Pueblo Stucco Repair Patching the hole a swamp cooler left in a stucco wall
Plenty of Pueblo houses still run a swamp cooler, and plenty are switching to refrigerated air. When a side-draft cooler comes off the wall, it leaves an opening where the duct went through the house, usually somewhere around the size of a small window, with torn paper, cut lath and raw stucco edges around it. Sometimes it was cut into a solid wall, and sometimes the cooler sat in what used to be a window.
That opening is a hole in the weather barrier of the house, and it needs more than a bag of stucco.
Check these before the wall is closed
- The water line. Side-draft coolers are fed by a small supply line, often teed off a hose bib or a valve inside. Shut it off and cap it where it starts. A line cut and left live inside the wall is a slow leak waiting to happen.
- The power. The cooler’s outlet or hard-wired circuit should be terminated in a covered junction box or removed back to the panel by an electrician, so nothing live ends up buried behind the patch.
- The bottom of the opening. Push a screwdriver into the wood below and at the sides of the hole. Coolers drip, overflow and bleed off water for years, and that water runs down the outside of the wall and into the framing at the bottom corners of the opening. Firm wood is good news. Soft, dark or crumbling wood gets cut out and replaced before anything is covered.
- Whether you want a window back. If the cooler sat in an old window opening, putting a window back in is an option. That is a window job, not a stucco one; we would patch around the new window once it is set.
Roof-mounted (down-draft) coolers leave a hole in the roof deck instead. That is a roofing repair, and the stucco is usually untouched.
How the opening gets patched
This is patching, done in the same layers as the wall around it:
- Cut back the ragged stucco edge a few inches past the opening, in straight lines, so there is clean old paper and lath to lap into.
- Frame the opening with studs and blocking at the same spacing as the wall, then sheathe it flush with the existing sheathing so the new stucco ends up the same thickness.
- Paper, two layers of weather-resistive barrier, the top edge tucked under the old paper above and the bottom edge lapped over the paper below, so water always sheds outward.
- Lath fastened through to the new framing and overlapping the old lath at the edges.
- Scratch, brown and finish coats, each cured before the next. Rushing a patch on a hot, dry Pueblo afternoon is what makes it crack around the outline later.
- Texture and color matched to the wall. Our color and texture matching page explains why a new patch can read as a square for a season and how we keep that from happening.
While you wait
If the cooler is already off and the patch is not scheduled yet, cover the opening: a piece of plywood screwed to the framing, with plastic sheeting or housewrap tucked under the stucco edge above and over the edge below. That keeps rain, snowmelt and mice out. Leave the cover off the stucco face itself where you can, so it does not tear more of the edge when it comes down.
What to send us
A photo of the whole wall the opening is in, a close-up of the opening and what is showing inside it, and whether the wood at the bottom felt firm. Tell us if the water and power have already been capped. From that we can tell you whether it is a straightforward cooler patch or whether the framing needs work first.
Frequently Asked Questions
The cooler is gone and there is a square hole in the wall. Can it just be filled with stucco?
No. Stucco is a skin about seven-eighths of an inch thick, not a structural fill. The opening has to be framed in, sheathed, wrapped in paper lapped into the paper around it, and lathed before any stucco goes on. Stucco packed into an empty hole cracks around the edges the first winter and lets water straight into the wall.
What should happen before you close the wall?
The water line that fed the cooler should be shut off and capped at its source, not just cut at the wall, and the cooler's outlet or wiring should be terminated in a covered box by an electrician. Then press on the framing at the bottom of the opening. Years of drips and bleed-off water often soak the sill below a side-draft cooler, and soft wood gets replaced before it is covered.
Will the patch show?
It can. A square patch on an otherwise weathered wall shows as a square in low morning or evening light, even with a good texture match, because new finish coat is a slightly different color until it ages. Our usual fix is to feather the texture past the patch edges and, where the color still reads, carry a color coat to the nearest corner or break in the wall so there is no visible edge.
Can this be done in winter?
Within limits. ASTM C926, the standard for applying cement plaster, says exterior plaster goes on only when the air is above 40 degrees F, not onto a frozen base, and not when a drop below 40 is expected within 24 hours. Pueblo has plenty of mild winter days, so the work gets scheduled around the forecast. In the meantime, a temporary cover keeps the opening dry.
What does it cost?
It is priced as patching: $500 to $2,000 for a typical job on our pricing page. A single cooler opening on a sound wall sits toward the low end. Rotted sill or framing, a color coat carried across a whole wall, or a two-story ladder setup push it up.