tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87932067902250661662024-03-13T11:51:28.967-07:00Devine Escapes Custom MasonryHere we discuss Dry Stone Masonry, building with natural stuff in general, Eco-Art, Land Art and related topics of interest.Devine Escapeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14134261947882392623noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8793206790225066166.post-16632672560612879962013-11-22T17:05:00.000-08:002013-11-22T17:41:16.406-08:00Flagstone: what to use, sand, cement, or gravel?<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
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Short answer: well
it depends. Quarry screenings (if available in your area) are
generally best for under the flagstones. Screenings are also one of
the best options for inbetween the stones, but there are other
options available which can be utilised to achieve different
aesthetic effects. First we will adress the structural issue “what
to use beneath the flagstone”.
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Cement—it will
crack</div>
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Sand—ants will
dig it up and get it all over the place...also the sand may wash
away, causing stones to settle.</div>
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Gravel—really no
problems here, just use the right type of gravel. Better yet, use
modified gravel for the foundation and then use quarry screenings aka
grit aka quarry dust as the final leveling agent.</div>
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Longer story:
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Cement will crack.
Especially grade level cement. Especially in a climate with winters
like ours in Pennsylvania. Worse way to go about it would be to lay
the stone upon a bed of gravel and then cement the joints between
stones. Horrible idea. The gravel base is flexible and will move ever
so slightly during freeze-thaw. Well, if the base was done poorly the
movement might be more then slight, but let's assume the base was
done well. A gravel base will definitely move a bit—looking at any
of my patios, you'd never know that, but the movement does happen.
Cement is rigid—if you put a rigid top on a flexible base then
systemic cracking is inevitable.</div>
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Cement is of
course a fine joint filling material if the flagstone happens to rest
upon a concrete foundation. But why on earth would you want to have a
concrete foundation anyway? The concrete itself will crack,
eventually. In a northern climate it will likely crack within ten
years—and the chances of it cracking within the next three years
are pretty high too. Environmental impact of concrete production is
no small isue either. Anyway, I personally prefer dry stone work.
More harmonious, warmer, just better.</div>
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Sand....well, if
you use a really heavy sand you should be alright. Most of the sands
that are packaged for sale however are way too fine. You can use a
course sand for under the flagstones, sure. Back when I used to lay
brick patios I would use course sand or quarry screenings
inter-changably and it was fine. Them patios still look good.</div>
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Not as good as my
stone patios though! Problem with using even course sand beneath
flagstone is this: Bricks are of uniform thickness. Thus it's not too
much trouble to just get your gravel foundation pretty close to
perfect, then go ahead and screed out one quarter inch of sand for
your bricks to rest upon. With flagstone however the thickness will
vary too greatly—you may need half an inch of sand for one stone,
but 2 inches for another—that'll cause problems. Screenings are
almost the same thing as modified gravel—they are indeed one of the
two ingredients in modified gravel...they are heavy enough that it
really is no problem to use 2 inches on one stone and half an inch on
another—ten years down the road, that patio will still look sharp.
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Another reason to
use screenings is because screenings also make an excellent joint
filler. You do not want to use sand, even course sand between your
flagstone joints because it can wash away—unless of course your
flagstones are absurdly tight. For pattern-cut flagstone, yes, you can
get away with using sand as the joint-filler. Just make sure the base
is course sand, not fine. You will need to use fine sand for the
joints however because of how tight they are. Again, ants love fine
sand—but in this application, pattern-cut stones, tiny joints—fine
sand will not be the end of the world—so long as the base is
course, of course.</div>
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Back to
screenings—when you use screenings for both the leveler and the
joint filler you are creating a good scene. If there is ever any
minor issue with the screenings underneath the stone it shouldn't
matter too much because the joint filler will settle down and fill
the void. Having screenings up top and down below, it just works out
well.</div>
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You can expect to
top off the screenings once within the first year—a small bit will
settle or wash away. No problem, just sweep in some new material and
you're good. After that, in future years, you'll be fine. My best
recommendation is that clients hire me to do maybe a couple hours
maintenance once a year—by no means is this nessesary, but I like
my work to sparkle.
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I should maybe
also add that using the above system I have never once had a single
patio fail. Okay, maybe one stone with some minor settling—fixable
in a few minutes (and rare that that ever happens) but never any
major problems. Been doing this a little while too.</div>
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Devine Escapeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14134261947882392623noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8793206790225066166.post-30177742468564504402013-11-18T09:25:00.002-08:002013-11-20T04:36:06.669-08:00Weeds between pavers, weeds between flagstone joints<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
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I've seen some bad
advice online about how to remove weeds from in between patio pavers
and flagstones. One piece of bad advice, that comes up way too often
is this: lift up the bricks/stones, lay a piece of plastic(!), re-lay
the stones. Terrible, terrible idea. Totally unnecessary and really,
such a method with not help very much at all.</div>
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Another piece of
bad advice is this: seal the paver joints with polymeric sand.
