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A long time ago I use to hang lath for a stucco company. It was 2 layers (30 lbs) of tar paper then the lath (Minnesota ) What is the standard these days ?
So that sure turned into a far deeper rabbit hole than I would've expected... Probably had more than 10 hours of research into it before I decided on a path forward (premium poly house wrap bottom layer / air barrier, 2 layers of 60 minute building paper on top).
Lots of reports of the 2 layer tar paper causing issues lately. The claim is that 'modern' paper doesnt react to stucco like the old stuff used to. The claim is that on both old + new, the outer layer bonds to the base stucco on application and gets saturated from its water content. The difference is, as the stucco cured /dried, the old stuff would pull away from the stucco and have a crinkled surface that did awesome at making a drainage plain between the two papers.
Supposedly the new stuff doesn't dis-bond from the stucco and stays attached. Apparently this is as bad as not having that layer of paper at all since the natural moisture vapor permeability essentially allows liquid water to pass over time when bonded together like that. So they're seeing failures now just as bad as the old single layer paper that drove the whole 2 layer code in the first place.
That confusion is compounded by all of the companies coming out with new and improved (far more expensive) solutions that their reps puppet all over the various forums as the best thing ever (some of which end up even worse - lots of evidence of these new poly wraps almost 100% permanently bonding to the stucco rendering them useless). Adds a lot of confusion trying to sort through forum replies as to who actually uses the stuff and who is just plugging their company. Tyvek's "stuccowrap" was one of the worst offenders. Everyone tries to push it for direct application stucco when in reality it was created for EIFS systems behind the foam and does terrible in direct stucco applications - even worse than tar paper.
Got me nervous enough that I'd considered a rain screen product at one point (1/4"+ layer behind the paper made from material with an actual built in standoff to create an air gap). But ultimately decided against it as it's not required in the dry parts of the country and would add thousands and thousands to the build.
So that's ultimately where I settled on the 3 layer approach. Lots of historical evidence of the 2 layer tar working just fine, but even if this "new paper" bonds the outer layer to the stucco rendering it useless as some are seeing, Ill still have 2 separated layers behind it (of very differnet material) to ensure there's still an intact drainage plane.
Last edited by bumpin96monte; Feb 20, 2025 at 09:21 PM.
Next steps:
-Need to install man door
-Need to do the flashing around the garage door openings (flash tape on the sides and custom bending drip edge for the top edge)
-Pick out / install flashing for inside of parapet wall - transition from stucco to roofing
-Call a few stucco places to get quotes on stucco install. Next inspection step is post lath install.
Winding down pretty quickly on this permit. Once stucco is done, Ill just have:
-install roofing
-Paint
-finish grade
-install garage doors
Last edited by bumpin96monte; Feb 20, 2025 at 10:12 AM.
While this is still called a flat roof, it's not truly flat. Minimum code requirement is 0.25" per foot slope for a flat roof which is what our house has. I'm not super thrilled with drainage on the house though as small amounts of water get hung up on every little imperfection in the roof membrane after a storm. So I ended up going with 0.5" per foot for the garage to help with that. That was about as much slope as I could add before either exceeding the allowable max height or cutting into my inside ceiling height.
It is a 3 sided parapet though, so you cant actually see the roof at all from the front or sides of the building (there's about a 12" tall wall in the front and on the sides it starts around 12" and tapers up to nearly 3 foot as the roofing drops away from the top of the parapet wall.
The rear of the garage is open though - you can see the roofing and the inside of the 3 parapet walls from the back.
This was part of the requirement of the city ordinances to be "architectually compatible" with the house. It's one of the two main reasons why a metal building just wouldn't have been feasible here (stucco being the other). The house is built just like this, except without trusses since it doesn't have to free span this much open area due to interior load bearing walls.
Last edited by bumpin96monte; Feb 25, 2025 at 05:06 AM.
Man door installed, all of the flashing installed. Pink wrap base layer 100% taped.
Going up now are 2 layers of 60 minute building paper followed by a 1" layer of foam and stucco lath.
Also figured I havent done a back view yet to show how the back of the roof looks (ugly to me - Id rather have 4 full parapet walls sloped to half a dozen drains through the back wall, but the city wanted it to match the house).
Last edited by bumpin96monte; Sep 13, 2025 at 11:35 PM.
That is a rather interesting roof set up. Makes me think more like a business building vs a home owner's garage. But different locations have different building styles.
That is a rather interesting roof set up. Makes me think more like a business building vs a home owner's garage. But different locations have different building styles.
It is unusual, even out by me. The vast majority of houses out here these days are traditional shaped roofs (but with clay or cement tiles on top instead of asphalt shingles).
You're defitniely right, its more of a commerical style of roofing. All of my roofing supplies had to come from commerical roofing type companies. It's super common on the big warehouse type buildings, at least out here.
I do think it works well for this climate though - we've got zero snow load concern and rarely even have heavy rain (the majority of houses don't even have any gutters at all). The roofing material is white, so it physically absorbs less heat than a dark shingle would. It's also fairly energy efficient as you can put a slab of foam between the roof deck and the rolled roofing material to keep the heat out before it ever even gets into the attic / framing members.
Install is pretty quick too - the roofing comes on a roll (I bought 10x50 foot rolls as they're at the upper end of what I can maneuver alone - a bit over 200 lbs) and goes down with either mechanical fasteners at every seam (how our house is done) or 100% glued down like I did for our covered patio. There is no underlayment required as its already a fully waterproof membrane.
Do you have anything figured out for getting electrical to the garage yet?
I haven't really thought about electrical hardly at all yet. It's just so far down the road still that I hate to get too excited. I did buy the sub panel + breaker kit as it was on stupid cheap clearance, and I did put in the UFER ground into the driveway slab as that was a one time shot, but otherwise I haven't really put much effort into it.
Time frame wise, I think Im going to apply for the permit in fall - I really dont want to start that big of a project in summer.
My next step is figuring out feed wire gauge. I do have a path in mind from the main panel to the garage - looping around the back of my shed to avoid major trees and the septic components, but I need to walk it out with a tape to see exaxtly how many feet that works out to so I can do the wire calcs. It's a pretty long run, so its going to have to be some beefy wire.
Regardless how deep I go, I am going to put it in conduit for the full run. We've got a major gopher problem Ive been fighting since we moved in (record was 22 catches in one year), and they tear up absolutely everything they run into. Id hate for them to wreck a few grand in wire because I was being too cheap for conduit.
