Stop!

Stop if you're about to pour gravel into a dry stone wall. Gravel is a horrible idea for filling a dry stone wall. You may think you're saving time and money but your wall will look like this picture above within a few years. If you have had a contractor claiming they can build you a properly constructed dry stone wall, ask what they use for wall material. If they mention filling with gravel, run away and find your local professional dry stone specialist.

If your existing wall that was constructed with gravel instead of using the proper construction techniques is bulging out like this, it needs to be repaired. If its a newer construction and it's already looking like this, it's not 'rustic', its a future costly disaster. 

One of the most common misconceptions with dry stone walling is that because there is the absence of mortar, you can just stack away with no rhyme or reason, backfill with gravel between the stones and call it a day. A dry stone wall, especially a dry stone retaining wall, is an arrangement of stone that creates a solid interlocking mass, that in theory should stand for a century. You achieve this by following building techniques that have been proven to be superior for thousands of years. Bringing in an old craft like dry stone walling into the modern landscape, there is a lot of educating involved. It's not part of our heritage here in Canada like it is in other parts of the world, where walls dominate the landscape. So it's new to a lot of people, and wallers like myself take the time to inform people on the importance of proper technique.

 

The above picture is one of the tallest walls I've had the pleasure of working on. The back retaining wall was almost 11' tall when finished. You can see the interior construction of the shorter 8' retaining wall. You can see that even though its a retaining wall, where you only see the front face of the wall, its still a double face construction (for any scale of wall). All of that stone, including the center rubble or 'hearting' material, is methodically hand placed keeping structure in mind. It is at the utmost importance when you are considering dry stone construction, to protect your investment and have a professional dry stone specialist build for you. Its our passion as craftsmen to build high quality structures to the best of our abilities and we could always use your support in our battle against the modern obsession with filling walls with gravel and glues.