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Kaminskiy Care and Repair patches stucco cracks and chips and matches the existing texture so the repair blends in. Hairline cracks are cosmetic; widening or bulging ones deserve a call, and the quote is free either way. We serve San Jose and the surrounding California communities. Wood, fiber cement, T1-11 and vinyl siding, fascia and trim have their own page: siding repair in San Jose.
A big city with every age of stucco. Clay cracks and hollow patches lead the San Jose list.
San Jose stucco runs from the 1920s Spanish homes in Willow Glen and the Rose Garden, where the finish is soft lime plaster over hand-cut lath, through sixty years of three-coat ranch tracts in Cambrian, Berryessa and Blossom Valley, to the foam-trimmed walls on the Almaden and Evergreen hillsides. The valley clay moves all of them and the hot summers open the paint. We cut the crack or the hollow section back to sound lath, rebuild it in three coats and match the texture and color, from our South Bay office in Sunnyvale.
AFTERBEFOREEvery one of these is a repair, not a re-stucco, for a Kaminskiy-certified technician who starts the day in Sunnyvale. We sound the wall, write the scope, and put the three coats on with the cure time each needs.
Priced and on the calendar during the first call.
A written quote you approve before anyone drives out.
Three coats, each one cured, warranty in writing.
A one-year workmanship warranty, in writing, on every San Jose stucco repair.
Clay, heat and sixty years. The valley floor is expansive clay that swells in the winter rain and shrinks in the dry summer, and a stucco wall is a rigid cement skin on a wood frame that moves with the ground under it, so the stress shows up as diagonal hairlines off the window and door corners and a step crack over the garage header. The summers run hotter here than on the Peninsula, which opens the paint on the south and west walls and lets the rain into the hairlines. At the base, sprinklers and planter beds bury the weep screed and keep the paper wet, and that is where a wall goes hollow.
A hairline off a window corner that opens in late summer and closes in winter is the house breathing with the clay. Seal it before the rain and keep an eye on it. Call about a crack you can fit a dime into, a crack that steps along the sheathing joints, a bulge or a hollow sound when you knock, a stain that returns every winter, or a crack on a hillside lot that runs from the slab to the eave and keeps getting longer. The last one is not a stucco problem until an engineer says what the slab is doing; we do the finish after.
A patch is built the way the wall was built. We cut the loose stucco back to sound lath, replace torn paper and rusted lath, and then put on three coats: a scratch coat that cures, a brown coat that cures, and a finish coat floated or dashed to match the texture around it. Each coat has to set before the next goes on, so the job runs across visits a few days apart, not one afternoon. A patch done in one coat shrinks, cracks around its edge and shows through the paint by the next summer.
Redirect the sprinkler that hits the wall and pull the planter soil down until the weep screed shows. Seal the hairlines in September, before the first storm, and keep the sill caps and the head flashing above the windows tight. Repaint with an elastomeric or a good acrylic before the old paint chalks through, because paint is what keeps the rain out of a hairline. A wall that stays dry behind the paper does not go hollow, and a crack found early is a fill, not a re-lath.
Spanish and Mediterranean homes from the 1910s to the 1940s with soft lime-rich stucco over wood lath, arched openings, parapets and clay-tile sill caps, beside the wood-sided craftsman houses. The plaster bulges where the lath has rusted, the parapet caps let water in, and a modern hard patch cracks around its edge. We match the softer mix and the trowel texture, and on a landmark home or a conservation-area street a matching repair needs no review.
The bulk of the city's stucco: 1950s to 1980s ranch homes with three-coat stucco over wood frame, paper and lath, a weep screed at the slab line and pop-out window sills. After sixty summers the work is the diagonal crack off the window corner, the step crack over the garage, the hollow stretch under the eave where the bond failed, and the soft base course where the sprinkler and the planter bed have kept the paper wet.
Larger homes from the 1970s on, many in associations with set color schemes, the newest with one-coat stucco and foam trim. A hillside slab moves more than a flat one, so cracks here run longer and the association wants them closed in the approved color. We fill and blend the cracks, reset the foam trim joints and patch the chipped corners, and a crack that keeps growing from the slab gets an engineer's look before we touch it.
Call 408-916-4022 or text pictures of the crack, the bulge or the stained base with a coin or a hand for scale. Most San Jose stucco repairs get a range on the call and a date for the look.
A technician knocks the wall for hollow spots, checks the weep screed, the sill caps and the flashing, opens a soft section far enough to see the paper and lath, and writes the scope: what is cut back, the coats, how the texture and color will be handled, and whether an engineer needs to see anything. The price is on it.
