Is it financially viable to build a 2 storey house with natural stone?

[MariaD]

Hi, I am looking for information on building a new two-storey house using natural stones for the external (structural) walls.

I've read that natural stone may be cheaper than other building materials.

My questions are:

1. Do quarries sell blocks made with stone, and how much would they cost?

2. The house would need wall insulation. Would the insulation be added on the inner side?

      3. How the walls would be built? I'd imagine stone blocks are quite heavy to handle.

 

[Russell griffiths]

You wouldn’t do it like that nowadays, stone houses were built using natural stone as it was readily available and cheap. 
it is now very expensive, unless like a lad on here @scottishjohn you have a building plot on an old quarry site. 
you will need to build the house in some other form and add the stone just as a decorative exterior finish. 
 

you could do a cavity wall with stone as the outer skin, or icf or timberframe both with stone externally. 
 

but don’t for a minute think it will be a cheaper option, unless you can find somebody with a lot of stone they don’t want. 
the quarry by me wants £200 for a bulk bag of it, which doesn’t do many metres at all. 
then you have the labour cost of finding a good team to lay it. 

[Iceverge]

Facing a building with stone will be 5 times the price of standard masonry. 

 

Building an entire wall from stones will be 15 times more expensive. 

 

It is possibly, but it isn't cheap. 

 

 

[SteamyTea]

42 minutes ago, MariaD said:

using natural stones for the external (structural) walls

Not very thermally efficiency, then you have the condensation risks to consider and mitigate.

[scottishjohn]

I did consider in one of my fancyful moments at the beginning of my project  if I had to demolish what i had 

 

in the flight of fancy I emialed a chineese stone suplier  and they assured me i could have any size or thickness of  granite  blocks  that would be accurate to +or- minus  1-2mm with  smooth cut faces 

 and at £1800 per ton delivered FOB to uk

 then add another £80 per ton to be delivered by road 

 

 and the fancyfull thoughts continued for a little 

 

a pallet of blocks ia about 1.2tons  and was  around £100 a pallet then  and granite is approx 50% heavier than concrete blocks

 

apallet of  blocks would build 8sqm -- it became obvious that it would not be viable  

so 8sqm of granite would be 20times the price of concrete blocks at a rough calculation 

 even using std blocks with large  section granite cladding  or some other stone  still made it unaffordable to normal mortals 

 maybe stone slips to outside of block work would ve affordable to some and give same effect

 I did not win the lottery  --so that idea got shelved 

 

would have been  great to build something that looked like a bank building using thin set cement 

 as for the condesation risk I did not see that as any worse than any other sort of solid wall as granite takes along time to pass heat through it  in either direction so does insulate quite well for a solid product and is totally imperious to water ,

and when all said and done it is only a water screen  and rest of build would be as any other modern build 

 

 

 

Edited November 23 by scottishjohn

[Iceverge]

3 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

Not very thermally efficiency, then you have the condensation risks to consider and mitigate.

 

If you included an appropriate insulated cavity it'd be fine surely. 

 

 

[SteamyTea]

6 hours ago, Iceverge said:

If you included an appropriate insulated cavity it'd be fine surely. 

Except where the beams/joist are sitting on the structural external wall.

[scottishjohn]

3 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

Except where the beams/joist are sitting on the structural external wall.

the stone work would be just the outer shell   and everything else would be as in a timber frame house ,so no big thermal bridges

[SteamyTea]

Just now, scottishjohn said:

the stone work would be just the outer shell

 

14 hours ago, MariaD said:

two-storey house using natural stones for the external (structural) walls

 

[Benpointer]

Interesting discussion.  We are considering using local greensand stone walling for some sections of outer skin on our TF or SIPS build.  The Housebuilder's Bible prices stone at £245 per m2 versus £80 to £100 for brickwork, render, or cedar, which we also plan to use.  

 

So, stone would be 2-3 times as expensive according to HB.  Is Mark Brinkley wrong on that?

Edited November 24 by Benpointer

[joe90]

37 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

two-storey house using natural stones for the external (structural) walls

We would have soon put her straight on that one 🤷‍♂️

Edited November 24 by joe90

[SteamyTea]

10 minutes ago, joe90 said:

him

A him called Maria.

[G and J]

Let’s not be too binary folks.  Life is more fluid nowadays.  
 

It’s taken me ages to get used to but I’m getting better at using ‘them’ and ‘they’. 

[ProDave]

5 minutes ago, G and J said:

‘them’ and ‘they’. 

My problem is both of those are plural terms, i.e you are talking of more than one person.  Until someone tells me otherwise, all I can come up with for one person is "it"

[G and J]

14 minutes ago, ProDave said:

My problem is both of those are plural terms, i.e you are talking of more than one person.  Until someone tells me otherwise, all I can come up with for one person is "it"

It’s kinda rude to call someone’s gender fluid child ‘it’. 
 

I’ve got used to thinking of they and them as ok in the singular.  Took a while though.  

[Russell griffiths]

2 hours ago, Benpointer said:

Interesting discussion.  We are considering using local greensand stone walling for some sections of outer skin on our TF or SIPS build.  The Housebuilder's Bible prices stone at £245 per m2 versus £80 to £100 for brickwork, render, or cedar, which we also plan to use.  

 

So, stone would be 2-3 times as expensive according to HB.  Is Mark Brinkley wrong on that?

I don’t think that will be far out, but it depends on the quantity and the difficulty. 
10m in a straight run will be priced one way

10m of little short sections with corners and returns will be priced very differently, then you have the pain in the arse factor to price in. 
then how busy the contractor is. 
then he might just not like you and stick a bit more on for that. 😂

just prepare yourself for some shocking prices when you get going. 

[Benpointer]

3 hours ago, G and J said:

It’s kinda rude to call someone’s gender fluid child ‘it’. 
 

I’ve got used to thinking of they and them as ok in the singular.  Took a while though.  

Indeed.  When referring to a person unknown most people would opt for 'they' rather 'he or she', as in: "someone called but left no message - I don't know what they wanted".    No one would think 'they' referred to a plural number of people in that sentence.

[joe90]

• Traditional use

  "They" is traditionally a third-person plural pronoun used to refer to groups of two or more people or things. 

   

   
• Singular use

  "They" can also be used as a singular pronoun to refer to an individual person of unknown or nonbinary gender. This is called the "singular they". 

[Oz07]

Woke is dead. 

[Pocster]

(expletive deleted) me - talk about going off topic !

 

Anyway - to solve all problems - everyone is a homogeneous blob aka an ‘it’ . There are ; 75 ( and counting ) genders summoned up . 
So many definitions means there are no definitions…. 

Edited November 24 by Pocster