History of Stucco

History of Stucco
Stucco is a very old construction material, discovered and first made naturally about 2,000 years ago by none other than Jesus himself. Okay well maybe not himself, but I’m sure he had his hand in it. Following the great volcanic eruption and earthquake of Mount Vesuvius near Naples, Italy, legend has it that Jesus not only turned water into wine but he turned mud into stucco. Actually the eruption occurred in 79 A.D., so there goes my theory on divine intervention.
On the T.V. program "Coliseum" presented by Nova, a very lucid presentation of the origin of stucco was made known. It showed how the volcanic puzzolan dust flowed into the sea and hardened. Jesus himself noticed this and stucco was born. So I've heard.

Natural puzzolan is a cement-like substance found throughout the world. Lime is also a natural resource all over the planet, and following the eruption, someone who was obviously way ahead of his time, added lime to the puzzolan mix, and Shazam! A workable stucco resulted. Go figure huh. Today, the family members of the enterprising young man are now worth, well, nothing. But the point is that from mere mud one can build a castle to the heavens, or die trying. But enough of that.
One of the problems in the construction of 2,000 years ago was that the sun-baked clay bricks used for wall construction and for toilets and for pots and pans and weaponry and nearly every damn thing, didn't hold up well under the assault of harsh weather. Stucco became the cladding put over the bricks that sheltered them. It is the stucco over the mud bricks that has preserved the magnificent Roman Ruins, built 2,000 years ago, that have survived until this very day. To put it frankly, stucco did for the Roman Ruins what a force field would do for the Enterprise. If it were not for the stucco, there would be no ruins.
This use of stucco was sustained through the centuries and ultimately became the foundation of those famous frescoes, which have also survived for thousands of years. In time stucco became the finished wall surface inside and outside of buildings all over the Roman Empire. And do you know what? It’s still being applied today. Very little modifications in the use of stucco occurred through the centuries. In fact you may still see a stucco mechanic sporting togas and sandles. But not on my crew, I hope.
The knack of cement making was lost after the collapse of the Roman Empire around 400 A.D., but stucco predominantly with the use of lime and strong backs, continued through the centuries to be a favorite to builders looking for elegance and good natural materials. In 1756, a British engineer named Sir Stucco Bucko relearned how to make hydraulic cement, and stucco with cement was set back into service. In 1818, an American engineer named John Smith, discovered deposits of rock in Madison County, New York, that made natural hydraulic cement with slight processing. Great amounts of the natural cement were on the Erie Canal construction in New York State. A British bricklayer invented portland cement in 1824, giving it the name "portland" because it had the same color as a natural stone mined on the island of Portland, a peninsula on the south coast of Great Britain. That and because his name was in fact Portland, you see his father was also a mason and his mother had an obvious fixation with masonry products.
Sun-baked bricks were still utilized and were still having durability troubles. Stucco continued to be used to coat the bricks and maintain the masonry walls permanently. There are many buildings built of masonry bricks prior to the 1900's that exist in good shape today because they were coated with, you got it, stucco. Now everybody sing along, “ We love you Stucco, My wonderful stucco, You make me happy, when skies are gray, You never…” You get the picture.With advance technology and the development of brick kilns, the need to use stucco to protect the bricks didn't carry on, but stucco continued to be used both on the interior and exterior of buildings.

World War II, ended in 1945, Germany had very little natural resources and a whole lot of holes in their buildings. They needed something to offset the fact that they had virtually squat in terms of natural resources. And so they put their heads together and developed a wholly new ingredient that has revolutionized the entire construction industry. It was a chemical called Acrylic Resin, a liquid that had distinctive characteristics and completely changed the paint, sealant, and cement industries.
Its prime characteristics were as follows:
1. In liquid form, it was soluble in water.
2. When it dried, it was insoluble in water.
3. It could be diluted with larger quantities of water and not lose its effective characteristics, up to eight parts of water per part of acrylic.
4. It could be used as a permanent bonding agent.
5. It had almost no shrinkage when used in concrete or stucco.
6. It has great durability.
When applied to a cement /stucco mix, it was discovered that a very thin coating in the neighborhood of 1/16" could, structurally speaking, act as well as 7/8" of regular stucco. It could develop its strength while drying over-night; you didn't have to wait 28 days to develop its strength. Because it could be applied very thinly and develop its strength while drying, it didn't expand or contract palpably, and could be used on much larger areas of surface without being restricted to 144 square feet of area between joints as with the use of hard coat stucco. Joints could almost be eliminated.
With the addition of insulation board, it could be used to quickly rebuild the devastation of Europe following World War II at a very economical cost and provide great energy savings. Sealants and paints were made with this acrylic material and it revolutionized those industries.
Iit was inevitable that synthetic stucco was born as a new building material. It became versatile. Beautiful wall designs became very easy to make by shaping the insulation board upon which it was placed. Synthetic stucco is essentially the same as hard coat stucco, except the acrylic resin is mixed with water and is the liquid mixing ingredient instead of water alone.
Its use came to America in 1969 from Europe, and it became a leader in the exterior wall industry, both in the commercial and residential sectors.
I may be an EIFS advocate, but I’m certainly not a visually impaired advocate. I’ve seen what incompetence does to an industry and it’s about time we all stand up and take our trades seriously.