Is elastomeric patching compound,caulk, and paint ,the best products to use for prep and painting stucco?
Do you mean for patching stucco? The question isn’t clear, but if you are patching stucco, then you should concentrate on matching the texture to the existing texture. Then, color match your stucco to the existing color and re-finish coat the entire wall (from termination point to termination point). Otherwise the patch will show! If the house is already painted over stucco, I would re-paint the entire wall as well. If stucco is applied over caulk it will dry at a different rate than the original stucco causing the color to appear darker. So, unless you are going to paint, don’t use caulk!!
I like to use elastomeric products for stucco homes. Elastomeric is like applying a rubber glove on the house. usually approx. 11mils thick compared with the standard exterior paint , at approx 1-3 mils. It stretches and fills spidercracks beautifully. Using elastmeric caulk is also a good idea , along with stucco patching, and elastomeric patching compounds.
Elastomeric coatings are more for water proofing now a days. The warranties are not very long averaging only 8 years. I would recommend using elastomeric coatings with back rolling to either water proof or when a stucco wall is road mapping an then use elastomeric caulking on cracks bigger than a dime thickness and under 1/8th thickness, if the crack is bigger then 1/8th use stucco patch. An then coat over it with your preference of exterior latex paint.