Stucco & Painting in Wetmore

Exterior work in Wetmore, Colorado

Wetmore sits at about 6,388 feet in Custer County, where Highway 96 and Highway 67 meet at the foot of the Wet Mountains. The building stock is rural: older frame farmhouses, ranch houses on acreage, log and heavy-timber homes, and outbuildings that have never seen a coat of anything. Most of it is wood, and most of it is exposed on all four sides with no neighboring structure to break the wind.

The Wet Mountains earn the name. Wetmore catches more moisture than the Arkansas valley below it, and snow sits on horizontal wood longer up here. Decks go first. Boards cup, the film cracks, and water works into the end grain at the fasteners. Deck restoration means stripping the failed finish, sanding, cleaning and brightening, then letting the wood get down to a workable moisture level before anything goes back on.

This is wildland interface, right against the San Isabel National Forest, so a lot of owners here run metal roofs and want them sealed and holding. Roof coating on metal starts with fastener and washer replacement and rust treatment, not with the coating. For the log and timber homes, house painting is really stain work, and south and west walls need it years before the north side does.