A slumping rock wall or a bare slope you want walled in? We'll help you pick dry-stacked or mortared and build it right.
Stone masonry in Yakima means building walls out of stone, either stacked dry or set in mortar, or facing the outside of a house in stone. We build garden walls, low retaining walls and stone facings, and we start by helping you pick the type that fits your yard.
Most calls start with a slope that keeps washing out, an old rock wall that's leaning, or a plain front you'd like faced in stone. The price moves with the size of the wall, dry-stacked or mortared, natural stone or a manufactured veneer, how much digging the base takes and how easy it is to get stone to the spot. An old wall that has to come down first adds to it too.
The schedule mostly turns on whether your job needs a permit, how soon the stone you pick is on hand and the weather, since mortar work waits out hard freezes. I'll give you your own figure at the estimate, after I've seen the site.
Here's how it goes, from your first call to the finished wall.
I come out to every job myself, tell you what I see and what I'd do, and say so if your wall can wait. I started this business in Yakima in 2023 after years laying brick and block for a big commercial outfit, and you get an estimate from that visit.
If you go ahead, we first check with the city or county office that covers your address, and if the job needs a permit, we take care of the paperwork with you. Inside Yakima city limits, applications and plans go to the City of Yakima's codes office.
We're fully licensed and insured. Our crew does the build, I stay involved the whole way, and when it's done I walk the finished wall with you. Satisfaction guaranteed.
I start by looking at the slope, where the water runs and how you'll use the wall. Then I lay out the tradeoffs between a dry-stacked wall and a mortared one, how each drains and what each needs down the road, and we build the one that fits your yard and how much upkeep you want to take on. Once it's picked, our crew builds it in order, the way I learned on commercial jobs where somebody was always checking.
Stone work often sits next to other masonry. Masonry wears most at the mortar joints, so if your stone wall meets old brick with crumbling joints, brick pointing cleans out the worn mortar and fills it with new. If the cracks are in the house itself and not the yard wall, that's a foundation repair question, and I'll tell you so.
Every wall goes up in the same order, and most of what keeps it standing is the part you never see.
We stake out where the wall runs and dig down to firm ground, because a wall is only as straight as what's under it.
We lay and pack a base so the first course, the bottom row of stone, sits level and doesn't settle unevenly later.
We set the stone by hand and put drainage behind the wall as it rises, so water has somewhere to go besides pushing on the wall.
We set the caps, finish the joints on mortared work and clean the face of the stone. Then we clean up the site.
Send a few photos of the spot and a rough length for the wall, or the square footage for a facing, and we'll get back to you within one business day to set a time. I come out, look at it with you and give you a free estimate on site, with no obligation. You can also call (509) 452-1015.
(509) 452-1015Go dry-stack if you want water to drain straight through and don't mind resetting a stone now and then, and go mortared if you want a fixed wall with a visible joint line and can plan on joint work years down the road. A dry wall has no mortar, so water runs out through the open joints. A mortared wall still needs solid support, drainage behind it, a cap on top and mortar that suits the stone, because mortar that traps moisture in the wall ends up damaging the stone.
Yakima County's list of work exempt from permits includes retaining walls up to 4 feet tall, unless the wall carries a surcharge, extra weight on the soil behind it like a driveway or a slope. A taller wall or one holding that kind of load isn't on that list, and homes inside Yakima city limits go through the city's codes office. That's why we check with the office that covers your address before anything gets dug.
Ask for the company's name and look it up in the state Department of Labor & Industries' Verify a Contractor, Tradesperson, or Business tool. Washington requires every construction contractor to register with L&I and to be bonded and insured, so it's worth checking before you sign anything. The name to search for us is Premier Yakima Concrete and Masonry.
Stone veneer installation across the US usually runs about $25 to $40 per square foot, which is the national range and not our price. Manufactured veneer is a lightweight product made to look like natural stone and doesn't carry any weight, while real stone facing is heavy enough to need a solid anchoring system that holds it against gravity, wind and earthquakes. I'll give you your own figure at the estimate.
The City of Yakima's design criteria set the frost depth at 24 inches below ground level and rate the weathering here as severe. For a stone wall, that means the ground freezes deep and the stone and mortar take hard winters, so drainage and the right mortar matter more here than they would somewhere mild.
We work out of Yakima and take jobs in the cities around it, including Selah, Union Gap and Terrace Heights. Around here we see a lot of sloped back yards, old rock walls that have slumped over the years and houses that would look better with stone on the front. If you don't see your city on the site, call and ask.
Stone and mortar work goes best in mild weather, so calling (509) 452-1015 or using the form early gives us room to plan your build around it.
If you're still weighing dry-stacked against mortared, call and I'll talk it through with you.
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