Just Cured - Experience Fine Foods

We have a stone retaining wall behind our home. This particular wall keeps the hillside from creeping down and pushing our house away. For 33 years, the wall has performed its assigned duty. And now, the wall requires some repairs. Unlike many other things, walls such as this one have no periodic maintenance program; they appear to demand no attention.

And yet, over the years, the elements have attacked our wall and done their share of damage. Water draining from the hillside has pushed against the back of this wall. Little droplets of water have found minute cracks in the wall. These droplets have infiltrated the mortar that binds together the rock-fabric of the wall. And through many freeze and thaw cycles have managed to break that once strong mortar into grains of sand.

We have two options for fixing this wall:

First, we could chip out all the damaged mortar and replace it with fresh mortar. Several years ago, my wife painstakingly performed just this sort of repair. The fresh mortar she so carefully placed has, for the most part, held. It is the adjacent areas that now show signs of deterioration and damage. This option will require constant vigilance over the mortar joints that were not repaired and serial repairs as new damage becomes evident. Moreover, it does nothing to fix the root problem — the water seeping into the wall. Nothing can be done about the water from the face side of the wall.

Second, we can tear the wall down and rebuild it in its entirety. This option has the advantage of fixing, more or less permanently, the water drainage problem. Within this option are two additional choices, we can rebuild the wall using the same stones that make up the present wall, or we can opt for a brand new wall using an “engineered” stone.

A wall rebuilt from the same stones has two advantages. First, the look will be familiar, and therefore comfortable. Second, it would not involve carting off a massive weight of stone. That rebuilt wall, however, will still have the mortar joints necessary to tie the stones together and give the wall its strength. Once again, the elements will attack these joints, and the cycle will begin anew.

An engineered wall will give a fresh look; and that has some appeal to us. These walls have a face that looks exactly like natural stone, in a variety of shapes, colors and texture. Behind that beautiful face, the blocks interlock with one another, a bit like a big, heavy jigsaw puzzle. The strength of the wall comes not from a glue of sorts rather from the nature of the stone itself and the relationship each has to the other.

We are presently inclined to rebuild our wall but have not yet decided which kind of new wall to build. Whichever wall we decide on, we will take great care in the unseen area behind the wall. We will capture all of that water, moisture and seepage and divert it away from our new, strong wall, thereby protecting it from harm for a very long time.