Shirebrook, Derbyshire
11.02.20 - 22.05.20
Dry Stone Effect Mortared Wall
Brief
The brief was to build stone walls as follows:
Feature walls to frontages in entrance are, stone wall style in local stone.
- Natural magnesian limestone laid in courses, in dry stone wall style.
- 10mm mortar bed brushed back to appear hidden
- Mortar should be Light Grey
- Saddlebag coping
- Foundations to be designed by separate contractors to suit ground conditions
- Vertical with no batter
And so my learning curve of site work walling continued. The project had been scheduled to take four weeks to complete, but in the end the programme ran from February to May. The international health emergency had us all responding and adjusting to newly introduced mitigating measures
Teaming up with John Broadhead, was a delight. A mock up dry stone version of the wall would be rapidly built. This allowed for the stone coming off the pallets to be randomised and coursed appropriately to achieve the desired dry stone effect. The through stones which had been delivered needed dressing as did some of the stone to be used on certain sections along the curved wall in order to avoid creating larger perpendicular mortar joints.
Building during lockdown meant that the site was running a reduced schedule with less crafts and trade teams on site. As a result, bucked of mortar which would previously been delivered at 8.30 in the morning were now arriving up to an hour and a half later. After two days, we decided to get the mix ready ourselves hoping this would quicken things. Not a chance, gaining access to restricted areas took a while and then the silo machines would not work properly due to cleaning concerns. Eventually all was sorted and walling continued. As with any project little and potentially frustrating hiccups and challenges come up and are solved, so that was to be expected.
Building during lockdown meant that the site was running a reduced schedule with less crafts and trade teams on site. As a result, bucked of mortar which would previously been delivered at 8.30 in the morning were now arriving up to an hour and a half later. After two days, we decided to get the mix ready ourselves hoping this would quicken things. Not a chance, gaining access to restricted areas took a while and then the silo machines would not work properly due to cleaning concerns. Eventually all was sorted and walling continued. As with any project little and potentially frustrating hiccups and challenges come up and are solved, so that was to be expected.
The main lesson from this experience related more to the amount to mud and or dust on construction sites. At start of job in February it was major mud and by May we had to contend with plums and gusts of very fine red dust.
Contact Us
Don’t put your project on hold. If you would like to know more about our dry stone walling services, then email us directly on drystone@rootscrafts.com or call us at 077 5321 8045.
Alternatively, you can fill out our contact form here here.
Our Services
Projects covered include:
- Free estimates & quotations
- Traditional dry stone walling
- Retaining Walls
- Cheek ends / wall heads
- Garden walls
- Field Walls
- Gap Repairs
- New walls with new or reclaimed stone
- Boundary walls
- Ornamental walls feature walls
- Dry stone walls with mortared coping stones
- Mortared walls
Areas We Cover
Lancashire boroughs of
- Rossendale
- Blackburn with Darwen
- Hyndburn
- Burnley
- Pendle
- and further afield ...
Services also extended to our nearest neighbours in:
- Todmorden
- Hebden Bridge
- Sowerby Bridge
- Littleborough
- ...and everywhere within that geographical circle