Terrible advice! Polymeric sand usually makes a mess, always cracks
within a couple years, can be rather difficult to repair once it
cracks up....and it's kind of hilarious how after all that trouble,
weeds still grow, right through that expensive, difficult, messy
polymeric sand. Ha!</div>
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Good advice:</div>
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If laying a
flagstone patio, make sure the joints are fairly tight.</div>
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1. Just
pull the weeds. Old fashioned, right?</div>
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<li><div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Use a small
hand-held torch. They make extending wands that connect to a
standard propane torch, the same one you use for your camp stove.
Using one of these wands will save you from having to bend down, you
can use it from a standing position. Good if your back just does not
want to bend too often.</div>
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Use a
solution of vinegar with a bit of salt added.</div>
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Plant a
ground cover such as creeping thyme or moss.</div>
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Hire Devine
Escapes to build the patio. Then hire us to do a yearly maintenance.
Usually this takes only a couple hours and costs less than 200 per
year. We remove any weeds, make sure there is no wobbling nor
puddling, top off stone dust between the joints and like that,
you're good to go. I've noticed that when clients hire us to perform
this yearly maintenance in the spring, that if I stop by in mid
summer, there usually is a weed or two, but nothing significant One or two weeds usually
does not cause any great aesthetic offense—it can be charming,
even.</div>
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People stress over
weeds in the patio way more than they need to. Just build your patio
well, maintain it maybe once a year and live with a weed or two. The
more you fret over them, the faster they grow back. Years of
experience inform that last statement—the more you fret over them,
the faster they grow back..</div>
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Not my work. Sorry, I couldn't find a picture of one of my patios with weeds.....Anyway, hopefully this picture illustrates one of my points--one or two weeds in a patio is often no big deal at all. Sometimes, it even adds a pleasant bit of character.</div>
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Additional info:</div>
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Standard white
vinegar, the stuff you have in your kitchen, contains one percent
acetic acid. Agricultural vinegar contains up to thirty percent
acetic acid. You can use the stronger stuff, if you must...well, at
least it's better than using some of the nastier poisons that are on
the market. When using any type of acetic acid/salt water
combination care must be taken to ensure that you are not poisoning
nearby garden plants.</div>
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In the beginning
of this article I criticized the method of using plastic or landscape
fabric beneath pavers. Now, I'll explain a little more. If your paver
is 2” thick and sits on a one inch thick bed of sand or stone
dust...what good does it do to have a weed barrier beneath the
bedding sand/stone dust? Very little good at all—the weeds still
have 3” of material in which to grow! And that is plenty. The
really nasty weeds, with deep tubers, such as dandelions—sure, a
weed barrier should at least stop the worst of the weeds from
getting so deep, right? Wrong. Dandelions will surely bust right
through you landscape fabric—if they've already gotten three inches
down, a thin membrane is not going to stop them from getting further.</div>
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No commercial herbicides have been named within this article. They might as well not even exist.<br />
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<a href="http://www.devineescapes.com/">http://www.devineescapes.com/</a><br />
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Devine Escapeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14134261947882392623noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8793206790225066166.post-58498333545147398852013-11-17T06:59:00.000-08:002013-11-17T07:03:07.782-08:00How much should a good mason/hardscaper or landscaper cost?<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>How much should a good
mason, hardscaper or landscaper cost?</b></div>
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Well, in all
humbleness I'm kinda good at what I do. Most of my jobs are sold as
an entire job, with a fixed price for the entire project covering
labor and materials and everything else.
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However, when I do
work for an hourly rate, here's how I charge:</div>
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50 per hour for
myself. 30 per hour for any helpers.
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That's the basics.
I charge less for certain services, more for others.
