Wall Preparation for STONE VENEER

today is the start of another project on the house build and that is our stone veneer 3/4 of the house will be wrapped all but the side that's going to be added on to eventually and I am really looking forward to seeing how this turns out this is the last major step for our exterior one of our friends recommended an older gentleman who's been a Mason for a long time has done a lot of work similar to this the guys weren't sure how long this project would take so we agreed on an hourly rate and that we would provide all materials this allowed us to perform some of the work ourselves as we could to keep cost down and L an exra hands to the guys to help them work more quickly I have started doing a little bit of the prep work though so let me just walk you through what the Assembly of this wall is going to look like we wanted our Stone to to run all the way down we didn't want a joint for the weep screet here halfway so the Mason really wanted me to put uh wire mesh on the Block so we're tap cting this on here he's had a lot better experience with the parge actually sticking to that so we need to build this out that's what the primary function of the wire mesh down here is for is just parging over this block so it's flush with the OSB surface so we have to add about a/2 in of parge here on the bottom once that is built out and we have one long flush wall here we're going to run our Benjamin obike Slicker Max rain mat all the way down and we can put our PVC weep screed on top of that and then run a whole another layer of this wire mesh on top of that that way we have one continuous rectangle all the way down from the drip flashing to the base of the wall that we can put Stone on let's talk about materials the first and most important being our actual stone veneer this is a natural stone product it's quarried out of the ground and then sliced thinly 1 to 2 in thick approximately that allows us to get away from having a foundation ledge and this is applied mostly just like tile is to our wall surface the company is called get real Stone they're out of North Carolina they actually quy real Stone and slice it thinly and provide it for these applications the style we're using is called Mosaic so it's sort of like fitting a puzzle together it's not a linear kind of stack stone looking pattern and the color is coyote gray these are pretty neat too these are pre-made Corners so these were solid chunks of stone that they came in with a saw and saw cut out so this will fit around a corner and look like a solid Stone but it's actually not it's Hollow on the backside very expensive part of the process here I think these alone were about $2 a linear foot so each one of these pieces is like $20 our mortar is a Lehi Type S masonry mortar nothing really special there and then I also have some bags of just regular Portland cement that the Mason asked for so that we could mix it in and stretch this mortar a little bit further on the areas like the bottom parge coat where we want a little bit more waterproofing and don't really need the same looks as just the mortar we also got one ton of sand dropped off in one of these Super Sacks this allows easy shoveling and no waste on the ground I don't think there's anything special about this sand just normal mixing Masonry sand I guess this is a galvanized wire mesh nothing too special 2T by 8T sections I believe is what it comes in one final component that goes at the top of our masonry walls are these Ledges here these are 3ft sections again a pretty expensive component I want to say each one of these are like $25 but this is also a natural stone it will go right up under our drip edge flashing that's where our siding and stone meet I think it will go well with the CER we've chosen for the Mosaic to make the job of the Masons easier I told him I would do as much as the prep work as I could so that started with wrecking some of the dirt back from against the foundation sloping it out to the proper grade just so that it sloped away from the house and then putting a layer a thin layer of 57 stone down this just keeps feet clean eliminates splashback I probably should done it a while ago honestly but this will just give a good work surface for the guys to work on and then eventually we're going to come and put 1 to 3 in diameter River Rock the smooth kind of rounded landscaping rock on top of this so that it looks a little a little bit more decorative step two is applying our wire mesh here so I'm going to rip this down into some 10in strips this will go all the way around our foundation on the three sides that we're getting stone veneer anyway and what I'm imagining them doing the first day is just doing the parge out on this bottom wall so that has a little bit of time to cure while it's curing at the end of the day I'll run the rainc screen mat the weep screed and the second coat of wire mesh here's what I'm doing to apply the wire mesh it's just going about an inch below the edge of my OSB I want to keep a little bit of an air gap here when they parge this so that any water doesn't get trapped and get stuck there it can just go right down in the rain screen mat to the ground I'm using inch and a qu tap cons and going right through at 8 in on Center staggering top and bottom probably could have used Ram set nails with the washers for this it would have been quicker but I didn't really think of that till after I I bought the topcons so here I am luckily block drills really easily it's kind of a soft material compared to just solid concrete so my regular drill