Project Details

116 State Street Retaining Wall project began in the fall of 2010, and was completed in the fall of 2011 due to an interruption during the summer of 2011 for roof work.  116 State Street, Montpelier Vermont is the home of the Vermont Department of Agriculture.  The large steps at the front entry and surrounding retaining walls have been in very poor condition for years due to soil expansion, erosion and decades of neglect and poorly performed repairs. 

The stone steps had been replaced several years ago; however this work did not consider the very great damage and expansion of the surrounding cheek walls so the new stone treads were actually fitted to the damaged stone work.  This created a restoration dilemma, as the original cheek walls and retaining walls were now to be restored to their original position.  The cheek walls and retaining wall had fallen away from the building over six inches within less than XXX feet.  The new treads had been cut and installed to fit this failed layout.  Ideally the new treats should have been installed to their original layout, in anticipation and preparation for the restoration of the surrounding stone work.  This was a big deal because the original cheek and retaining walls had to be ‘stretched’ to fit the new treads.  Six inches in XXX feet is a huge discrepancy and had to be accommodated in every joint and every angle to join the surrounding stone work to the new treads. 

The project began by diligently photographing every portion of the project and creating a catalog with every stone being numbered and stored in sequence so they could be rebuild in their exact position.  After this was complete the demolition began and the stones were removed from the very hard (type S) mortar that was damaging the soft brownstone and redstone the walls consist of.

Excavation was completed and our Project Supervisor Tom Corr calculated the new angles and worked very closely with the concrete form company to accomplish the task of joining the stone work to the erroneous stair treads.  Tom also made templates of every coping stone and actually laid the work out to be sure everything would work in the real world.  He accomplished this under great pressure from the GC and with very limited time.  He would have like much more time, but I was confident in his estimate to pull the trigger and move on.  It paid off, as Tom is a very sharp man and his estimates are usually better than most people’s certainty.

After the concrete work was installed the stones were set onto the concrete as prescribed by the architect and the coping stones set onto the through-wall flashing and anchoring system.  Tom then began the process of repairing the damaged brownstone where it had been broken from the years of motion set in type S portand cement.  This was performed using Cathedral Stone restoration mortar and Tom’s artistic knack for carving the unset materials to the perfect shape and texture so the repairs are invisible.

The project was challenging due to the lack of planning in the previous stone step installation several years prior to our work.  The results are near perfection however, and if one was not aware of the dilemma very few would notice there had been this problem to begin with.