Stone veneer installation in Salinas CA - stone that stays put on a sound wall

Most of these calls start with a plain block wall, a bare foundation band or a fireplace surround someone's tired of looking at. Veneer is the lighter way to give it a stone face, and if you want stone all the way through, that's stone masonry instead. The price moves with the stone you pick, how big and tall the wall is, how many corners need trim pieces and how much prep the wall needs before stone can go on. The schedule turns on that same prep and on the weather, because fresh mortar needs dry days above freezing. When I write your estimate, I write down the work, the materials and the reason for each, so you have a figure for your own wall.

I start by looking hard at the wall behind the stone, because veneer can't make a bad wall good, and a crack or soft spot under it usually shows up through it later. If the wall is bare, rough concrete or block, the mortar can bond to it directly, so we clean it and get going. If it's painted, sealed or smooth, we fasten metal lath and put on a scratch coat, a base layer of mortar the stone can grip, and that adds a step and some cost. We bed every stone fully in mortar so there are no hollow spots behind it for water to sit in, and we keep the bottom row up off the soil and paving so ground moisture has less to work with. If you'd like, we can also talk about a rainscreen, a small drainage gap behind the stone that lets stray water run out and dry faster.

Veneer often goes on walls we build ourselves. When we put up concrete block walls, the rough block makes a good backing for stone. If the stone is going on a new foundation, we can do the foundation block wall installation first so the face has something solid under it.

In Salinas, building permits come from the city's Permit Services office. Its permit list doesn't name stone veneer, so whether your wall needs a permit is a question for that office, not something we'll guess at. We ask them about your job, and when a permit is needed, we handle the application and the inspections and keep you posted on where it stands. We're based in Salinas and work in the cities around it, so if yours isn't on our list, call and ask.

Around Salinas we mostly put veneer on stucco houses, block garden walls and the low foundation band along the front of a house, and the bottom row often lands right beside a planter bed, a sprinkler line or a driveway. We plan that row on site before the first stone goes up, the same as we do on jobs in Marina and Prunedale.