and small bit is going right in it and I only need to go in about an inch anyway for each screw cuz they're only inch and a/ quarter screws I'm leaving about a 2in overlap between pieces of mesh and putting a screw through the overlap other than that is a pretty simple process just a little bit back breaking being hunched over and doing this right at ground level I did learn a trick about this wire mesh from a very kind Mason on YouTube who shared this there's actually a right side and a wrong side to apply this to a wall when you look at it all of these little mesh holes are punched at an angle what you want is the downward slope of this wire to be going towards the wall so that all of the parge is falling into those grooves and push towards the wall if you go the other way all of the little grooves are like this everything just tends to slide off the face of it this Direction with the little grooves down towards the wall is the way it needs to be applied here's my detail at doors because we have 6in doors they have this seill extension that would be otherwise unsupported if I didn't do something here I could have ran Stone all the way across but I felt like I wouldn't get a good solid surface for this thing to rest on so I decided just to use some pressure treated lumber this is just a 1-in deck board I have some drainage holes cut in it on the front and back side and then I'm going to use some PVC trim board left over from our p and batten I'm going to Cortex screw that right onto here that should support this snse and it won't have any exposed Fasteners there will be a small Landing in front of this door and originally I thought I would just run the stone underneath the door and space The Landing out from the wall but then I decided that would be a waste of stone veneer so I cut this portion under the door out later okay I feel like kind of a doofus I got through two of the sides of the house and realized that my old drill here which I got for $40 at a flea market I was literally looking at the drill and I'm like looking at the label for some reason and notice that it says hammer drill SL drill driver I have two drills and the other one is definitely not a hammer drill and I literally am just discovering this now and the only reason I didn't know it is because this thing has been through hell and back even before I bought it from this flea market and all of the symbols on the top are worn off but apparently this one is hammer and so I've been using it over here which is just regular drill nope this is hammer and this thing now cuts through the block like butter in the hammering mode so the more you know if you got a hammer drill use it ready here's normal drill it works but it takes a while here's hammer drill it just plows right through it glad I found it out now and not at the very end thankfully that is finally done that was a lot of work on the back and knees day one of stone veneer application is now underway the guys are over here we're mixing mortar up about ready to put the parge on the lower part of the the wall then we'll start doing all the other layers the drainage mat the weep screed the wire mesh it's awesome to finally see some progress and our exterior is near in [Music] completion the guys are working their way around the corner with the lower coat of parge and we're trying to think through how to do some of these details here right around the garage doors it's going to be a little bit different because we are going to have a driveway that's coming basically right up to the top of the garage may may you know maybe an inch or two down but that's going to impact where we put our weep screed because everywhere else we can easily put the weep screed down you know 6 8 in and that way we just have our normal grade there's no need to have any stone coming right up to the lip of the foundation like you would need with the garage door this is why a lot of Builders do garages with one course of block up before the framing starts but I really didn't want to do that for a number of reasons a lot of it had to do with the radiant floor and how we were inst ating the foundation the thickness of the walls played into it so I wanted to keep everything flat so the slab is flat with the tops of all the block but it does make situations like this a little bit trickier so I think we're going to either have to maybe run this weep screed at an angle kind of down like this to follow where the actual grade's going to be in the middle here because we have two garage doors next to each other the grade is not going to dip down that much in between so we might just run the weep screed flat here just sort of a few inches down across the bottom and there we'll just make sure to keep the weep scre just above the driveway level when it is finally graded we got a little bit rained out yesterday but the guys were able to finish most of the parts they're back this morning finishing it it looks pretty darn good I'm I'm happy with it it's much better than I could have done and one little detail I have here is I had him rake out right underneath the OSB that way there's a little bit of an air gap there no moisture can get trapped up against the bottom of the OSB and the parge I have the sheathing sealed with liquid flash but just a little extra precaution now the project is to wrap all of the the base with Benjamin obike Slicker Max that's our drainage mat and then we'll put wire mesh and our weep screed on top of that that weep screed will Define the bottom edge of our Stone key is going to be keeping it out of the mud want to