Stone repair on Maplewood's mid century houses

Maplewood houses from the middle of the last century

Maplewood fills the ground from the East Side of Saint Paul over to North St. Paul, in Ramsey County. Much of it is mid century houses: ramblers and split levels on block foundations, many faced partly in brick or stone, with a brick chimney up top.

On a house like that the stone may be a strip along the lower front, or a panel beside the door and under the big window. It has sat through a lot of Minnesota winters by now. Joints that were tight when the house went up can be soft or open, and a stone that rocks under your hand has lost the mortar bed under it.

The front stoop takes the salt

Every street in Maplewood gets salted in winter, and most driveways and front walks do too. That salt rides onto the steps on boots and shovels and the meltwater carries it down into the stone and its joints.

Salt makes freeze damage worse. The water carries it into a joint, dries out and leaves the salt behind, and the next hard freeze goes to work on a joint that is already weaker. Over a few winters the face of a soft stone starts to flake and the joints go hollow.

Stone steps get the worst of it. And frost under a step can lift one side, so a step that was level in the fall tips toward the house or away from it by spring. Lifting a heaved stone step, fixing what it sits on and setting it back down level is stone repair, which is Don's work.

Spots to check on a Maplewood rambler

Walk the front of the house once the snow is off and look low first. The bottom row of stone takes the most water and the most salt, so it usually shows trouble before anything higher up.

• Joints along the bottom row, where snow off the driveway piles against the house
• Stone around the front door and under the picture window
• Mortar that brushes out like sand when you run a finger along it
• Stones cracked straight across, or pulling away from the wall
• White crust on the stone after the spring melt

Brick chimneys and block foundations: ask Don

Most Maplewood houses from that era also have a brick chimney and a block foundation. Don's confirmed work is stone. For a cracked chimney or a block wall in the basement, call or text and ask whether it is something he takes on.

A foundation wall that is bowing in, or a crack that keeps getting wider, should go to a structural engineer to look at before any mason touches it.

Getting a price from Maplewood

Text (612) 432-9467 with two photos: one from across the yard showing the whole front or the whole set of steps, and one up close on the worst spot. Put Maplewood and your cross streets in the message.

Don looks at the stone and at what is causing the trouble, and gives you a straight answer on what the job takes.