Adobe stucco vs. cement stucco, my wall is cracking and I'm torn

Patched a 40-foot wall in the North Valley last spring with cement stucco over old adobe, and now the hairline cracks are back worse than before. The adobe purists say lime-based stucco breathes and moves with the wall, but my contractor swears cement is the only way to get a clean finish here. Anyone who's done this on older homes, which side do you land on after a few monsoon seasons?

1 comments

1 Comment

miles_roberts16d ago

Used to be solidly in the cement camp. Thought lime was old-fashioned and weak. Then my own place in Corrales started doing the same thing, cracks every spring no matter how good the patch job was. Switched to a lime mix on the worst section two summers ago and it's held through three monsoons without a single new hairline. The finish is a bit softer and not as uniform, but it moves with the old adobe instead of fighting it. Take this with a grain of salt, but I'd let the wall tell you what it wants, not the contractor.