The importance of Stucco weep or drip screeds
How to Install Stucco Weep or Drip screeds, metal weep screeds, and their real purpose.
Does anyone realize the importance of why these screeds are placed at least one inch below the mud-sill? If you have wood siding, it’s the same principle.
Why? Excellent question, glad you asked.
Let’s say most rain falls vertically. Now the higher the elevations come with it, as a rule, more wind.
We have rainfall with wind throughout the world.
Thus if the metal screed or wood is not at least one inch below the mud-sill, the rain can and will be blown upwards, causing the mud-sill or wood substrate to get wet.
When wood gets wet, it expands, and of course, can eventually rot. With stucco walls, the wood expands, causing cracking in stucco.
The substate also gets wet with wood and can rot, attracting termites and mold fungus. Mold is no joke.
Weep or drip screed rusting?
Okay, All weep screeds like nails are metal then galvanized. This means you take the metal and dip it into a vat of acid that galvanizes metals. This is to preserve the metal so it does not rust.
For example, let’s use a sixteen-penny nail holding a red clay tile roof in place on a roof.
The rain hits these nails and causes discolorations on sometimes white stucco walls, which, BTW, look odd as they are straight lines downward with an odd appearance.
With a nail, the hammer hits the head, thus sometimes removing the galvanization, now with rainwater, it’s no longer protected, thus bleed, the metal, Usually a brownish color.
With a weep screed, the trowel can scrape it when we go horizontal across the bottom, as the weep screed also serves as a guild to fill out the stucco. The sand acts as sandpaper the trowel, then if scrapped enough time with the sand removes the galvanized protection.
Now take all areas in the world near oceans, as the saltwater evaporates into the atmosphere, it gathers in the clouds, so when it rains, it’s always kinda salty, the salt hits the exposed metal, causing it to rust.
This is a key reason why the Goldengate bridge in San Francisco seems to always be in the phase of being painted.
Salt rust metal very quickly.
https://youtu.be/szNDr1WZHfM/Stucco weep screeds code requirement for protecting mud-sills for code and cosmetic
https://youtu.be/CB_cK38i-18/How to Install Stucco Weep or Drip screeds, exterior plastering metal drip screeds
https://youtu.be/TKNElO-PTPc/Stucco drip and or weep screeds Flashing countering Z flashings
https://youtu.be/wHc03uhWGNQ/Counter flashing drip or weep stucco screed over a Z flashing
https://youtu.be/OXGgnp5DyOQ/Install Galvanized Stucco weep or drip screed over copper
https://youtu.be/BtatxjNVjNo/Install Stucco weep or drip screeds below-grade
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