Masonry contractor: brick, block & stone

When masonry is the right call

Masonry earns its keep in three situations. First, when you want an exterior that shrugs off weather for decades — brick and stone handle high-elevation UV and hard winters better than almost any cladding, which is why so much of Salt Lake City’s older housing stock is still wearing its original brick. Second, when the wall itself is structural: block shops, garden and site walls, foundation stem walls, and full structural brick or block buildings. Third, when something masonry is failing — crumbling mortar joints, a leaning chimney, spalled brick, white efflorescence bloom — and you want the cause fixed along with the symptom.

This is a category page within our site, structure & envelope family, and it sits next to the trades masonry depends on. Veneer needs a foundation ledge or angle to bear on, which is why we look at foundations before we price a re-clad. Stone and brick share exterior walls with stucco on most newer Utah homes, so the transition flashing between the two gets designed, not improvised. And because most masonry failures are really water failures, waterproofing and moisture management details run through everything on this page.

What does Utah’s climate do to masonry?

It attacks the joints. The Wasatch Front sees roughly 100-plus freeze–thaw days a year, and water that gets into a mortar joint or behind a veneer freezes, expands, and pries the assembly apart one winter at a time. That’s why spalled brick faces and crumbling joints are so common here, and why flashing and weep details matter more than the brick you pick.

Three more Utah realities shape how we build and repair masonry:

• Seismic. The Wasatch fault runs under the communities we work in, and unreinforced masonry is the building type most at risk in an earthquake — the Utah Geological Survey has documented the hazard extensively. New masonry gets reinforced and anchored to current Utah-adopted code; older brick buildings often warrant retrofit anchorage, and we’ll tell you plainly when yours does.
• Soils. Expansive clay and collapsible bench soils move footings, and masonry telegraphs that movement as stair-step cracking long before drywall does. If the cracks are structural, tuckpointing alone is cosmetic — the foundation gets addressed first.
• Sun and storms. High-elevation UV fades sealers and some manufactured stone faster than at sea level, and summer monsoon cloudbursts test every crown, cap, and flashing on the house in a single afternoon.

On cost: veneer and repair pricing moves mainly with wall area, staging and access height, material choice (manufactured stone typically runs well below natural stone), and how much substrate correction hides behind the old cladding. We give a ballpark range after a site walk and a firm estimate once scope is defined — planning numbers first, promises only when they’re real. Our B100 license (#14282236-5501) is verifiable at dopl.utah.gov.