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Stucco Details, Bands and Trim: Window Bands, Frieze Boards, Cornices, Quoins, Sills and Colour Changes Priced Per Foot and Per Piece, With a Front Elevation and a Whole House Worked Through
Exterior Finishes
With Stucco It Is Important to Price the Details: Bands, Frieze, Quoins and a Second Colour Are a Third of the Job and Half of the Argument
Look at any stucco house you like and then look at a stucco box, and the difference is not the stucco. It is the band around every window, the frieze under the soffit, the stacked quoins at the corners, the sill under each window and the darker colour on the lower storey. Every one of those is a foam shape cut on site, glued to the wall, wrapped in mesh and base coat, and finished by hand, often in a second colour. They are priced by the linear foot and by the piece, and they are the lines that separate a complete stucco quote from a cheap one. I tell every client the same thing: with stucco, price the details first.
The price list
| Detail | Rate | How it is measured | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|
| Window and door bands or frames | $18 per lf | Perimeter of the opening, three sides for a door | A 4 to 8 in. wide, 1 to 2 in. deep foam profile around the opening, meshed and finished, usually in the trim colour. Includes a sloped sill piece at the bottom if the band runs there. |
| Frieze board or cornice | $14 per lf | Length of the eave and rake it runs along | A flat band 8 to 12 in. tall under the soffit, or a built-up cornice with a crown profile. The line that makes a two-storey house look finished at the top. |
| Quoins | $45 each | Count them: about 6 per storey per corner | The stacked, alternating blocks at an outside corner. Each one is a cut foam block, meshed and finished, often in the trim colour. |
| Second colour | +$0.75 per sq ft | On the area the second colour covers | Masking, a second finish pass and the cleanup. The trim colour on bands is usually in the band price; a colour change on a field of wall is this line. |
| Control joints | $6 per lf | Length of joint | A PVC or metal joint that divides a cement stucco wall into panels, or breaks an acrylic wall at a storey line or a long run. |
| Outside corner bead | $4 per lf | Height of each outside corner | A mesh-wrapped PVC corner that keeps the arris straight and hard. Normal corners are in the wall rate; this is the line when a crew quotes it separately or on an unusual number of corners. |
Keystones, arched heads, shutters and raised panels are quoted per piece and vary too much to list. Ask for them by the piece, in writing.
How to count them off your drawings
- Bands: for each window, add two widths and two heights. A 4 ft by 5 ft window is 18 lf. For a door, two heights and one width: a 3 ft by 7 ft door is 17 lf. Add them up. A typical two-storey house with 16 windows and 2 doors lands at 160 to 200 lf.
- Frieze: the length of the eave line, front and back, plus the rakes on the gables if it follows them. A 40 ft by 30 ft house with frieze on all four sides is 140 lf plus rakes.
- Quoins: count the outside corners you want them on, multiply by storeys, by about 6. Four corners, two storeys, is 48.
- Colour change: the square feet of the second colour. A darker lower storey on a two-storey house is roughly a third of the wall.
- Sills: if the band stops at the sides and a separate sloped sill goes under the window, it is the window width at the band rate. Say which in the quote.
The $249 exterior takeoff does this count elevation by elevation from your plans if you would rather not, and the measurement page covers the wall area the details sit on.
A front elevation worked through
A two-storey front, 40 ft wide, 700 sq ft of net wall in acrylic stucco on ICF, six windows at 4 ft by 5 ft and a 3 ft by 7 ft door, quoins on both corners, a frieze across the top, and a darker colour on the lower 300 sq ft.
Stucco 700 at $13 is $9,100. Bands: six windows at 18 lf is 108 lf, plus the door at 17 lf, 125 lf at $18 is $2,250. Frieze 40 lf at $14 is $560. Quoins, two corners, two storeys, 24 at $45 is $1,080. Second colour 300 sq ft at $0.75 is $225. Details total $4,115, on a stucco field of $9,100. The details are 45% of the stucco on the front elevation, which is why the front is where quotes go wrong. Front and details together, $13,215 before HST.
Take the quoins off and use a single colour, and the front drops to $11,910. Add a cornice instead of a flat frieze and keystones over the windows, and it climbs past $14,000. None of those choices is wrong. All of them have to be in the quote before you compare it to another one.
The whole house, and the $8,000 gap
The 2,400 sq ft net wall house I use across this section, in acrylic stucco on ICF with stone on the front, carries bands on 180 lf at $18, $3,240, and frieze on 150 lf at $14, $2,100, in its $51,740 total. That is the version with modest details, and it is on the stucco cost page in full.
Now add what the drawings usually show. Quoins on four corners, two storeys, 48 at $45 is $2,160. A darker lower storey, 800 sq ft at $0.75 is $600. With the bands and frieze that is $8,100 of details. A quote that prices the wall and says “trim as per drawings” with no feet and no pieces has either guessed at that $8,100 or left it out, and you find out which when the crew asks what colour the quoins are. That is the gap, and I have seen it on nearly every pair of stucco quotes a client has handed me. The quote comparison grid has a line for every one of these for exactly that reason.
What a good crew does with them
A band is not a piece of foam stuck on and painted. The crew cuts the profile on a hot-wire table, glues it to the base-coated wall with the same adhesive the system uses, then wraps it in mesh that laps onto the wall mesh on both sides, base-coats it, and finishes it with the wall. The top of every band and every quoin gets a slope so water runs off, because a flat-topped band is a shelf that holds snow against the wall, and a frieze under a soffit gets a drip at its bottom edge. Done that way, the details are part of the skin and they do not crack at the edges. Done the fast way, foam shapes stuck over a finished wall and painted, they crack around their edges in two winters and the paint fades differently from the stucco around it.
Ask to see a band on a house the crew did five years ago. The edge tells you everything. For the rest of what to look at while the wall is open, the cladding inspection checklist is the list.
Questions people ask
How much do stucco window bands cost?
$18 a linear foot, supplied and installed, measured around the opening. A 4 ft by 5 ft window is 18 lf, $324. A house with 16 windows and 2 doors is 160 to 200 lf, $2,900 to $3,600.
What are quoins and what do they cost?
The stacked, alternating blocks at an outside corner, done in foam and stucco. $45 each, and a two-storey corner takes about 12 of them, $540. Four corners is about $2,160.
Does a second stucco colour cost more?
Yes, about $0.75 a square foot on the area the second colour covers, for the masking and the extra finish pass. A trim colour on bands and quoins is normally in their per-foot price; a second field colour is the extra line.
Can details be added to an existing stucco house?
Yes, at the same rates, glued to the existing finish after it is cleaned and primed. They will be a slightly different texture and colour than a twenty-year-old wall, so most people recoat the elevation at the same time.
Why is one stucco quote so much lower than the other?
Nine times out of ten, the details. Ask the low quote to list bands, frieze, quoins and colour changes in feet and pieces. If the list is short, the price is short.
Put the details in the number
The exterior cladding cost calculator has every line on this page, in feet and pieces, so your stucco number has the bands and the quoins in it before the quotes arrive. If the quotes already arrived and one of them says “trim as per drawings”, the $99 review will count the drawings and tell you what that line is worth.
Sources and further reading
- Dryvit: EIFS and acrylic finish systems: what a drained EIFS assembly is, the base coat, mesh and finish, and the details at openings.
- Your rights when starting home renovations or repairs: Ontario government: the 10-day cooling-off period on a contract signed at your door, the written contract rule, estimates, and the door-to-door rules.
