Tuck Pointing Stone Basement Projects

on January 18, 2022

Stone foundation repair, mainly tuck pointing, makes up about 90% or our work during the winter in Michigan. Around eight years ago I began strategically offering a significant discount on tuck jointing projects when our customers are willing to schedule them in the winter months. Its been a win-win all the way around. We are busy all winter long and most of our tuck pointing is interior.

We focus on Michigan stone basement tuck pointing projects during the winter months as the temperatures makes exterior work, like tuck pointing barns, pretty difficult or even impossible without weather protection. I wanted to share some before and after pictures, which would be a lot easier if I would actually take before and after pictures of tuck pointing projects. But I do have a few.

Stone Tuck Pointing Projects

Tuck pointing projects are pretty straight forward with the only real variable being the condition of the existing mortar joints. Usually, if the foundation or wall is made of stone, there are often spot repairs that need to be done to fix loose or fallen stone. Probably half of the the interior stone wall tuck pointing projects we do are strictly tuckpointing, no repairs needed at all. Below I’m going to show some before and after photos of some recent projects we did tuck pointing work on.

Before Tuck Pointing A Stone and Brick Foundation

This was a project we did in Cork town right near downtown Detroit Michigan. This is one of the oldest standing residential structures in the area, most were destroyed in a massive fire. It was a really cool project.

This particular foundation had a 4′ stone wall with a triple thick red brick wall on that. The red brick wall went all the way up to the top of the structure, which is now a home. I suspect it was built for commercial purposes initially, based on the construction. Once we tuck pointed the stone portion, we used a slightly different tuck pointing mix and also re pointed the brick walls. The brick walls were missing a significant amount of mortar joints and much of them were loose. We went in and removed or ground out poor joints where needed, using a 4″ grinder with a diamond tuck pointing blade. The we tuck pointed new joints back in.

Stone Basement Tuck Pointing

Residential Stone basement tuck pointing makes up a lion’s share of out winter work here in Michigan. We do a lot of new field stone wall construction, decorative concrete design projects, and other exterior projects that require decent weather and warmer temperatures.

Tuck Pointing done on a Michigan Basement

Tuck Pointing Stone Structures To Restore and Preserve

Below is part of a massive project we did on the west side of the state, over by Lake Michigan. We worked on this project for a month or so in the spring and the another month or two in the fall. We did that for a couple years actually. There were several smaller projects, with the one pictured below being the largest of the projects we completed. This structure need a significant amount of tuck pointing and repairs, so we ended up doing a more cosmetic tuck pointing process on the entire structure. Literally every single joint was either removed and replaced, tuck pointed or received a thin mortar tuck pointing to make it all match.

Tuck Pointing As a Beautification Project

This picture, to me, really shows the real issue with tuck pointing. Its not rocket science, it just really tedious. I’ll write another post at some point that lays out how to tuck point, but essentially its all pretty straight forward. If you don’t have the skill set or the experience, it just takes a long time. A project that takes us a few days to tuck point would take a home owner weeks or months, no exaggeration.

Why Is Tuck Pointing Important?

Most of our work is initiated by a home owner or building manager who can see that their stone walls are shedding mortar along the floor. Often times there are significant areas where the mortar joints between the stone are missing altogether. Over time the mortar, through drying out, will fail. Many of the tuck pointing projects we do on old stone basements were built when lime mortar was the material used to lay the stone. Tuck pointing is important and adds a lot of long term value to stone basements, stone walls, and other stone, block or brick foundations.

5 Reasons Tuck Pointing is Important

Tuck pointing maintains stability of the stone wall
Tuck pointing keeps ground water from entering from the exterior
Tuckpointing helps to keep critters out of the wall
Tuckpointing makes for a much cleaner basement
Tuck pointing helps to identify any shifts in a stone foundation wall in the future

These are some of the more significant reasons tuck pointing is important. The first point about it maintaining stability of the wall is a the most important from a cost perspective. It cost much much more to rebuild a wall collapse than it does to go through do spot repairs and tuck pointing.

Often times historic buildings were made with stone foundations and tuck pointing is an integral part of maintaining these structures so we can carry them into the future. We are fortunate to have many associations in America and in Michigan that work to carry on historical preservation and restoration. Michigan Barn Preservation Network is one of these associations that work to help preserve those big red barns we have in Michigan. They are a joy to work on and tuck pointing is an unobtrusive way to maintain the structural integrity of these structures.

Our Average Repointing Stone Foundation Costs

on March 4, 2020

One of the most common parts of stone foundation repair is to repoint the stone foundation joints. By joints, I mean the “mortar joints” between the individual field stones that make up the foundation, commonly refered to Michigan Basements here in the State of Michigan. I wanted to share some ideas on the process of repointing stone foundations and the cost to repoint a foundation made of stone.

