Wilmington is where synthetic stucco failure was first documented. We read the report and quote both repair and remediation.
Repair and full remediation, every time. You see both numbers.
Probe data sets the scope - not a salesman, not the finish.
Send your report; we tell you what it actually requires.
Wilmington is the reason anyone in the country knows the term EIFS failure. The first widely documented cases came out of New Hanover County in the mid-1990s. A 1995 county study put roughly 3,200 homes here in the affected column. Most of those went up between 1985 and 2005, and a lot of them are the nicer houses in town.
Landfall, Masonboro, the custom builds off Military Cutoff. Synthetic stucco was the premium finish of that era, so it landed on the premium homes. That is why so much of Wilmington’s EIFS problem sits in neighborhoods where the houses look perfect from the street.
Original EIFS was face-sealed. The barrier was the outside surface, with no drainage plane behind it. Wilmington gets wind-driven rain off the ocean and long stretches of humidity that never really lets the wall dry. Water gets in at a window corner or a missing kickout flashing, and the face seal that was supposed to keep it out now keeps it trapped against the sheathing.
You do not see it. The finish looks fine. The rot is happening behind it, at the sheathing and the framing, usually starting low and around openings.
We explain the mechanism in full in our guide to why EIFS fails. The short version is that the cladding was never the problem. The detailing behind it was.
Most calls here start with a sale. A buyer’s third-party inspector runs a moisture scan, flags the walls, and now there is a number on a report and a closing date on the calendar. The inspector cannot do the remediation. State rules keep those roles separate, which is the right rule but leaves the seller holding a document they cannot act on.
A typical Wilmington scenario runs like this. A 1998 house near Masonboro Sound, EIFS on all four elevations, one inspector flags high readings at three windows. The first reaction is that the whole house needs to come off. It usually does not. The readings decide. Sometimes it is three window details and some flashing. Sometimes it is a full elevation. You cannot know until someone probes the flagged spots.
That is why we quote both. Targeted repair runs roughly $2,000 to $8,000 when the damage is isolated. Full tear-off remediation runs $10,000 to $50,000 and up on a large home. The report and the probe readings tell us which one you are actually looking at, not the salesperson who wants the bigger job.
Send us your moisture inspection report and we will tell you what it actually requires. We are licensed and insured, and we work throughout New Hanover County.
Upload the inspection report or photos of the readings. We tell you what it actually requires - repair or full remediation - honestly, before your closing date does.