Freestanding walls are the hardest masonry I build, which surprises people who assume a garden wall is simpler than a house. A house wall is loaded from above, sheltered by eaves, warm on one side and dry at the base. A boundary wall has none of that. It is exposed on both faces, top and […]
Garden and Boundary Walls: Frost, Footings and Copings Read More »
An Edgewood porch I rebuilt two years ago had been rebuilt once before, in 2009, by someone who poured a new slab straight onto the old fill and tied it into the house wall. It lasted six winters. Most of what goes wrong with porches and stoops is decided before anyone lays a single brick.
Porch and Stoop Rebuilds: What Goes Wrong Read More »
On a La Mesa hillside I once took down a mortared block wall that had been standing for eleven years and failed in a single February. There was no weep, no drain, and eight feet of saturated fill behind it. The wall was well built. It was just asked to hold back something no wall
Dry-Stack or Mortared: Choosing a Retaining Wall on a Slope Read More »
The marble steps on a Fishtown rowhouse are usually the oldest thing anyone looks at every day, and they are almost always the first thing a well-meaning owner ruins. I have watched people patch a worn tread with gray concrete, watched it debond over two winters, and then watched them do it again with more
Marble Steps and Brick Stoops: Repairing a Philadelphia Front Read More »
