Repairing Large Cracks: Using Backer Rod & Big Stretch Caulking

all right so I'm up here today got to resolve a problem with something has pecked a hole right here and we've got to try to fill this hole stop this before we paint this house right here kind of like a lot of different ways you can resolve this problem I'm going to show you how I'm going to resolve it so they're trying to access the adct you know up there and there's a big huge void space back there what you don't want to do is just take and start pumping a bunch of you know caulking or sealant down there cuz it's just going to start filling down there it's just going to fill that whole thing up who knows you could end up pumping maybe a half a tube of sealant down in there which would be just a waste and it's just not the proper way to actually fill that the proper way is take backer rods this piece of backer rod fits that space very well so I'll just cut this piece of backer rod you know put it there this is a piece of hybrid back rod from sashco now what this um does is it won't absorb water and the the sealant or caulking won't stick to it what you want is the sealant to to um or caulking to stick to the the two sides the two edges that way any expansion contraction it can stretch and flex I got a couple different options uh this is sashco slab it's a Concrete uh sealant we use it for concrete we use it for stucco it is textured once I got up here I noticed the previous sealant that was used up here is smooth so if I use slab it's not going to match what's there existing it is up against stucco but then it's up against the um sopit right here so we don't want to use SLP this would have been a great option if all of that was actually textured so I'm going to end up using um sash Go's Big Stretch right here Big Stretch bonds extremely well has a lot of flex has a lot of stretch so I'm going to show you exactly how I do this I'm just going to take this backer rod this is once again extremely important step to actually you know stuff this backer rod in there you can cut it with a knife just take and rip it with your hands it rips pretty easily so I'm going to stuff this back of Rod down in there far enough now that I can get just a nice bead of sealant over the top of that this smaller hole um probably could get away with almost no backer rod but it would be better just throw some back rod in there so once again this is a hybrid backer rod that our sealant won't stick to from sashco they got different sizes um they got smaller uh back Rod than this larger back Rod now I'm just going to take tool this put a nice coat of Big Stretch on here and seal this up so I don't want to get any on the stucco I don't want to smooth out that stucko so I'm going to be very careful just use the bead the pad of my finger to smooth that out just like that I'm going to use bigger pad of this finger to match that existing spot right there now that spot is correctly resolved using Big Stretch and backer rod I've dealt with these um woodpeckers in our area up here uh pecking holes in houses literally pecking them in stucko cuz this right here behind here is just foam behind here they'll peck holes dig in the foam dig out the foam they'll Nest I did a home up in the Foothills it had probably 300 holes in the stucco and the the um woodpeckers were just destroying the house if you see this you definitely want to stop that bird somehow trap relocate that bird there are like sound devices that distract you know the woodpeckers from coming that one house had these loud you know sound devices there's a product you can put in the paint that um smells at the woodpeckers and our Birds don't like once we patch this fix it we want the customer to know hey keep an eye on that make sure you know this um varmint doesn't actually get inside the house and make a nest have babies and the multiplication process is only just going to be worse once more and more babies come back and do the same thing so I'm going to take some backer rod this piece of backer rod actually fits that space very well whoa