Stucco repair costs in Seattle

If your Seattle house has stucco, think about rain first. Western Washington's interior valleys get measurable rain on about 150 days a year. The wet season starts in October and peaks in winter, and the rain tends to be light and steady. It doesn't give a wall many dry days in a row.

So the real question is what's behind your stucco. A face-sealed wall has no path for water to drain or dry once it slips past a crack or a window edge. At a mid-1980s stucco building near Green Lake, engineers found face-sealed walls at the end of their service lives and checked them for water intrusion. That's why a ballpark for a small crack can grow once a pro opens the wall and finds soft sheathing.

Permits follow the same line. The Seattle Department of Construction & Inspections says limited in-kind repair of worn-out parts usually needs no permit, but any change to the building envelope does. If you own a condo in a larger building, a 2005 Washington law requires a qualified inspector to check the building enclosure during construction and during major envelope repairs.

Plan the work for July and August, the driest months, so fresh stucco gets the dry weeks it needs to cure.