Well, it’s official. Winter has arrived in Edmonton. At this time of year, our thoughts start to turn to the upcoming holidays and winter activities to while away the hours until warmer weather returns. If you’re a homeowner in Edmonton or the surrounding area, you might be wondering if the arrival of Old Man Winter means that you need to forgo your plans to repair or replace the parging around the foundation of your Edmonton home.
The answer is probably yes, unless the forecast shows a sustained warm spell coming our way in the near future. By warm, we don’t mean “Edmonton in Winter” warm temperatures that are only considered nice relative to really, really cold. We’re talking about an unseasonably warm period of at least several days. If you’re wondering why something as durable as parging needs such specialized conditions to be effective, read on.
Ideal Parging Conditions
For something that ends up being so durable, parging is a bit of a delicate flower in the application process. To be effective at its job of protecting your home from the elements, parging needs time to cure in sustained warm temperatures of at least 5C. You may have a parging company tell you that they can come do your job in the dead of winter, but you better make sure they guarantee their work. You’re going to want to keep their number handy when the poorly sealed parge coat starts falling off your house in the spring.
What to do Until Spring
That “small crack” in your parging that you noticed a few months ago may be further damaged by the time this season’s freeze and thaw cycles have had a chance to do their thing to your house. If you didn’t get a chance to replace cracked or damaged parging before the winter weather made its grand appearance for the year, the next best thing you can do is keep the snow from piling up against your house as best as you can. So you don’t end up in the same predicament next year, make a note in your calendar RIGHT NOW to give us a call in the spring so you can be one of our first customers of the coming new year.
Are you hunkering down for the winter? We are too, but our online communities on Twitter and Facebook will stay warm all year round. Don’t forget to come join us! Though we specialize in parging and stucco exterior finishes in Edmonton and the surrounding area, we also share general home maintenance tips and tricks gleaned from our decades of experience with homeowners from all over Alberta and the rest of Canada.
