A GC asked us this last year with two bids on the table. Neither one explained the choice, and neither one told him why.
It is a fair question with a boring answer. It depends on the building, and most of the time it has already been decided for you.
Here is how we walk an owner through it.
They are not rivals
People line these two up as competitors. They are not. They solve different problems and they sit on different buildings.
Traditional three-coat stucco is the default in Arizona. It covers about 80% of the homes here and plenty of the commercial work too.
EIFS turns up when a set of plans calls for it. It is a commercial spec, and you meet it on retail, offices and multi-family.
What traditional stucco is good at
This is the system we run most weeks of the year, and there are reasons for that.
It is hard
Cement takes a knock. A cart, a ladder or a delivery dolly into the wall leaves a mark, not a hole.
The price is known
Three-coat runs about $5 to $9 per square foot of wall in the Phoenix metro. Bids often come written in square yards, and one yard is nine feet.
Any decent crew can repair it
The material is cement, sand and water. You are not tied to one maker's kit for the rest of the building's life.
It has a long record here
Built full thickness, with mesh at the corners and real expansion joints, a three-coat wall lasts 40 to 50 years in this climate.
What EIFS is good at
EIFS earns its place on commercial work, and it does things cement cannot.
Weight
It is a light wall face. On a tall elevation that matters to the structure under it, and the architect will have run those numbers already.
Shape
Bands, reveals, cornices and trim are built into the system. The same detail in cement is slow, heavy work.
Color out of the bucket
The finish arrives pre-colored to the spec. Across a 40,000 square foot elevation, that kind of consistency is the whole game.
Where the money actually goes
Owners ask which one is cheaper. On a commercial job the finish material is rarely what decides the bill.
Access does. Scaffolding on a three-story wall is days of labor before a trowel touches it, and that cost is the same either way.
Detail does too. A plain box is quick in either system. Bands, reveals and deep parapets add corners, and corners are where the slow hours go.
So read the two bids line by line instead of by the total. Ask what the base coat is, where the mesh goes, and how the joints get sealed.
When we say stucco, and when we say EIFS
Here is the short version of what we tell people on site.
If it is a house, we say traditional stucco. Nearly every time. It is hard, it is repairable, and the price is a known quantity.
If it is a commercial building and the plans call for EIFS, we build EIFS and we build it to the spec.
If it is a repair, the wall already chose. You match the system on the building. Patching EIFS with cement is how a wall fails twice.
New home or re-stucco
Traditional three-coat, full thickness, diamond mesh at the openings and expansion joints out in the field of the wall.
New commercial with EIFS on the plans
We bid the system as drawn, straight off your drawings, before framing starts.
Repair on an existing wall
We work out which system is there, then match it. That walk happens before any number goes on paper.
Most of the time this choice is not really yours to make. The plans made it, or the wall made it years ago.
What you do get to pick is who builds it. Call 602-583-4683 and we will walk the building and tell you what is on it.
