Stucco and Termites

[futurebeachbum]

A couple of our places are stucco. Our pest control company is recommending that we have one of them 'cut'. Apparently stucco that extends below grade offers a way for Termites to enter the house. (Here's a link.)

Has anyone done this? Investigated this? Seems like a lot of expensive work to me.

Any info on experiences and/or costs would be appreciated.

[dbuck]

FBB,

Very familiar with this!!!!! Our house is brick but a few years ago when we remodeled we had an arched stucco entrance built on the porch. This spring we spent $4,500 to have the stucco cut, or whatever you call it. Yes, because of the moisture we had some termite activity, although not much. Now for the really bad news.....our neighbor's house is totally stucco and they had to have theirs cut all the way around and pretty far up because they had significant termite damage, for a total bill of OVER $100,000. The real clincher is that insurance does not cover this.

This has been happening all over our area. It has gotten to the point that it is difficult to sell a house that has stucco on the lower half of the house.