Stone veneer installation in Wilmington NC - stone on a sound wall, built to shed water

Most calls I get start with a bare block foundation, a plain chimney or an entry wall you're tired of looking at. Adhered veneer is thinner, lighter and less expensive than full anchored stone, which needs its own support off the foundation and is closer to our stone masonry work. The catch is that the wall behind adhered veneer carries all of its weight, so how that wall is holding up matters as much as the price. Your price moves with the square footage, the stone you choose, whether the joints are grouted or dry stacked, and how much prep the wall needs. The schedule mostly turns on that prep and the weather. I'll put your own figure in writing after I walk the job with you.

Before we order any stone, I check the wall behind the veneer, because the stone is only as sound as what it's stuck to. I'm looking for cracks, soft or crumbling spots and whatever covers the wall today. Then I walk you through how we'll keep water from getting in behind it, because that plan decides what goes on the wall before the stone does. From there our crew preps the surface. Wherever your wall needs them, we put up the water barrier, metal lath and a scratch coat, which is a rough first layer of mortar the stone can grip. Then we set each stone in mortar. We grout and tool the joints, or leave them dry stacked if that's the look you picked, and we clean the stone and the ground around it before we leave.

A lot of veneer ends up on block. If the wall you want covered hasn't been built yet, we can lay it up first as part of our concrete block walls work. On a new house or addition, our foundation block wall installation gives you a foundation we can face in stone once it's up.

The New Hanover County Department of Permits & Inspections issues all building permits in Wilmington. The city's permit list names alterations and remodeling, but it doesn't mention stone veneer, so ask the county office whether your job needs a permit. You can apply online through COAST, the county's permit portal, or in person at 230 Government Center Drive, Suite 170. If your house sits in one of the city's local historic districts or historic overlays, exterior changes need a certificate of appropriateness, which is a review that checks the work fits the district's historic character. New stone on an outside wall is an exterior change. We tell you which office handles your address and whether historic review could come into it, and we help you get the paperwork together before work starts.

We're based in Wilmington and work across the cities around it. Most of the veneer people ask us about goes over block foundations, crawlspace walls and chimneys, on older brick homes and newer framed ones alike. We see the same mix on jobs in Myrtle Grove and Leland, and we handle it the same way there.