Stucco Painting in South Jersey & South Florida

Stucco painting is a coating job first and a color job second: the paint has to breathe, flex with the wall, and stick to a surface that chalks, drinks primer, and cracks along hairlines. Painting Plus paints existing stucco across South Jersey from Cherry Hill and across Palm Beach, Broward, Martin and St. Lucie counties from Delray Beach, and we're honest about the one thing we don't do — rebuild damaged stucco.

If your walls are sound and just faded, chalky, patched or the wrong color, this is the page. If sections are loose, bulging or soft, read the "what we don't do" section first. Either way, call (856) 669-7500 for a free on-site look.

Can you just paint over stucco?

Yes, if the stucco is sound. Painting over existing stucco is the normal way to refresh it, and done right it lasts 7–10 years. What you can't do is paint over problems: chalking that hasn't been washed off, hairline cracks left open, efflorescence (the white mineral bloom), or stucco that's still curing. Each of those shows through or peels within a season. Every job starts with a walk around the house to sort cosmetic from structural, and the estimate says which is which.

What stucco painting costs

Market ranges first, then what moves the number. These are published industry figures, not Painting Plus prices — every job here is quoted individually in writing after we see the walls.

What pushes a stucco job up: rough texture (drinks 30–50% more paint than smooth), a dark-to-light color change (extra coat), two or more stories (lift or scaffold), heavy chalking (extra wash and a bonding masonry primer), and elastomeric over acrylic. What keeps it down: a single story, sound existing paint, and a same-family color. For South Jersey exterior ranges by siding type, see our exterior painting cost guide.

How we paint stucco

1. Wash. Low-pressure wash with a masonry cleaner to remove chalk, mildew and dirt. High pressure blows out the aggregate, so we don't.
2. Dry and inspect. Stucco holds water. We wait for it to dry through, then check for efflorescence, hollow spots (tap test) and crack width.
3. Fill hairlines. Cracks under about 1/16 inch get an elastomeric patching compound or masonry caulk, textured to match. Anything wider or moving is flagged, not hidden.
4. Prime. A masonry primer such as Sherwin-Williams Loxon seals the surface, evens the porosity, and blocks alkali burn-through — which is why paint fails on stucco that was never primed.
5. Two finish coats. Sprayed and back-rolled so the coating is pushed into the texture rather than bridging over it. Spray alone looks fine on day one and fails at the pinholes.
6. Walkthrough. Every elevation in daylight, with you, before we call it done.

Acrylic or elastomeric?

Both are right answers on different walls. The short version: acrylic breathes better and costs less; elastomeric flexes more and sheds water better but traps moisture if the wall is already wet behind it.

We'll recommend one in the estimate and say why. A house with a history of water intrusion is not an elastomeric candidate until the water problem is fixed, and we'd rather lose the job than seal moisture into your wall.

What we don't do: stucco repair

Painting Plus is a painting contractor. We fill hairline cracks and prep the surface as part of a repaint. We do not remove and re-apply stucco, re-lath, fix delaminated sections, or chase water damage behind the wall. If the tap test finds hollow areas, if cracks are wider than a coin edge, or if there's staining that suggests water is getting in, we'll say so at the estimate and you'll want a stucco contractor first. Painting over those problems costs more twice. Once the repair is done and cured, we come back and paint it.

Stucco painting in South Jersey

Around Cherry Hill, Moorestown, Haddonfield and the rest of Camden County, stucco is usually a 1990s-and-later colonial or a stucco-and-stone front on a brick house, and the enemy is freeze-thaw. Water gets into a hairline in October, freezes, and the crack is twice as wide by March. That's why we schedule South Jersey stucco between late April and mid-October when overnight temperatures stay above 50°F for curing, and why hairline sealing is the most important step on an NJ job. Traditional three-coat stucco on older homes is handled the same way; synthetic stucco (EIFS) needs a compatible coating and we'll identify which you have on the walkthrough.

Stucco painting in South Florida

In Delray Beach, Boca Raton and across Palm Beach County, nearly every house is stucco over concrete block (CBS), and the problems are UV fade, chalking, mildew on the north side, and salt air within a few miles of the coast. Here the coating is chosen for UV resistance and mildewcide, and elastomeric earns its keep against wind-driven rain. Two practical notes: most HOAs and condo associations require architectural-review approval of exterior colors before work starts — we'll tell you what to submit — and we plan exterior work around the June-to-November rainy and hurricane season so coats cure between storms, not through them.

Frequently asked questions