Is Stucco a Good Way to Protect the Brick on My House?

Advantages of Stucco

• Stucco, which is a plaster material made from lime or cement, is one way to protect brick walls. Stucco provides a protective layer that fully obscures the brick below. It can also be applied to other types of walls, which means that adding stucco may hide the fact that your home is made of brick. Stucco is useful for covering heavily damaged brick that would be difficult and expensive to repair. It also provides a base for scoring or stamping patterns that help a home take on a new style that imitates stone.

Drawbacks

• While it does protect the brick on your home, stucco is also very difficult to remove safely. Unlike paints and glazes that can be removed chemically, stucco requires an intensive process of pressure washing or sandblasting to remove. This process can damage the hard outer layer of the brick below, exposing the soft interior of bricks and hastening their deterioration. This means that while it protects brick well, stucco can be a source of significant damage if it is ever removed.

Alternatives

• There are other ways to protect exterior brick walls on a home without applying stucco. Commercial brick sealants penetrate the porous clay of which bricks are composed to keep out water, which can freeze and damage the brick; they also keep out salt and debris. Sealants make brick easier to clean without damaging it, reducing the need to cover it with paint or stucco.

Considerations

• Deciding how to finish brick walls on your home depends on a number of factors. If you build a new home out of brick, a sealant is the best way to preserve its appearance and ensure that the original brick will remain visible in the future. If you buy an older home that already has stucco covering some or all of the brick exterior, your decision is more complicated.

  The brick below the stucco may have been damaged before the application of protective stucco, which means you'll face a major reconstruction task if you remove the stucco. In some cases, builders used brick purely as a base for stucco and not as a decorative material. Comparing your home to similar homes from the same era may give you ideas about how best to manage its preservation and renovation.