Most of our winter work is stone basement repair service projects. Most of those being stone basements with at least one crawl space area attached to the original stone foundation. We try to save these stone wall repair projects for winter mainly because the weather limits the outside work we can do.
Wintertime Stone Basement Repair
January thru March, for our company, is pretty much spent in dingy lit stone basements across the state of Michigan. The winter months are perfect for doing those interior repairs and restorations on stone foundations. For the month of January we will most be in the Ann Arbor area doing 4 tuckpointing projects. The one project has the normal crumbling mortar in the basement walls , so we will go in and remove all the loose surface mortar, fix any spots where the joints are missing altogether, then spend a couple days tuckpointing the walls.
The other three are similar with some areas that need the stone foundation wall rebuilt between a basement area and a crawl space area. One of them is mainly a stone crawl space repair project and will take a few days. There’s always a bit a mix but this basically summarizes the winter stone basement repair services we find ourselves doing.
Stone Basement Repair Services
Over the years of fixing stone basements a few commonly recurring issues have essentially become the main services we offer our customers. Our stone basement repair services include:
- Tuckpointing
- Spot Repairs
- Apply Foundation Coating
Tuck pointing is probably where we spend the majority of our time on stone basement projects. Depending on the current state of the mortar joints size of the basement, typical tuckpointing projects usually fall in the range of 2-4 days and fall in the price range of $3,500-$6,500 dollars.
Spot repairs are what we basically call problem areas in the foundation. Sometime HVAC contractors might dismantle parts of the stone foundation. Sometimes a pipe or electrical line is installed through the wall and now the stone wall is coming apart. Spot repairs are common and usually not to big of a deal. They are usually repaired within a few hours and don’t cost much.
Applying foundation coating is a process we often do after spot repairs and tuckpointing is complete throughout a stone basement. Usually when we work on a stone foundation some of the existing joints are still structurally sound and don’t need replaced. The foundation coating we use is a cementitious coating and offers a good preservation value. Its breathable, so it wont delaminate, and it provides a much cleaner wall and it just looks better.