Repointing stone foundation costs vary mostly based on the prep work required and the current condition of the existing joints between the stones. To me “Repointing” is the actual process of installing a joint of port land cement, mortar, or lime mortar mixture where one is missing. When I think of repointing a stone wall, I think of actually “putting” the material in the wall. There is more to the process.

Costs of repointing a stone foundation.

Condition of current existing mortar joints.
The size of the stones used to construct the wall.
The overall size of the foundation that needs repointed.
Accessibility of the foundation. Is it a crawspace? Is it a basment?
Are the existing walls basically where they belong?
Are the joints missing altogether?
Have other repairs been made in the past, including previous repointing?
The location and logistics of the project.

The current condion of the foundation and the joints between the stones propabley affects the cost to repoint foundations the most. Repointing stone foundation costs go up when the volume of material goes up. We often complete projects that have most of the joints missing altogether when we arrive. This can also mean large voids and holes that reach back into the the wall, and these take a lot of mortar to properly fix. Obviously a larger stone foundation costs more to repoint than a smaller one.

The size of the stones used to build the foundation is a significant factor in the determining the cost to repoint foundations. As a rule the smaller the stones, the more joints there are that will need repointing. The larger the stones the fewer the joints. So typically we find that the foundation repointing projects that have smaller stones tend to cost more. If we find that most of the joints have deteriorated are simply missing, we wont have a lot of prep work to do. We take this into account when coming up with the cost. Also is the foundation easily accessible. Some crawl space foundations are a bugger because of the low height making it difficult to work in.

Average Cost Of Foundation Repointing Based on Past Projects.

Based on past repointing work we’ve done on stone foundations here in Michigan I would say you could expect repair costs to fall in the $3500-$6,500 dollar range. It seems to me that most of the foundations we re-point fall in that range. Obviously if its a very small or quite large foundation it could easily fall outside of this range.

This average is purely based on the hundreds of stone wall repointing projects we’ve done. The national average of tuck pointing ( as its also called) is about $15 dollars a square foot according for Forbes. It is worth noting that the cost to repoint a stone foundation is significantly lower than costs of repairing a collapsed stone wall. Repointing is a smart way to maintain the structural integrity of your foundation.

If you would like more information on repointing costs of a stone foundation, feel free to send us a Note or give us a call. We would also be happy to take a look at your project.

Stone Barn Foundation Repair Collapsed Wall

on February 28, 2020

I wanted to share some ideas and information on a recent stone foundation repair that we did on an old stone barn basement in central Michigan. I’ll try to share some photographs so you can see how we went about repairing the barn foundation collapse.

When we started the stone foundation repair project on the this barn in Central Michigan we had to clean and sort the stones from the debris that had fallen in with the stone. The stone foundation had a hole about 8 feet long by about 9 feet high, so there was a quite a pile laying on the barn basement floor.

barnfoundationrepair — Pile of Stone and Debris From a Stone Barn Foundation Collapse

Most of the Stone was already sorted out and cleaned off already in the photo above. We then removed this soil and debris so we could get started repairing the existing wall and re laying the collapsed wall to repair the foundation. We ran into a couple very large stones under this pile of dirt so we decided to actually pour a type of footing so we had a solid structural place to begin with the wall. The two large stones were in a few inches more than they were originally but we decided to pour them right where they laid as they were too large to move.

As you can see we also added a few pieces of re-rod an hammer drilled in a couple more. We also laid a sheer wall of block to stabilize the existing wall that was still standing after the collapse. This isn’t always needed, to be honest we did it more out of concern for our own safety as we completed the repair. So now we have sorted out the stone, removed the soil and debris, and created a starting place for re-laying and repairing the collapsed barn foundation wall.

Next I began to lay the stones back in to create a wall that joined the two existing walls on each side. As I worked at this my helper focused on removing and re-pointing loose, missing or rotten mortar joints that existed throughout the stone part of the barn foundation.

rebuildbarnfoundation — Rebuilding the Collapsed Stone Wall on this Barn Foundation

You can see here I began to lay back up the stone to completely fill in the collapse. I wish I’d taken more photos of the collapsed foundation on the barn, but seem to forget once I get going. I laid this wall all the way up and while doing that I used smaller stones and redi mix concrete behind to create a solid, strong wall. Once the wall reached a certain height I began to lay the outer wall so it would match the exterior of the barn. Below is a photo of exterior of the barn.

We do several stone barn foundation repairs each year, some have areas that have collapsed and some do not. Fixing collapsed foundations tends to cost more than tuck pointing and doing other repairs before the wall actually comes down. Something to keep in mind if you have an old barn with a stone foundation that could use some attention.

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