Stone masonry in Wilmington NC - stone walls with joints that shed the rain

It usually starts with something you can see, like a stone that rocks when you push on it, a joint that crumbles under your fingernail, or a bare spot in the yard where you've wanted a wall for years. The price moves with the size of the wall, the stone you pick, whether it's dry-stacked with no mortar or mortared on a foundation, and, on a repair, how much old mortar has to come out. The schedule mostly turns on getting your stone delivered and on any permit or historic review. If what you really want is a stone face on the house, that's stone veneer installation, and either way I'll put your own number in writing after we walk it together.

I walk the wall with you first and point right at what I'm seeing, then we help you pick a stone with a good track record outdoors around here, not just the one that looks nicest in the yard, because one stone maker's guide says not every natural stone is suggested for outside use and the ones with a history of standing up to local weather do best. On a repair, we clear out the loose stone and worn joints before setting stone back in fresh mortar, since new work won't hold on top of crumbling old work. Then we tool the joints smooth and curved so rain runs off instead of sitting in them, and that same guide says concave joints like these resist water best while raked or rough-cut ones resist it less. We clean up, and I show you what we did and why before we go.

Stone often sits right next to other masonry. If it runs into brick with tired joints, brick pointing gets that brick shedding water the same way as the new stone. If a crack in the wall traces back to the house, we'd look at foundation repair first, because fresh stone won't stay tight against a foundation that's still cracking.

Inside Wilmington city limits, building permits come from the New Hanover County Department of Permits & Inspections, and they're required for building structures, alterations and remodeling. If your house sits in one of the city's local historic districts or historic overlays, outside changes also need a certificate of appropriateness, which the city approves based on its Historic District Design Standards. We tell you which office handles your address and whether a historic district review could come into it, and we help you get the paperwork together before work starts.

In the historic districts we get a lot of calls about front-yard walls, and the standards have a say there. They advise against a front-yard retaining wall where none stood historically, and an approved one should be stone, brick or textured block with historic character, not poured concrete or wood timbers. They also call artificial siding made to look like stone veneer not appropriate, so real stone is the way to go. We're based in Wilmington and work across the cities around it, and we build garden and retaining walls the same careful way on jobs in Leland and Porters Neck.