American Stone By Luciano recently completed a pointing job in the Doylestown area. We were hired to rip out the siding of a house and replace it stone walling. As we began the process of ripping the siding, we noticed a series of errors the previous home builders made during construction.
The section of the house in which we were working on was built as an addition to the house within the past few years. The contractors hired to build the addition were clearly in a hurry and rushed to complete the project. Evidence of their half fast labor was visible in the foundation of the addition. The foundation was stuffed with a series of cinderblocks, wooden rods, and jumbled stones. In time, the combinations of these arrangements lead to an uneven flooring. The homeowners used the addition as their laundry room and the flooring was unable to support the weight of the washer, dryer, and a mantle they had placed in the corner of the room. The top of the mantle was slanted, not because of the mantle itself but because of the unleveled flooring. The building of the side walls around the addition would have been a waste of our labor as well as the homeowner’s money. We expressed our concern for building these walls at and after discussing our concerns, as well as the interests of the homeowners, it was concluded that the addition would have to be knocked down.
After removing a sample of the stucco near the addition, we discovered that there was stone walling behind it. This meant that the home owners had the option of either keeping the stucco walling, or removing it so that we could repoint the stonework. They decided to remove the stucco and repoint since they were initially eager to add stonework to their home anyways.
We spent several days during the demolition of the addition. As the room was previously the homeowner’s laundry room, we had to pay careful attention to water pipes and electrical work. We spent the first day or two knocking down the walls, roofing, ripping out insulation, studs, and the flooring. The space surrounding the addition was a concrete patio. In knocking out the addition, we planned to use the extra space where the addition stood and expand their patio. This meant that more concrete would be poured, so we would have to a couple feet to make room for the crushed stone as well as concrete.
Once the addition was completely removed, we began removing the stucco walls and chiseling out the joints of the stonewalls behind it.
Once the stone wall was exposed, we spent several days repointing the stonework and bringing the vivid stonewall back to life.
Once the repointing was complete, we layered the blue stone and poured the concrete for the expansion of the patio. The result was a beautiful outdoor living space.
