Read your stucco.
Nearly every stucco house in Central Florida has cracks. Most are cosmetic. A few are the house telling you water found a way in. Here's how to tell the difference from the driveway — before anyone quotes you anything.
Hairline cracks.
Thin as a pencil line, running straight-ish or wandering. If you can't fit a credit-card edge into it, it's a hairline.
What it is: normal curing shrinkage and settling. Stucco is cement; cement shrinks; Florida heat cycles keep working the surface. This is the crack almost every house has.
What fixing it takes: part of any honest exterior paint job. The cracks get cleaned out and sealed with elastomeric patching material that stretches instead of re-cracking, then painted over. Done right, they don't telegraph back through the new coat.
Verdict: cosmetic. Fix it when you paint.
No stock. Ever.
Spider cracking.
A web or map of fine cracks spread across an area — like a dropped phone screen, but in the wall's finish coat.
What it is: stress in the surface layer, usually from the finish coat drying too fast the day it went on, or from a previous paint job trapping it. It lives in the top layer, not the structure.
What fixing it takes: more than crack-by-crack sealing — the area wants a skim or fog coat to give it one continuous new face, or a high-build elastomeric coating that bridges the whole web. Painting it with standard paint alone brings the pattern back by next summer.
Verdict: cosmetic, but treat the area — not the lines. Watch it if it widens.
No stock. Ever.
Delamination & bulges.
Stucco that sounds hollow when you knock, bulges away from the wall, or has already shed a chunk. Often keeping company with rust streaks or stains.
What it is: the serious one. The stucco has let go of what it was attached to, and the usual reason is water getting behind it — through a failed joint, a crack that never got sealed, or a flashing problem. The bulge is the symptom; the moisture path is the disease.
What fixing it takes: the loose material comes off, the moisture path gets found and closed, and the area gets rebuilt — lath if needed, base coat, finish coat — then primed and painted. This is repair work with painting at the end, not a painting job. Anyone who quotes you paint over a bulge is quoting you a delay.
Verdict: not cosmetic. Get eyes on it before you repaint anything.
No stock. Ever.
When to worry.
Beyond the three types, a few signs upgrade any crack to "get someone out here":
- Cracks wider than a credit-card edge, or ones that keep growing season to season.
- Stair-step cracks at the corners of windows and doors — movement likes corners.
- Rust streaks bleeding from a crack. That's metal corroding inside the wall.
- Damp drywall or a musty smell on the inside face of an exterior wall.
We'll tell you plainly which side of the line you're on. If it's beyond paint — structural movement, an active leak — we say so and point you to the right trade first. Painting over an active problem is a year of looking fixed, and we'd rather lose that job than sell it.
Fair questions.
Can you just paint over stucco cracks?
Hairlines, yes — that's what proper prep is: clean them out, seal them with the right elastomeric material, then paint. Anything hollow, bulging, or shedding chunks, no. Paint over active damage and you've bought a nicer-looking problem for about a year.
Are stucco cracks normal in Florida?
Very. Stucco shrinks slightly as it cures, houses settle, and Florida's heat cycles work every joint daily. Nearly every stucco home here has hairline cracks somewhere. The point of triage isn't zero cracks — it's knowing which three kinds you're looking at.
What does crack repair cost?
Hairline sealing is part of normal exterior prep — it's inside the ranges on our cost guide, not an extra. Spider-cracked areas that need a skim or fog coat get priced by the wall. Delamination gets priced by the patch after we've found how far the loose area runs, at the walkthrough — never guessed from a photo.
What should I photograph before texting you?
Three shots: the whole wall so we can see where the crack lives, a close-up with something for scale (a coin or a card against the wall works), and anything else that looks related — stains, bulges, rust streaks. That's usually enough for us to tell you which kind you have and whether to worry.
Not sure which you've got? Show us.
Text us a photo of the crack — wide shot, close-up with a coin or card for scale. We'll tell you which kind it is and whether it needs more than paint. Takes us minutes, costs you nothing.