be darker than its upper portion. That’s thanks to gravity’s pulling the water downward.
Finally, as a baseline for comparison, here is what the first 3 panels looked like in July, during the dry season. Almost all of the wall is light in color…
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