Seven Reason To Prefer Stone

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REASON NUMBER TWO

Contrary to common belief, it's quite easy to build with stone. By using any of several modern stonework forming methods, you simply don't need the years of experience that were required before an old-fashioned, freehand stonemason could claim mastery of his or her art. You'll find the best of these systems described in the excellent manual, The Owner-Builder's Guide to Stone Masonry by Ken Kern, Steve Magers, and Lou Penfield ($11.95) . . . a volume which we recommend that you read before so much as picking up your first rock. [EDITOR'S NOTE: Other books of interest to amateur stonemasons are The Forgotten Art of Building a Stone Wall by Curtis P. Fields (93.95), and Build Your Own Stone House Using the Easy Slipformed Method by Karl and Sue Schwenke ($5.95). All of the books mentioned above are available at the noted prices-plus 95¢ shipping and handling for one or two books ($2.00 on orders of three or more)—from Mother's Bookshelf, P. O. Box 70, Hendersonville, North Carolina 28791.

As to the common complaint that stone is unbearably heavy to work with, we can only answer by noting that all the rocks used in our 10-inch-thick walls were about football size . . . and weighed no more than the timbers commonly em ployed in wood-frame construction. (If necessary or preferred you could build much thicker walls . . . using denser and heavier stones.)

Finally, a stone house doesn't take long to build. Our walls went up in just eight weeks, and we moved in a short five months after beginning construction . . . with 100% of the work having been done by Sharon and me, and our two girls (who were then 9 and 11 years old).

REASON NUMBER THREE

Stone is durable, fireproof, bug- and verminproof, and rot-free. While some log or wood-frame buildings tend to crumble into ruin and decay after 50 years or so, well-built stone structures will often stand for centuries. (Of course, you won't live in your stone house that long, but your great-grandchildren might still be there . . . which would certainly help save precious building materials for others. )

You're not likely to lose a stone house to fire either . . . but, even if the structure's woodframe interior were somehow gutted by flames, you could probably rebuild from the original stone shell.

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