COWICHAN VALLEY – Stucco has long been a popular exterior choice for buildings, and Custom Stucco Solutions believes they have a new product that takes it to a new level.
Henrik Knuth, who founded the company 10 years ago, started a new stucco program called Plaster Impressions a year ago, and began offering DuROCK Alfacing, manufactured in eastern Canada.
“This is an acrylic cement-based coating that we hand apply with a trowel and we can make replicate the look of wood, stone, tile or brick,” he explains. “We can apply it to EFIS, concrete, drywall, existing stucco, almost anything. We just completed a project the other day and put an old-type barn look on a building, where we put alfacing on top of existing stucco to get a wood effect.
“It’s maintenance free, it’s clean, it doesn’t lose its color, and doesn’t have to be painted.”
Custom Stucco Solutions provides a vast array of custom exterior stucco finishes and resurfacing services for customers across southern Vancouver Island, specializing in EIFs (Exterior Insulation Finishing System), Venetian plaster and custom interior finishes. Their mastering of resurfacing dated stucco brings homes out of the past and into the modern era, for commercial and residential buildings.
“EIFS is an all-stucco-based architectural system where we apply a rubberized air barrier with 2 inches of foam to massively reduce heat or cooling costs,” he notes. “It’s an energy efficient application that works with the BC Energy Step Codes.”
Knuth started Custom Stucco Solutions a decade ago on a dare, while he was running his other company, G&G Designs Home Renovations, which is still operating, providing renovations, framing and foundation services.
“I was already in the construction business, and a buddy dared me to start a stucco company, I said no way, and he did it again, so I did. I said ‘Watch this’, and then he thought I was crazy,” he states.
The first six years with Custom Stucco Solutions was all education and learning and trials and errors, but several years ago “I decided I was either going to put my foot on the gas or get out,” he states. “We grew 100% that year, and we’ve grown another 200 per cent since then.”
Knuth says the company will be adding a pool construction program in the new year using Pool Kote, a product from DuROCK, as well as DuROCK Jewel Stone, which is effective for retaining walls, patios and indoor/outdoor showers and so much more.
“I always try to think outside the box and not be scared to try something different,” he says. “And we have a great, hardworking team, as none of our success would be possible without them.”