revid

I want to put natural stone on the outside of my basement wall.It was covered with vinyl siding before and has Styrofoam sm on it .Can I nail my tar paper,then wire mesh(lath)over the Styrofoam and put my scratch coat directly on it or do I have to remove the Styrofoam and go directly to the plywood ?

resurfacer

Hi Revid,

Natural stone would be much to heavy to attach with wire mesh/scratch coat method.
If you are referring to cultured stone,(man made lightweight stone) I would remove the Styrofoam and attach the mesh directly over tar paper/plywood.
P.S. A 1/2 in. depth scratch coat is difficult to accomplish over wire mesh. A new product (spiderlath)is available and more user friendly. Here is a YouTube video.

Resurfacer

revid

we can't get that where I live so Iam gonna have to go with the wire mesh/scratch coat method and hope all turns out for the best.thanks for the suggestion and advice,got another for ya.Iam using a type s mortar for the stone and used the same to fill in around the stones as well.I bought a grout bag to use to make life a little easier but can't get the damn thing to work at all.Keep adding water till I wouldn't add anymore because I figured it wouldn't set up.Is it because Iam using mortar instead of grout or how liquidy should my mix be ?I pointed all the mortar in by hand!Any suggestions or advice would be great ,got a 41/2 x 20' wall to do next.

BridgeMan

Never used a grout bag myself. But didn't have any trouble just working the mud into the joints, directly off of a hawk or large steel float. Used a short raking tool to get the stuff into the openings (I liked 1/2" raked joints, as the shadows made the rock in the walls stand out and look better).