Stone wall

I Well we actually) built a stone wall across the back yard, got sick of fixing timber fences.

The local Contractor for gardens and landscaping, just happened to my Son, been in business for 5 years at the time, now 10 years later he has completed projects worth over 1 million dollars, so all that money on education was not wasted after all.

His advice was to dig a trench and lay a concrete and steel reinforced footing about 350 mm deep and 600 mm wide.

The double featured sides of pink granite stone of all shapes and sizes took me the best part of 3 months to complete during week ends and the odd afternoon.

The structure is basically two feature walls back to back with little or cement between the rocks during construction, the gap (if any) was progressively filled as the walls grew with cement and bits of steel plus a few smaller stones. The capping was a string line along the centre with a slight fall to the edges on each side.

That was several years ago, the only sign of any cracks is a hairline right next to the 14 metre high gum tree that is no more than 300 mm from the wall.

Every 2 years I pressure wash the structure and spray it with the stuff used on pattern paving to revitalise the colour in the stone.

The sub soil here is pretty much sand, if you have any clay content you can expect 'some' movement, a footing will help to reduce this but may not eliminate it.

One day I will learn how to post pictures on the forum and show you the tiny ornamentals the wife added to the wall, keeps the kids visiting outside tying to locate and count them all.

Good luck, and hopefully someone will post more advice soon.