Cordero Wall Systems · Stucco, EIFS & mineral finishes · Los Ojos & the Saltilla Rim · Measured since 2004
Every wall leaves this yard with a receipt.
Cordero opens and closes every job with the same instruments: moisture probes at the trim, the corners and the grade line, strings on every corner, and a rate sheet priced against what the readings say. Three coats over paper-backed lath, colour batched integral into the finish, joints cut where the structure steps — and a closing sheet printed beside the opening one, twelve months apart.
Services
Four trades, numbered and priced
01
New three-coat — $14.60 / sq ft
Scratch for grip, brown for plane, colour for face — over two layers of paper and furred wire lath, with a weep screed at the grade. The brown coat is rodded plumb to a string line inside two millimetres and cured a full week, because every defect under the colour is a shadow at five in the afternoon forever.
02
EIFS by the moisture map — $41 / sq ft
A capacitance scan of the elevation, invasive probes where the readings say so, openings cut exactly where the map condemns and nowhere else. Foam, mesh and base coat renewed in place, the water detail that fed the damage fixed in the same cut, and the insulation stays on the house.
03
Mineral re-colour — $3.80 / sq ft
Silicate finishes that bond chemically into the stucco instead of filming on top of it — vapour-open, UV-stable, recoated in fifteen years by washing and rolling rather than stripping and scaffolding. One continuous wet edge per elevation, fog-cured against the rim wind.
04
Joints, weep & trim — from $24 / lin ft
Expansion joints placed at every structural break, floor line and major opening — sealant-filled, never cement-filled — with coated-EPS bands struck level and meshed into the field. The parts nobody photographs are the ones deciding whether anybody ever photographs the wall.
Before you spend anything
Fair questions, answered before the pitch
The five the yard phone hears most between seven and five, rim-wide. If yours is not here, it has still been asked — bring it to the ledger. ask@corderowall.example
How long does stucco actually last on the rim?
Laid and cured properly, fifty to eighty years — the sun here is hard on films and easy on mineral, which is the whole argument for integral colour. It fails early when coats are rushed, flashings leak or joints were skipped by the original builder. All three of those are ours to get right, in writing, for fifteen years.
Can you match the colour on my existing walls?
With a cured panel, every time. We match the tone dry, trowel candidates onto a board and leave it bolted beside the old wall through weeks of rim weather — high-desert light is the only honest judge, and wet stucco lies about its colour. The batch answers to the panel, never to a fan deck.
What does the $300 reading include?
Moisture probes at the trim, corners and grade; a joint survey drawn on the elevation; a crack map dated and gauged; the sample panel mixed and left curing on your wall; and a written verdict you can hand to any other plasterer in the county. It comes off any work we then do within a year.
Do you lay through the winter?
Down to four degrees, tented and heated when the night threatens — the scratch goes on with a cold-weather admixture in the shoulder months and the colour waits for a genuine warm window. Below that the calendar wins and we say so on the first call, because a colour coat laid cold is the crack you ring us about in year three.
EIFS or three-coat at this altitude?
Both work and both are on the card; they fail differently. Three-coat is dense mineral that forgives and repairs forever. EIFS insulates, performs beautifully in rim heat, and keeps score on every bad sill detail for as long as it is up. The reading tells you which side of that trade your house is standing on — not which system we would rather sell.
The opening reading
Probes, strings and the joint survey before any number is written — a repair priced off a brochure is a guess wearing a warranty. A fair share of readings end in the verdict: do nothing yet, and the document is yours anyway.
The single batch
One integral batch per elevation, floated in one continuous wet edge. Two batches of the same formula differ by a shade you can see at dusk, and a stop-line in the middle of a wall shows for thirty years — so the batch is mixed once, big enough, every time.
The year-after string
Twelve months after every lay the same instruments come back and the closing sheet is printed beside the opening one — same corners, same string, dated. Anything we touched that reads out of true is made right at our cost, and the pair of sheets goes home with your file.
From the ledger
The rim, 2025 — 2026
Six elevations from last season’s book, photographed the morning the scaffold came down with the opening sheet still in the file.
The year-after visit is what sold the house. The buyers’ surveyor came, asked about the walls, and we handed him the Cordero file — opening sheet, closing sheet, twelve months apart, same corners, same string. He photocopied it instead of ordering his own inspection, and the sale closed a week early. No fresh paint ever did that.
Same sheet every crew carries
The rate sheet, printed last Tuesday
Reprinted when pigment and steel move, dated at the top, never mid-job. The $300 reading comes off any work booked within a year, every line includes scaffold to three storeys and the wash-down, and the quote is a ceiling.
New three-coat stucco$14.60 / sq ft
Scratch, brown and integral colour over lath
EIFS repair, by the map$41 / sq ft
Foam, mesh and base coat renewed where probed
Mineral re-colour, silicate$3.80 / sq ft
One wet edge per elevation, fog-cured
Expansion joint, cut & sealed$30 / lin ft
Placed at every structural break, weeped
Foam bands & trim$24 / lin ft
Coated EPS struck level, meshed in
Crack stitching, V-cut$18 / lin ft
Grouted, meshed, feathered to nothing
Reading, panel & survey$300 flat
Probes, strings, joint drawing — credited
How it goes
From reading to the year after
The same sequence on every job — the only variable is your project.
Day 0
The reading
Moisture probes at the trim, corners and grade; strings on the corners; the joint survey drawn; the panel mixed and bolted to the wall. The quote is written against the readings the same day.
Week 1
The panel cures
Twenty-eight days of rim weather — because wet stucco lies about its colour and the batch answers to the cured panel alone. Water details are corrected in parallel while it works.
Weeks 2–3
Paper, lath & weep
Two layers of building paper, wire lath furred off it, weep screed at the grade and the joints laid out where the structure steps — drawn on the elevation, not guessed at the trowel.
Weeks 3–4
The coats, on their clocks
Scratch rests two days, brown is rodded plumb and rests seven, colour floats in one continuous wet edge per elevation. Every coat logged as it cures — the calendar belongs to the coat.
Month 12
The year-after string
The same instruments, the same corners, printed beside the opening sheet. Anything we touched that reads out of true is made right at our cost — which is why the day-zero reading was so thorough.
The yard, in figures
Readings within 48 hours rim-wide · the laying season runs May to October · (555) 033-6814 · ledger@corderowall.example
Put the wall on the ledger
Tell us the age of the house, what the wall has been doing and what the rim sun has done to both. The $300 reading — probes, strings and a panel left curing — comes off any work that follows. ledger@corderowall.example