Cracks cut and filled, hollow sections cut back to sound lath with new paper and lath, then scratch, brown and finish coats, each one cured before the next, in visits spaced for the cure.
The finish is floated to match, the color blended or the wall painted out to a natural break, the debris leaves with us, and the one-year workmanship warranty is on the invoice at the price you approved.
California allows a repair under a small set amount to be done without a contractor license, provided no permit is needed and nobody is employed to do it; that covers sealing a hairline and not a cut-back patch with new lath and three coats. Kaminskiy Care and Repair holds a California contractor license (License #1106209), is bonded and insured, and anything over the state's written-contract threshold is on paper before the first coat goes on, which is why even a small patch comes priced in writing.
San Jose's own list, under Municipal Code section 24.02.110, exempts surface improvements such as painting and minor repairs and replacements from a building permit, and the state residential code asks no application for an ordinary repair. Filling cracks, patching a hollow section and matching texture and color are that kind of repair. Altering a wall or anything structural takes a permit, so replacing the paper and lath over a large area, or a crack that turns out to be the frame, is where we check with the city first and tell you what it said.
A city landmark or a home in a landmark district needs a historic preservation permit before the outside changes, and Naglee Park and Hanchett Park carry conservation-area guidelines; a stucco patch that matches the existing finish needs nothing, and that is most of what we do on those streets. Evergreen, Silver Creek, Almaden and the newer communities are association neighborhoods with set color schemes, so a patch is blended to the approved color and the materials go in writing for the form.
Our South Bay office is in Sunnyvale. The San Jose crew starts the day at our office on Murphy Avenue in downtown Sunnyvale, up the 280 or the 101 from any San Jose neighborhood, so most calls are on the calendar within days. Call 408-916-4022, text a photo, or send the form, and we answer in under three rings.
Can't find your answer? Call 408-916-4022 and ask us anything.
Call 408-916-4022Longer than one afternoon, because it is three coats. After the loose stucco is cut back and the lath is repaired, the scratch coat goes on and cures, then the brown coat and its cure, then the finish coat floated to match the wall. Each coat needs days to set before the next, so a San Jose patch is a day of work spread across a few visits. The visits are on the written scope before we start.
The texture will. We float, dash or trowel the finish coat to the sand finish, lace or Spanish trowel already on the house and carry the patch to a corner or a trim line where we can. Color on a wall the valley sun has faded for years is the harder half, so we blend the color into the patch or paint the wall out to a natural break, and we tell you which before the finish coat goes on.
A hairline off a window corner that opens in August and closes in winter is the clay moving the house, and sealing it before the rain is enough. Worry about a crack that takes a dime, a crack that steps along the sheathing joints, a bulge or a hollow sound under your knuckles, a stain that comes back every winter, or a hillside crack running slab to eave that keeps growing. We come out for those, and the hillside one goes to an engineer before anyone cuts stucco.
No. EIFS is foam board with a thin base coat and mesh, and it has to be repaired with that system's own materials by a certified installer or the drainage and the warranty are gone. If a San Jose home turns out to have it, we tell you on the call and point you to the right installer. Traditional three-coat cement stucco and one-coat stucco are ours.
It depends on how much is loose, whether the paper and lath behind it have to be replaced, and how the color will be handled. Send a photo with a coin or a hand in it for scale and we give you a range on the call. The look turns that into a written scope: what gets cut back, how many coats, how the color is handled, all priced before a hammer touches the wall. The number you approve is the number on the invoice.
Yes. Every stucco repair carries a one-year workmanship warranty in writing and is done by Kaminskiy-certified, background-checked technicians under California contractor License #1106209, bonded and insured.
Yes, if we match the mix and not just the color. The old Spanish homes carry a softer, lime-rich stucco over wood lath, and a modern hard cement patch cracks around its own edge within a year. We cut back to sound lath, use a softer mix, and trowel the finish to the hand texture already on the wall. On a landmark home or a conservation-area street, a matching repair needs no historic review.
All of San Jose from our Sunnyvale office: Willow Glen, the Rose Garden, Naglee Park, Hanchett Park, Japantown, Cambrian, West San Jose, Blossom Valley, Berryessa, Alum Rock, Almaden Valley, Evergreen and Silver Creek, plus Campbell, Los Gatos, Milpitas and Cupertino. Call 408-916-4022 to confirm your address.
Send a photo of the wall and the address. We call back with a written price and the visits it takes. Calling is still fastest: 408-916-4022.
Priced on the call, blended to match, warranted in writing.
We answer in under three rings, 24/7.No price games. You get a clear written quote before any work begins, backed by our workmanship warranty.
