Had a similar experience when I was retrofitting an older brick building. Thought I'd done a thorough job cleaning the surface, but turns out moisture trapped in some hidden mortar joints caused adhesion issues later on. Ended up having to strip it all back and redo the prep—lesson learned. Now I always recommend checking moisture levels with a meter before sealing or coating brickwork...saves a ton of hassle down the line.
Ran into something similar myself when I was flipping a mid-century place. Thought I'd nailed the prep work, but overlooked some hidden moisture behind the stucco. Ended up with bubbling paint and peeling coatings within months—total nightmare. Now I'm pretty obsessive about moisture meters and even do random spot checks after heavy rains. It's amazing how much trouble a little trapped moisture can cause down the road...
Man, moisture issues are the absolute worst. I haven't tackled stucco yet (and after your story, I'm kinda glad about that), but I had a similar headache with drywall in my first reno. Thought I'd scored big-time with this cute little bungalow—until I realized the previous owner had done some DIY plumbing behind the walls. Let's just say "creative" plumbing isn't exactly what you want to find after you've painted and moved furniture in.
A few weeks after finishing up, I noticed these weird little bubbles forming near the baseboards. At first, I blamed it on cheap paint or maybe humidity from leaving windows open. Nope. Turns out there was a slow drip behind the drywall that had been quietly soaking everything for who knows how long. Had to rip out half a wall, redo plumbing, and repaint—basically undoing weeks of work.
Now I'm paranoid about leaks everywhere. If I hear even the faintest dripping sound, I'm like a bloodhound sniffing around the house at 2 AM with a flashlight and a wrench. My friends joke that I've developed some kind of water-leak PTSD.
Speaking of hidden surprises, did you run into any unexpected issues when earthquake-proofing your building? I've always wondered if reinforcing structures reveals hidden problems you wouldn't normally catch...
When we did seismic retrofitting on an older building, we uncovered some sketchy electrical wiring hidden behind the walls—talk about unexpected surprises. Honestly, reinforcing structures often reveals issues you'd never spot otherwise, but better to find them sooner rather than later...
"Honestly, reinforcing structures often reveals issues you'd never spot otherwise, but better to find them sooner rather than later..."
Yeah, it's always something. When we redid our basement foundation, we found old plumbing lines that were barely holding together—total mess waiting to happen. Did you end up rewiring the whole building or just patching the sketchy parts? Curious how far people usually go once they uncover these hidden nightmares...
