If your inspection flagged EIFS - the synthetic stucco on most 1985–2005 coastal homes - we tell you what the report actually requires. Repair, or full remediation.
Older EIFS has no drainage plane. Once water gets past a joint, it has no way back out.
Water sits in the wood behind a wall that still looks flawless. Years before a stain shows inside.
The single most common entry point. A missing detail soaks a wall for a decade.
Perfect outside, wet behind. That gap is why this needs a moisture probe, not a look.
Isolated intrusion at one flashing or joint. Open it, dry it, correct the detail, re-seal. No full re-clad.
Widespread moisture, rotted sheathing. Tear-off, replace sheathing, re-clad - often to a drainable system that can't trap water again.
The earliest documented EIFS moisture failures in the country were coastal Carolina homes. New Hanover County wrote the moisture-testing protocol the whole industry now follows.
We work only on that housing stock, in this climate. It is the entire company.
Read the Wilmington story →Not always. A wet reading means water is against the sheathing, but the fix depends on how far it has spread. If the damage is contained to one area, a targeted repair can handle it. If the sheathing is gone across a long run, that is when a full re-clad makes sense. The probe readings decide, not the sales pitch, which is why we quote both paths.
A repair fixes a contained wet area and the water source behind it. Remediation is the bigger job: stripping the EIFS down to the sheathing, replacing rotted wood, and re-cladding to a drainable system. Repair runs a few thousand dollars. Full remediation runs into the tens of thousands. We give you both numbers so you can see which one your wall actually needs.
Targeted repairs run $2,000 to $8,000. Full EIFS replacement runs $8 to $45 per square foot, more where mold is present, and a full-home remediation can reach $25,000 to $75,000 or higher. What drives the number is the length of wet wall and how far the rot has traveled, not the size of the house. Our cost guide breaks it all down.
Traditional stucco is hard cement over lath and feels solid when you knock on it. EIFS, or synthetic stucco, is foam and mesh under an acrylic finish and sounds hollow. Most coastal homes built between 1985 and 2005 with a stucco look are actually EIFS. If you are not sure, a quick look at the wall tells us fast.
Kickout flashing is a small piece at the bottom of a roof-to-wall joint that kicks water away from the wall into the gutter. On a lot of older EIFS homes it was left off entirely. Without it, roof runoff pours straight behind the cladding, and that one missing detail is behind a huge share of the rot we find. Small part, big damage.
Generally the inspection is valid for about 120 days and the actual moisture readings for about 30. Walls change with the weather, so old readings do not hold. If you are working toward a closing, that clock matters, and we build the scope around your date.
Often, yes. Send us the report first so we can tell you the real scope right away, which is what a lender or buyer usually wants to see. From there we work the assessment and quotes around your timeline, not ours. The sooner we see the report, the more room we have to help.
Yes. We cover the Cape Fear coast, including Wilmington, Leland, Southport, Wrightsville Beach, Ogden, Hampstead, and the surrounding New Hanover, Brunswick, and Pender areas. If your home is in the region and has synthetic stucco, we can help.
Upload the inspection report or photos of the readings. We tell you what it actually requires - repair or full remediation - honestly, before your closing date does.