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Additional monies
may be charged if we are working up high, hazard pay. Additional
monies may also be charged if I need to bring in any heavy equipment
that day. Also expect to pay for any materials needed that day and travel time as well.</div>
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These hourly rates
are generally applicable for masonry repair, flagstone repair,
re-pointing and the like. Anything that you need fixed. New
installations will usually come with a set price.<br />
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<a href="http://www.devineescapes.com/">http://www.devineescapes.com/</a> </div>
Devine Escapeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14134261947882392623noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8793206790225066166.post-65062405394648723842013-11-12T07:43:00.003-08:002013-12-27T03:01:28.227-08:00<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<b>What does Frakking have to do with the price of Pennsylvania Bluestone</b></div>
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Pennsylvania
bluestone has been going up in price, rapidly, for the past couple
years now. Also quality has been diminishing.....well, you can find
good stuff, but you need to look around. Some quarries are selling
only garbage lately, it would seem. Broken up, fragile nonsense—for
twice what I used to pay!</div>
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Bummer dude,
bummer.</div>
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<div style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
See what's going
on is apparently frakking. Quarries are selling land rights to oil
companies, letting them drill right through the good stone, into the
oil cache` down there, pumping out all that pennsylvania crude, black
gold, pennsylvania pee...probably making a mess of it, getting oil
all over the stone, ruining, dragging up prices, contaminating ground
water....</div>
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These are
unconfirmed rumors though. It's the 'word on the street'. I go to
the hardscaping and masonry supply yards and that's what the guys
working there tell me. I google “Pennsylvania bluestone + frakking”
and I get nothing.</div>
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So yeah, this post
poses 2 questions:</div>
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1. Can anyone
confirm or refute this theory, that frakking is the cause of rising
bluestone prices. Maybe it's just supply and demand? Heck, maybe it's
even partly my fault—I've been working non-stop to promote natural
stone over faux stone and concrete pavers....</div>
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2. Anyone have a
good source for bluestone for me? An old quarry for sale? Ever hear
of Opus 40? That guy bought an old quarry and then spent 40 years
building a large dry stone land art monument out of it....yeah, I'll
admit that I've had similar thoughts, once or twice....well, almost
every single day.</div>
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Opus 40:</div>
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<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Opus-40.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Opus-40.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Above image from the wikipedia page on opus 40. </div>
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Devine Escapeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14134261947882392623noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8793206790225066166.post-436773620847771322013-11-08T11:26:00.001-08:002013-11-08T11:26:17.256-08:00Dry Laid Flagstone RepairWell, I've got a lot to say lately....been updating my other blog almost nightly. Rather than crowd that blog too much, I think I'll open up this blog again, put some of my thoughts up here.<br />
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So let's talk about a recent patio repair job. Customer had a 450 square foot patio that needed re-leveling, needed weeds removed, new stone dust swept into the joints, and a general bucking up.<br />
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Job took one day for myself plus two helpers. Wish I had a good photo of them on my computer--seriously, good job fellas!<br />
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Anyway, we got the job done early and came in under budget--since this is repair work, I gave the client our hourly rate, material estimate and a couple of numbers, a high number and a low. We came in closer to the low. I love it when that happens. Happens often lately...I think I may be getting good at this. Anyways.<br />
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How we repaired this stone patio:<br />
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1. We set up some string lines, checking for elevations and deciding what area of the patio needed to be raised, what areas needed to be lowered and what areas just needed minor adjustments. Most of the stones were slightly off, some were dangerous trip hazards, some puddle-prone, sank-in areas existed.<br />
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2. We lifted up almost every single stone, one at a time. Re-leveling each stone individually. Re-leveling the flagstone involved digging, as needed, re-compacting the foundation with a hand tamper and adding stone dust to raise the flagstones, as needed. <br />
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3. Removed any weeds and soil that still existed in the stone joints after leveling. Used the chisel end of a rock-pick style mason's hammer for this part., used a large flat-head screw driver for the tighter joints.<br />
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3. Noting that we were coming in under budget, i decided to do a few small extras--took the time to scrape up moss that had actually grown upon the surface of some of the stones. Also, we took the soil that had been collected from beneath the higher stones and from within the stone joints, and used it to correct a nasty trip hazard that existed in the lawn right by the patio.<br />
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4. Swept stone dust into the stone joints.<br />
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5. Hosed down the joints to settle in the stone dust.<br />
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6. Top off stone dust again if needed. Leave the customer with a 5-galloin bucket half-way filled with stone dust in case the joints need topping off again. Likely, the joints will need to be topped-off once within the next year. After that, the material should be stabilized enough that more topping off shall not be nessesary.<br />
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Future patio maintenance recomendations would be that the patio could use a few hours of attention from a qualified mason maybe once every 2 or 3 years--not really nessesary, but it would help the patio to sparkle a bit more. In reality the patio should be fine without any additional work, for a good decade or so.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4U5Njp2Iy2-6SY9LQC_EbWuqcZxmJDdcW_cYSM5xaGRQmLs5iGnY0chIy7hZRwYRpBtILgf4oYyvFePX2l946Shxc8tYi9LPc26RTe5-zs-8SY4oj83znP9J7QqIHte1mbp9KZIxiDZEG/s1600/20131106_162817.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4U5Njp2Iy2-6SY9LQC_EbWuqcZxmJDdcW_cYSM5xaGRQmLs5iGnY0chIy7hZRwYRpBtILgf4oYyvFePX2l946Shxc8tYi9LPc26RTe5-zs-8SY4oj83znP9J7QqIHte1mbp9KZIxiDZEG/s320/20131106_162817.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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Customer even wrote us a review and posted it on yelp:<br />
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http://www.yelp.com/biz/devine-escapes-tamaqua<br />
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" I was scouring the web for some advice on how to affordably even out an
old, lumpy stone patio. Devin, though fairly far from my neck of the
woods, was kind enough to offer up some free advice. Then, after a bit
more back-and-forth, he agreed to cross the river to NY and tackle my
job.<br /><br />He and his crew showed up right on time, and in one day had
my old patio looking great. I know he's capable of much more artful work
than mine, but based on how quickly, efficiently and professionally he
handled my job, I'd heartily recommend him for any stone and/or
landscaping work."<br />
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Thanks Andrew!<br />
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<br />Devine Escapeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14134261947882392623noreply@blogger.com5