hold the roll I'll start [Applause] stapling f up our Filter Fabric serve as sort of a bug screen slash screen in general unfortunately it can't staple it down here though because of the fact that we're over masonry now so it's going to be held in place with the weep screed which is going to get tapc into the [Music] masonry well that was a pretty productive morning we got this this wall totally prepped the weep screeds on let's talk a little bit about the Fasteners I'm using these are 2 and 1/2 in stainless deck screws with a number 10 washer on them there are special stainless pan head screws with the washer integrated but I was too late on buying them and they are not carried in normal stores around me so that's why I went with this sort of assembled option so there is a little bit of a tedious step in assembling the screws to the washers but it's getting the job done just fine uh they go into the studs really nicely I don't think we're going to have any issues here's what I decided to do with the garage this pencil line indicates where I was guessing the approximate grade line would be so we just sort of angled the weep screed up at this point that'll give us a little bit of of a frame for the stone here but then we're going to put another Stone like right here as well I'll have to screw some more wire mesh there that's just to give a little bit more continuity as it goes into the garage you'll see the top edge of that stone when I do the final grade I'm going to use all crushed stone to back fill up to at least the bottom of this weep Creed so add some more of this Crush Stone till we get up to there actually I might even hold it back a little bit cuz then we have this nice decorative river rock that I want to put in the perimeter of the house I'll leave the bottom of that River Rock just below the weeped so that we don't risk clogging the wec up without there being any soil here to do backsplash from when it rains I don't think we're going to have any issues with the weave getting clogged up or termites or bugs or anything getting up in there the wall up here is going to be a little different because we have a garage door next to other doors so I don't really want the grade to kind of pitch down as much as I had it drawn there I don't think that's going to look good so we sort of brought the bottom of the weep screet up here about 6 in higher and that will allow us sort of a gradual transition that will be the grade level and then we're going to do like a step change right here where the door is cuz we're going to have steps in front here anyway so that'll kind of break it up but the weep screet will then drop down to where it normally is which is where it is over in that corner all the Fasteners I used were into studs at 6 to 8 in vertical spacing in areas near doors I put one by blocking flat on the inside of the wall where there was not a stud we posted a real about our stone veneer prep on Instagram and one thing we caught a lot of flag for in the comments was putting this weep screed over top of the drainage mat the typical spec for this is another layer of house wrap on top of the existing house wrap and putting the weep screed up underneath that second layer of house wrap maybe even up under the first two I'm not quite sure cuz I've never done it but we did not choose to do this just on a whim this was the detail recommended by Benjamin obike for or a stucco stone veneer application and it's because this PVC weep screw is not thick enough typically to cover that extra4 in of the Slicker Max drainage mat the argument could be made that with the holes on the outside for this weep screed that the drainage mat would otherwise go right into the holes but when I'm picturing water running down this wall assembly I mean not that it's going to really do that anyway but when there's moisture trapped behind this wall assembly there's really nothing stopping it at the base of the Slicker Max to exit there's a little piece of Filter Fabric and in some places have actually had to cut that away so it's really just an open drainage cavity all the way out to the base of this wall I don't really see how putting the weep screed behind it would really help that much in fact it might even hinder it in the fact that there's only a hole every four or five Ines or so that where that's the only place that the water can actually collect and Escape at the base of the wall rather than a continuous open drainage Gap at the bottom of the wall and one other thing to note there is a liquid flash a fluid applied barrier that we put on right after framing was done and that Bridges the sheathing to the foundation with a thick rubberized membrane coating it's made by huberwood it did a really nice job at sealing that joint and it withstood a lot of rain in the time that it was exposed so with a little bit of moisture that might end up behind the stone veneer I'm really not worried about it one bit I do see why people were concerned because it's not typical in how they've always seen it done but as long as we're following the best practices of letting water get down and out of the wall assembly it's going to be good there is nothing in this assembly that's stopping the water from escaping and so I'm pretty confident that we're not going to have any issues with this assembly and that's a wrap on our prep workk for this Stone vener next up let's get some stones on

Channel: Mason Dixon Acres

Views: 17,279

Keywords: building, stone veneer

Id: imc2mUUWd30

Length: 15min 9sec (909 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 08 2023