Services & rates
Rates — pointed, hung, rebuilt
Quoted after the survey and held sixty days. Lime, anchors, scaffolding and cleanup live inside the number — the only extra is salvage brick we must buy, quoted per thousand before you approve a single unit.
Lime repointing$17–$23/sq ft
hand-raked joints · NHL 3.5 in the field, NHL 5 at copings
Brick swap-out$21/sq ft
era-matched salvage, bedded and struck in lime
Anchored stone veneer$34/sq ft
stainless Z-anchors at 16 in o.c. · flashed and wept
Arch rebuild on centeringfrom $1,850
voussoirs numbered · keystone set last
Hearth in firebrickfrom $2,400
moderate- or high-duty to the drawing · cast crown
Forty-nine seasons
The bell we still answer to
What we do
What the rates buy
The repoint, by hand
Joints raked to twice their width with chisels, never ground, then flushed full in two passes with lime matched to the chip from your wall. Struck to the original profile — flush, weather-struck or bucket-handle — whatever the wall was born with, read from the elevation before we mix.
Veneer, hung like it means it
Stainless Z-anchors and dowel pins at sixteen inches on centre, dovetailed into a scratch-and-double-back coat, with base flashing and weep vents so water leaves at the bottom instead of touring the wall. Anchors are the wall; the stone is the coat the wall wears.
Arches, on centering
Timber centering bent to the drawn curve, voussoirs numbered and laid from both spring lines, keystone set last, centering struck only after the ring closes. An arch is a argument with gravity that geometry wins — provided nobody rushes the mortar.
Recent work
The river-town wall book
Six jobs from around the ferry landing — walls, arches and hearths, every one drive-pastable. Ask on the phone and we will give you the street; the town likes showing off its brick more than we do.
Three bids arrived. Two quoted a grinder and a price; Bellwether quoted a chisel, a lime bucket and a start date — and told me the grinder would have ruined the arris I was paying to keep. The wall is now the best thing on the street, which on Ferry Street is a proper contest.
How it goes
Survey to strike
Four movements, the same on every wall in the ferry town — the survey sets the lime, the wall sets the pace, and the warranty runs twenty-five years from the last strike.
The survey & the chip
A mortar chip leaves an inconspicuous joint and gets matched; you keep a written square-foot number, held sixty days. The wall’s age picks the lime, the chip picks the colour.
Rake by hand
Joints opened to twice their width with chisels and vacuumed clean — no grinders on this crew, not once in forty-nine seasons.
Point in two passes
NHL 3.5 in the field, NHL 5 at copings, flushed full with the first pass stiffened before the second, struck to the profile the wall was born with.
Cure, strike, warrant
Carbonation finishes under mist and covers; the final brush at leather-hard, then twenty-five years signed into your name.
Get the number first.
Send the year, the street and a photo — the square-foot estimate comes back the same day, and the survey with the chip kit books within the week. The phone is answered by someone who points.