Stacker Stone

[oohsam]

Hey all,
Im looking at putting stacker stone on my portico, as per nearly every display home in australia!
I think it looks superb. Does anyone have any information how to attach it to brickwork, and how to cut it...
Also, it seems very very expensive....anyone purchased it for a bargain price that you could refer me too.
Cheers.
(im in melbourne)

[Matto-FNQ]

Oohsam,

I'm about as far from an expert on this as you can get, BUT...

We had stackstone attached to our new office here when the building was renovated. I was involved in making sure everything was going to plan, so had a chance to get talking with the tiler who was putting the stackstone up. I believe he was just using Liquid Nails (or whatever the commercial equivalent is) to stick the stone tiles onto blueboard. There were millions of the little blue plastic spacers - like mini golf tees - between the tiles to keep them spaced evenly apart - asme as how you see any tiler laying tiles. To cut, he had what I would call a tile cutting saw, which he could set on a 45-degree angle to mitre the edges around corners, etc.

He did a very good job, and I agree - it looks fantastic. We have a dark stone here, but over the weekend I saw a feature wall with the white coloured stone and it looked even better, at the cost of requiring more maintainence/washing/etc. Where the stone goes around a corner, he's actually mitred the same piece on both sides, so the stone protrusions line up perfectly - hard to explain but it took him a long time and looks a million bucks. Unfortunately a few of the tiles on the carpark wall have since come off - but that may be more to do with the locals prying them off overnight for something to do, as opposed to a failure of the liquid nails.

When the job was finished, we were supposed to get the stackstone "sealed", via something that was sprayed onto the wall. For whatever reason, this never happened. Now, in places the walls have what looks like rust stains on them - I'm guessing that this is exactly what it is, caused by metal deposits in the stone. It's not amazingly pretty, but it actually makes it look more like a proper rock wall, in my opinion. I can see how if it happened on your house at home though you might be less than impressed though. So make sure you investigate whether or not you need to seal it after getting it installed.

I was speaking to the building owner here last week, and he's planning some further renovations, and is pulling his hair out at the cost of the additional stackstone he requires. So I think that it'll be pretty dear whichever way you go, unfortunately. I don't know where he got his supply from, other than it was a special order from overseas somewhere, and they went through about 5 pallet-loads of the stuff.

Good luck!
Matto :)

[raff]

Gday,

Try TJ imports on Springvale road http://www.tjimports.com.au/- various colours and styles and I paid around $65 sqm.

The most common technique to install the stackstone is basically the same as tiling a wall. Use an outdoor tile adhesive and knotched trowel. Fairly simple job- the corners can be a hassle- you can buy pre made corners (can be costly) or you can mitre them yourself but would require a decent brick/tile cutter for a largish job. As indicated above for a neat job, mitre to same tile to line up the corners.

The stackstone is heavy and should only be attached to brick (or concrete) walls and never to tall studded walls, even hardie has a disclaimer states blueboard is not designed to take the weight of stackstone. (weighs around 40kg sqm from memory)

I did a rear retaining wall at the back of my house and a large spillover water feature which came up well. Fairly quick process one you get the levels sorted and mitres cut. The tiles are generally 500x100mm and butt together horizonatlly and 'stacked' in a stagger fashion as you would build a brick wall.

Goodluck!:U

[Planned LScape]

Yes do your shopping before buying, resellers will add their cut and it costs a heap more. Retail is usually around the $100-120m² range, but you can go straight to the wholsesalers to get it cheaper.

I have used either a construction adhesive (ie liquid nails or similar) or a supplied bag of tile adhesive (forget the name) that is mixed with water and has high wall holding properties.