The Stonebuilder's Primer: A Step-By-Step Guide for Owner-Builders

There's a Polish saying that to be a man one has to plant a tree, raise a son, and build his own house. Well, I've got the tree part down, and I'll settle for raising a male beagle, but at some point I'm going to get out of apartment dwelling and build a house. When I do it'll be made of stone, so I picked up this book. Reading it was a bit of fantasy for me, but from what I can tell it's quite instructional with many great photographs to back up the text.

It details how to make a correct foundation, how to build archways, and also has nice tips about how much mortar to make and how to control the logistics of construction and supplies. It also has dashes of humor.

If you're going to make a stone house, or need info on the process for a book or project, I suggest this title to help you out.

-- JJ Timmins


The Stonebuilder's PRimer   February 5, 2002
 10 out of 12 found this review helpful

Good practical help on building a home structurally with stone. Never shows the house as a final product! Needed more "celebration" photos to take the book to the next level. A good guidebook. Details and text on fireplaces are especially good.


Very readable, not engineering.   July 10, 2000
 39 out of 41 found this review helpful

This is an entertaining, well written book by an amateur stonemason, who (with his wife) has built his own house and other projects in stone. The book is encouraging for the amateur and seems likely to produce excellant results. It covers many aspects of stonework, from collecting stones to actual construction.

Mr. Long discusses the "slipform" method, which he rejected for the cost of the lumber, the time spent in preparation,the appearance of the finished work (which, he argues, resembles veneer), and its limitation to modular designs. (From his description, apparently slipforms are moveable forms in which stone walls are built, which forms are slipped up to the next level to build the wall higher.) He acknowledges that the slipform method inspired him in developing part of his own method, which uses an interior frame wall and a loose sheathing piece as a form for the back of the stone wall.

The BOCA National Building Code, which applies in my town, requires that rubblestone walls be a minimum of 16 inches thick. Mr. Long recommends substantially thicker walls (dependant on height of the wall), although he refers to an unidentified building code that allows 12 inch walls to 35 feet in height. To me, it seems to be a great waste of space and energy to build build stone walls thicker than they need to be. I have ordered more books on the subject, as I believe it is easier to read an extra book than to gather, stack and mortar an extra 20 tons of stone. However, I expect that this book will be of use to me if I ever actually get around to building in stone.


This book promoted many a daydream...   April 7, 1999
 36 out of 39 found this review helpful

In pursuit of my pipe dream of building a stone house, I picked up this book. Dangerously, it fed into my (previously-thought) unrealistic plans. The book is well-balanced between science and art; it doesn't stray too far from the "how-to," or science of building a stone house, but it does provide a good measure of humor & pictures. It's quite readable and supportive of the whole daydreaming process, but I get the feeling that if I ever get around to building the stone house, it would also be an excellent reference.