This summers DIY project was building a mortared stone wall mirroring one I built on the other side of my driveway last summer. The work was done mostly on the weekends starting in May ending early October.
I wanted to widen my driveway and incorporate some existing ledge I have on my property into the wall. To start I used a hammer drill and a product called Dexpan to split the rock. Dexpan is a concrete/rock splitting compound that you mix with water and pour into a hole. It slowly expands over 24 to 48 hours breaking the rock. I did split some last year with feather and wedges and this was a much easier way to split the bigger pieces. I drilled holes in a line every 12” to break the ledge, and a 12” grid anywhere there was a section wider than 12”. In total I drilled a little of 200 holes over 8 weeks.
For stone I used a combination of the rock I broke up and stone I got locally, within a mile of my home, it’s a nice touch since it matches the old stone walls that exist on the property. For materials other than stone I used a Type S mortar mix which is for laying stone above or below-grade, and ¾ stone for drainage material, loam and woodchips I had on hand from other projects.
Tools I used were pretty basic:
-Hammer drill
-Water level - set grades
-String lines and plumb bobs
-Homemade rock screen - made from old wire fence and 2”x6”s.
-Tractor - not so basic but it could have been done without, it would have just taken a lot longer.
See Closed Captioning for some additional notes about the process during the video.