Stucco repair costs in Lexington

Under Lexington lies limestone that slowly dissolves. The Kentucky Geological Survey's notes on Fayette County describe cover-collapse sinkholes as something that happens throughout the Inner Bluegrass. Soil over a channel in the rock settles slowly, sometimes for years, then gives way and washes out fast. The survey calls a hidden cavern under a house one of the hardest situations to detect, and it says that possibility is reason enough for homes on karst to carry insurance protection.

The same survey warns about the opposite problem, too. Clay soils that soak up water from drains, sprinklers or leaking pipes can swell under a foundation and push with several tons per square foot, enough to shove a house out of plumb and crack masonry.

For houses inside Lexington's 15 local historic districts, the H-1 overlay sets three levels of review for wall materials. Repairs that use matching materials need no approval. City staff can approve replacing a wall material with something similar. Putting on a new material, or any synthetic one, goes to the Board of Architectural Review, and so does painting original materials that were never painted.