Has anybody had any experience with the imitation stone veneers? Do you reccommend one particular brand over another?
Thanks in advance for your help.
Has anybody had any experience with the imitation stone veneers? Do you reccommend one particular brand over another?
Thanks in advance for your help.
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Replies
I've used both Cultured Stone and Eldorado. They both have the same quality. Cultured Stone has a good how-to on their website. It's all I needed to go by the first time I used it. Use N type mortar instead of S. You want the adhesion strength of N but you don't need the higher compression strength of S. S is for foundations. CS said to use N, Eldorado's website said to use S but I don't agree.
Some of my own tips:
Don't mix a dryer mixture of mortar. After 20 minutes it becomes unworkable no matter how much you stir it and the stone won't hold. Hot sun will do this too.
The first time you put a piece on, you'll be amazed at how it seems to suck itself onto the wall. If you can tug on it 5 minutes later and it comes off, it wasn't going to stay anyhow. Clean it off and reapply.
I found that pushing your body weight into each piece will firmly set it in place. I don't tap it with a mallet. I found out early that the vibration on the wall will dislodge other pieces which are just starting to set.
Lay out some plywood on the ground and arrange the rock pattern there, then it makes placing them very quick. You don't have time to figure out odd peices while the mortar is setting.
Darrell Hambley, PE
Could it be that the vibration dislodges them because you are mixing too wet. Same arguement you just made about sticking - "If you can tug on it 5 minutes later and it comes off, it wasn't going to stay anyhow"(A statement that I don't totally agree with)
Please don't take this as criticism. I'm no expert on the masonry but I've done a lot of tile and maybe a half dozen fireplace fronts and chimney chases. My thinking is that the vibration of 'tunk'ing the piece into place is what draws the water into a bonding suction and that a drier mix sets quicker and shrinks less.
I used the Cultured stone.Excellence is its own reward!
Edited 9/3/2002 9:30:15 PM ET by piffin
piffin,
You're probably right about the vibration thing. The peices that weren't set properly fell off during the vibration as I set another piece. These weren't meant to stay on in the first place. I didn't mean to tug on every piece, it's just that, when I had second thoughts about moving the location of a rock 5 minutes later, it was firmly and permanently stuck. These were all set with new mortar. On a cool day I could work with the mortar for over a half hour and it was still good.
Darrell
Only a half hour? Youi must not be too wet then. I tend to get 90 - 120 minutes unless it's out in a hot sun.Excellence is its own reward!
Darrell, I'm laughing because our experience was opposite! We used type S mix and added a little portland cement. Our mix was very sticky. Our mix stayed good for about an hour and we found tapping wasn't a problem. AND, as if that isn't enough, we found that laying the stones out on the ground was a complete waste of time....they never went on the wall the same way. So we just did it on the fly on the wall. We started by doing the bottom, top and sides then filling in.
Ours was a very random field stone pattern, so maybe that's why we didn't have success laying it out.
Pretty funny how we all do things differently but get the job done. Of the many projects we have done (we are DIYs), I found the fake rock to be the most instantly gratifying. We completely transformed our log cabin in a weekend. It was fun!
Paula
It was fun!
It was fun!
It was fun!
I agree - except for the splitting fingers from drying skin.Excellence is its own reward!
Oh yes, nothing like concrete/morter/lime to make your hands feel about 25 years older than they are.
Grocery store lotions won't even touch that kind of dryness.
We have found that a really good handcream from a spa or some place like that works the best. I highly recommend "Heavy Duty Handcream" It worked great for DH when his hands were cracking and doesn't smell all girly.
http://www.swankgear.com/handcream.html
It seems expensive, but it lasts forever. If your hands are in REALLY bad shape, put some on at night and wear some plastic gloves to bed. Sometimes that is the only thing that will get the healing going. (And while you're at it, put some cucumbers over your eyes too! LOL!)
Thank goodness there are women on this board to help out you poor fellas with stuff like this. Maybe I should post about Heavy Duty Handcream under the Tools section! :-)
Yeah, hands like that can really snag the nylons.
Bag balm is our cure.Excellence is its own reward!
Interesting article about this cultured stone. Can anyone offer a comment about using "WonderBoard" as a base instead of a wire scratch base coat? The application is an exterior porch wall.
Edited 9/3/2002 10:29:10 PM ET by HotAir49er
I used cement board with Cultured Stone on the inside of a sauna on the wall where the wood stove was placed. Worked great. Took the heat/cool cycles of use during Northern Michigan winters very well -- until a forest fire took the sauna. The CS wall fell in one monolithic slab.
Make sure you screw the board to the studs every 4-6 inches as it will carry all the weight of that phony stone and mortar. I used Type N mortar with a smidgeon of Type S added (to strengthen the mix slightly and to cover my paranoia). I hung the CS directly to the board on a summer day, making sure that the board was always wet, so that the mortar didn't dry out too quickly. The next day, I grouted with Type N cement and "baby" sand aggregate, raked, and brushed it to detail. Many happy returns (compliments) resulted. Good luck.
Thank you all for taking the time to reply. We are looking at using Mountain Stone brand. The contractor that is pouring and stamping the deck for me will be installing the cultured stone. I will post some pictures of the stone work as soon as he gets started on it.TCW Specialists in Custom Remodeling.
I have seen the real rock and the imitation and can tell the fake rock a mile away. Around here real rock veneer runs 125.00 a ton. So why pay more for the fake stuff? JMHO, Roger
Roger, while I agree it is fairly easy to spot the difference most of the time, we don't have any stone quarries in our area, the real stuff is quite a bit more than you are having to pay in your area.
The customer has selected a ledgestone pattern that actually does an acceptable job of mimicking the real thing. I think most people that see this stone are going to pay more attention to the waterfall running over it than to wheather or not it is real.TCW Specialists in Custom Remodeling.
I just built a house and I plan to install a Vermont Castings Stove in one of the corners. I have installed cement board in the area and would like to use imitation stone over it. I believe the specs of the stove call for a 24" clearance from combustible material. Does anyone know how close I can go with cement board and imitation stone?
Mike
Check your local codes first. Then check the phony stone's specifications. I think if you build a vented wall (that is, hang the cement board on metal spacers about two inches from the wood studs), then the stove can go much closer to the finished wall (check those codes).
On the hand cream issue, folks, WEAR CHEMICAL GLOVES! Cement is caustic, and keeps eating your skin for a while, even after washing. That slimey feeling you get on your skin after working with caustics is decomposing skin cells. This was one of the earliest lessons I learned in the chem lab. That's why you have a hard time healing your hands. Caustics are worse for skin than acids.
I found it not cumbersome to wear playtex gloves (not those thin latex gloves) and then put a thin elastic cloth glove over this. The cloth glove has rubberized palms and fingers and actually aids the hanging of the stone and protection from the occational rubber mallet mistrike. WEAR GLOVES!
Happy Hangin'
By the time you build a foundation to support the real stone, it isn't as cheap.
Besides, didn't you know that Greenpeace is protesting the fact that the world is running out of rocks because we been throwin' stones at each other for so many centuries?Excellence is its own reward!
Reminds me of the scene in 'Forrest Gump' where Jenny throws rocks at the farmhouse where she lived as a child with her abusive father and then exhausted, she falls to the ground...Forrest then narrates:"Sometimes there just aren't enough rocks"
No point here,just reminded me of that scene which touched me.what the heck was I thinking?