About Comptonpolicegangs

We Work on Walls That Have to Dry

Comptonpolicegangs paints houses in Santa Monica, and most of what we touch is cement plaster. We run out of Cloverfield Blvd in the 90403 ZIP, and the jobs we get called to are usually the ones where a repaint did not hold.

The reason we describe the business by the stucco rather than by the paint is that on this side of town the wall is the job. A Spanish Colonial Revival house from the 1920s has three coats of portland cement plaster on lath, and that assembly was designed to get wet and then dry out through its own face. Every decision after that follows from whether the finish you put on it respects that or fights it.

What We Look At First

Before a number gets quoted we walk all four elevations and check three things. What coating is already on the wall, and roughly how open it is to vapor. Where water is entering, which is nearly always a detail rather than the field of the stucco. And what the cracks are telling us, because shrinkage crazing and a live movement crack need completely different work.

That walk takes the better part of an hour on an average house and it is the part of the process we will not shorten. A coating chosen from the curb is a guess.

The Housing Stock Here

Ocean Park and Sunset Park are full of small stucco bungalows, many of them worked on repeatedly over a century by whoever was cheapest that decade. Around them sits a large stock of apartment buildings and condos from the 1920s through the 1970s, a lot of them courtyard plans with long shaded walls that dry slowly.

Those two buildings ask different things of us. A bungalow usually needs cracks made good and a breathable finish. An apartment elevation that never sees sun needs the drying problem solved before anyone opens a pail, and sometimes needs the last owner’s elastomeric taken off.

Fog, Salt and the Working Day

The marine layer decides when we can coat. Surface temperature has to sit clear of the dew point, and here the wall is often damp to the touch until the middle of the morning and damp again by evening. So we start late, stop early, and take longer than a crew working ten miles inland. Anyone promising you an exterior in three days near the beach in June is planning to spray a wet wall.

Salt is the other coastal factor. It gets into the plaster, comes back out as efflorescence when the water evaporates, and it corrodes exposed lath and metal corner bead until the rust expands and pushes the stucco off. We treat those at the cause.

On Older Paint and Tight Lots

Houses built before 1978 can carry lead in the old layers, so we test before disturbing anything and work wet with proper containment where the test comes back positive. Lots here are narrow and the houses sit close, which makes containment a neighbor issue as much as a safety one.

Staging is a real part of the plan too. Permit parking, short driveways and little street frontage mean we work out where the scaffold and the compressor go before the first morning, not on it.

What We Will Tell You to Skip

Not every wall needs everything. A north elevation with tight, stable crazing and a sound existing acrylic often needs a wash and one coat, not a full system. A rental turning over between tenants may only need the two walls anyone sees. We will say so, and quote it both ways so you can see the difference in writing.

Call (424) 432-0305.