Wired

Stucco wire that is...

We were able to get most of the stucco wire up last week. The hardest part was breaking out about 6 inches of the existing stucco out of the existing stucco wire so that the new wire and old wire could overlap and tie together. The sledge hammer was the most effective tool, but is was hard on the walls. There is one spot inside the living room where the drywall blew out from the pounding on the outside of the house. In the end, the combination of a 4.5" angle grinder (not 4"!), a hand sledge, 3 different sized cold chisels and a pair of channel lock pliers got the job done.

Then there were lots of little things to get done: trim out the crawlspace openings, cut out the crawlspace vents, put mesh wire over the crawlspace vents and finish sealing up some gaps in the paper.

After overlapping the old and new paper to make everything watertight, it was on to the stucco wire itself. Fortunately we had some help on Saturday getting the wire up. It would have been really tricky to attempt alone since it is pretty much one continuous run around the whole house. The first course may have been manageable, but the second and third courses would have been impossible.

We just nailed the wire up enough to keep it on the wall. This week or weekend we will rent a staple gun so we can attach it to meet code. It went pretty quickly once we got going. The slowest part was cutting the pieces and cutting out all the doors, windows and other protrusions.

There is still a little more to finish on the wire. We need to finish the tops of the gable walls and get wire in all the eaves. We should be able to get this done this week and move on the tearing out the old kitchen.