Natural stone Finish on Front Of House or immatation stone plaster finish??

poochie2009

Building my house at the moment and im looking into natural stone for the front of the house.price ranging from 950 a load of stone to possible up to €100 a sq m for labour. What does people think of it ...is it worth it..or is a waste of money??
A plasterer nearby is doing a immatation stone finish using a dye and cement.it looks real cool but has anyone any experiance on this type of construction??very confused on what to do

Mrs Smith

I would say go with the natural stone.
I have seen some of the imitation stone finishes and they can look truly awful sometimes.
Also you need to be careful with your planning permission as I know Meath County Council, as one example, only permit natural stone.
You don't have to put the stone all over the house either; maybe just a feature wall will highlight the natural stone itself..

poochie2009

thanks mrs smith..expensive tho isnt it?

Technophobe

poochie2009 wrote: »

thanks mrs smith..expensive tho isnt it?

Labour should be down to around 50-70 per sq meter now I have been finding anyways...

martincodd

Yeah go with the stone - but not all over the house. Just on one wall. it's too much to have a whole house covered in stone. If you need a quote let me know as I'm a mason myself...

Mrs Smith

I agree with MartinCodd above- just put the stone on one wall of your house. That is what we have done and we are glad we did because it makes a nice feature of it.
It would work out v expensive to put the stone all over the house, we were quoted €30,000 to put it all over ours by our building contractor.

xt40

if its only for accents on the house , you might like this
http://www.stonepanel.co.uk/stonepanel-laja-negra.html
its real stone set into a concrete base. about 35mm deep in total
its about 90 a sq metre and is a very easy diy job to put up as it just sticks on using floor tile adhesive and can be trimmed easily with a consaw/angle grinder.

wesellstone sell an almost identical product for 40 a metre.

i did my porch area in the grey slate stonepanel and having compared the 2 products side by side, will be getting the wesellstone product for my boundary wall and the front of an extension.
http://www.wesellstone.com/DoolinGreylongcornersN18.aspx
http://www.wesellstone.com/WicklowGranitelongcornersN55.aspx

martincodd

Again, with the stone panel mentioned by xt40 you should go for a small area with as few corners as possible. The corner pieces with this product aren't great. It looks good on a straight wall with no corners. I'm considering putting some inside my own house as it saves on space but it will be on a straight wall with no windows and no breaks i.e. no corners. Also, with exterior application there's the chance of water getting behind the pieces and frost bursting them off. For outside i'd stick with natural stone - tried and tested

poochie2009

Very good points made by all.ye seem to know your stuff.Now heres another one for ye!Have any used the Hallmark type stone on outside??a neighbour has it on his and it looks super..but again..any pros or cons with it?

martincodd

Hi poochie. Yeah it looks well. It became popular a few years ago when roadstone introduced it as an alternative to natural stone. I'd have to say though that over time it tends to weather like any concrete product and if you think about it - the joints between each brick/block/hallmark stone are made from the same material as the stone itself (i.e. sand and cement mortar). It leaves a uniformed colour yes, but i think the colour just gets duller and duller with age. It's personal taste at the end of the day though. Some like it some don't. As with natural stone and the stone panels already mentioned i'd keep it to one or two areas/panels...

fuchia

Hi Guys ,

I am going to put natural stone on the front wall (North Face) of my house. I was wondering if I need to put a scratch coat of plaster on the block work first to make it water tight. A guy told me that I could scudd the wall myself and that would do the job.

Fuchia

kizzyr

Mrs Smith wrote: »

I agree with MartinCodd above- just put the stone on one wall of your house. That is what we have done and we are glad we did because it makes a nice feature of it.
It would work out v expensive to put the stone all over the house, we were quoted €30,000 to put it all over ours by our building contractor.

How big is your house? Is it a single or two story? I'm hoping to build (or try to) in the relatively near future and would really like to stone the entire house but if it was way OTT price wise would just do the front.

Bluefoam

Frenhill stone can be very good. Look them up online. Its the most realistic I've seen and is applied with cement pointing. Do a search for them.

ThePiedPiper

kizzyr wrote: »

How big is your house? Is it a single or two story? I'm hoping to build (or try to) in the relatively near future and would really like to stone the entire house but if it was way OTT price wise would just do the front.

I've a 1.5 storey house and detatched garage, I'm doing the entire house and front of garage in random rubble sandstone. Total cost of stone, sandstone sills and all stonemasonry including a wall, piers and fireplace coming in at under 40,000. Absolutely thrilled with how it looks and reckon you can only ever get one chance to do it, so it's worth the stretch

poochie2009

sounds cool runforestrun but the little problem i have is the whole 40000 part:rolleyes:

ThePiedPiper

poochie2009 wrote: »

sounds cool runforestrun but the little problem i have is the whole 40000 part:rolleyes:

take a good look though at what the alternatives would cost, then look at the future costs of painting/dashing every few years and that 40,000 might not look so bad..

i know lads that have done 1, 2 or 3 sides of their house in stone and really regretted not doing the lot.. my other half regrets not doing the whole garage in stone now instead of just the front of it... but yeah, it's a big wallop of money alright...

btw, if you used a guillotine stone, the cost of the mason should be a lot less than with a random rubble, so you might get that 40 down to a 30..

Wonky Knees

xt40 wrote: »

if its only for accents on the house , you might like this
http://www.stonepanel.co.uk/stonepanel-laja-negra.html
its real stone set into a concrete base. about 35mm deep in total
its about 90 a sq metre and is a very easy diy job to put up as it just sticks on using floor tile adhesive and can be trimmed easily with a consaw/angle grinder.

wesellstone sell an almost identical product for 40 a metre.

i did my porch area in the grey slate stonepanel and having compared the 2 products side by side, will be getting the wesellstone product for my boundary wall and the front of an extension.
http://www.wesellstone.com/DoolinGreylongcornersN18.aspx
http://www.wesellstone.com/WicklowGranitelongcornersN55.aspx

There are great links. Considering the wesellstone option. Thanks.