Expert: Richard Taylor, AIA - 2/16/2006

Question
Hi. We live in NE Mississippi in a house we built on a tiny budget 14 years ago. At the time we used vinyl siding for the most part, but we also used some stone below the front porch ( our house in on a raised slab ) and halfway up the front walls. We used this same stone ( ordinary grey stuff my husband calls riff-raff ) to creat a division between our livingroom and dining area, thru which we installed a two-sided fireplace. We have never been happy with the vinyl, and with the strong storms we get around here we don't feel very secure, so we would like to make a change. My husband is talking about replacing the vinyl with brick veneer but I would much rather finish the rest of the walls out with stone. Would stone be more difficult or more expensive to do than brick? I assume additional footing would have to be installed for either. Thanks.

Answer
Ms. Shelton - thanks for your question!

Generally, stone is more expensive to install than brick.  That's because bricks are delivered "ready to install", while stone requires hand-chiseling and hand-fitting of each piece in the wall.  Lots more labor cost.

Whether or not additional foundations are required depends on what's there now.  But if the stone is already halfway up the walls, then you probably don't need any additional foundations.

As an Architect, my concern is how the whole thing looks - do you want an all-stone house?  You should consider a combination of materials, maybe stucco over stone, or wood siding over stone, or even brick over stone.  Take a look at the whole house before you make a decision.

Hope this helps!

Richard Taylor, AIA
Richard Taylor Architects, LLC
www.rtastudio.com
www.betterhomedesign.blogspot.com