The Construction of the Small House / A Simple and Useful Source of Information of the Methods of Building Small American Homes, for Anyone Planning to Build

by H. Vandervoort Walsh

The Stone House

The stone house is very adaptable to all those regions where this material can be secured from the excavation of the cellar or from some neighboring road improvement. Sometimes an old stone wall serves as a source of supply. Because of the native character of this material it will always be in harmony with the landscape.

In building the wall of stone there are a number of things to be observed, where success is desired. The wall should be well bonded together, the lintels over the windows should be strong, the foundations should be adequate to prevent cracks, the method of laying should be artistic, and the form of jointing in harmony with it.

All native stones used for rubble wall construction have certain characteristics of color and formation. Certain stones will split easily into long, flat shapes, others seem to have very little lamination and break into jagged, irregular patterns, while others are so soft that they lend themselves to easy shaping in squared blocks of regular size. Sometimes, even, the neighborhood may be filled with round field stones, which can be used to imbed into the face of the wall and produce a surface of round bumps. Whatever is the character of the native stone, it should be used in its simplest form and not forced into imitation of some other type. The soft brown sandstones which are seen in some Colonial houses are easily cut and squared; but to cut up a hard stone into such carefully shaped blocks, in imitation of this Colonial work, would not only be a waste of money but a waste of artistic effect.

METHOD OF LAYING

According to the way in which the stone naturally lends itself, we have various types of rubble walls. The commonest is the rough rubble wall in which the stones have neither regular shapes nor regular sizes, or even courses. The wall is composed of large stones and small stones (the latter are called spalls, and fill in the interstices between the larger stones). The joints of mortar between the stones may be plastered roughly over the surface, covering much of the face of the stones themselves, or they may be roughly but neatly pointed with white mortar, or the joints may be raked out. Where the stone has a natural tendency to cleave into long, flat shapes, the rough rubble may become more regularly coursed in appearance. All of these types are respectively illustrated in [Figures 1], [2], [3], and [4].

Fig. 1.		Fig. 2.
Rough Rubble—Plastered joints		Rough Rubble—large white, roughly pointed joints