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reconstructing a wet drystack wall

Posted by stonewhisperer (My Page) on
Sat, Sep 12, 09 at 19:19

Hi I'm new to this site and appreciate the communal support it has to offer. After 2 years of apprenticeship I set out on my own. I recently made a rookie mistake and didn't get a permit to build a free standing wet stack on the towns right of way. Now I have to deconstruct it. Hopefully I can salvage some of it. It's only 12" high by 16" deep but it's on a 6" footing. I want to reconstruct what I can on a gravel footing. It would be self supported as it is was built dry stack and then mortared. Is this ok? I figure a hammer drill to break it up (I do not need to take up the footing). I figured I'd use chalk to dissect the original wall and then line up the marks. One more question: Because I've used waterfall foam before I used "Great Stuff" insulating foam to fill in precarious voids in my dry stacks before. Is this something anyone else out there has ever done or would recommend? I figured it would compensate for the ground shifting. Thanks for any advice.


Follow-Up Postings:

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RE: reconstructing a wet drystack wall

yikes!

what kind of stone? square edge builders or round boulders?

sounds like you only mortared the backing to give the appearance of a dry stack? If so you may be able to salvage most of it by using the same faces of the stones for your rebuild. If not you may be in tough to rebuild without exposing any mortar stains.

From my experience the chalk grid doesn't work. you get off by a quarter inch with one stone and down the line your whole grid doesn't line up. Thats assuming your even able to keep track of every stones place in the grid, lose track of one stones original placement and good luck lining up the rest. That was with a flagstone pick up and relay mind you, I have never tried on a wall but if your using round basket ball sized stones, good luck.

Section off your wall into 5 foot spans. Number each stone with chalk and take a few photos of each section (with the chalk you have to work quick enough, take a few days get some rain and all your chalk markings are gone!). When you deconstruct pile the stone together by section. Taking photos before is key and try to identify a couple benchmark stones or corners and their exact placement and work toward lining them up. When you rebuild constantly refer to the photos.

Deconstruct with a pneumatic chisel, not a hammer drill.

Remove the concrete pad if you can. Rebuilding a gravel base on top of concrete is never a good idea.

Good luck.


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RE: reconstructing a wet drystack wall

Hey,
Thanks for the advice. It is pennsylvania field stone 1 to 3 inches thick and is free standing but mortared in the middle. I was planning to remove it from the concrete footing and transfer it to a gravel footing. I'll let you know if things work out with the chalk lines. I'll probably actually use different color crayons with grids and numbers.


 
 

 

 


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