5 Top Tips when ordering stone

Tip 1 - Plan ahead

Your stonework will last more than your lifetime, possibly centuries, even millennia ! It is worth planning ahead so that you achieve not only a result that you can be proud of, but achieve it without un-necessary problems.

Deciding upon which stone you want to use well ahead of ordering it and then placing your order early pays dividends. Setting out of foundations to enable stone of the desired bed depth to be used is one important consideration. Another is detailing: What type of stone you use, how it is laid, the colour of mortar and the style of stone can all make significant differences to your property. What quoins, lintels and sills do you want to use ? What colours ? There are so many choices. Making time to make the right choice can make sure you get a better quality result and avoid expensive errors or worse, a solution that you are not completely happy with.

Ordering your stone well ahead of its planned delivery date is always a good idea. The spring time is a particularly busy time for stone masons and quarries so making sure your order is placed well in advance can make sure you don't end up with your project being held up waiting for materials.

Special items such as granite lintels and quoins made to very specific sizes and finishes can take time to produce and be more expensive. Specifying stock items can be a lot cheaper, but made to measure details can produce more stunning results.

Tip 2 - Ask our advice

Stone is a specialist subject. We have been in the business for over 40 years, but we are still learning all the time. However, we do have a stock of knowledge that you can use and where we don't know the answer we endeavour to help you find out.

Tip 3 - Know your requirements

The more we know about your project, the better able we are to meet your expectations. Basic details such as what you want to build, where you want to build it, when you want to build it, how much you want to build, all help us to give you answers quickly. Drawings help, particularly if you are want something like a window sill with specific shapes, surface finishes, slopes and drips incorporated.

If you have photographs or samples of stone you are trying to match, that is very helpful to us. Also you can see pictures on our website to which you can refer when specifying what you want.

Tip 4 - Site accessibility

This often causes problems and can add to cost and delays. If you ask for a delivery to be made off of the public highway, this will be at your risk. Also, if a lorry cannot deliver the materials due to site factors, or delays in unloading this will result in an additional charge.

Knowing the sizes of lorries that have previously been to the site will help us to determine whether a particular load size can be delivered. If you are concerned about access then one option is to find a place nearby where the load can be easily offloaded and then for you to arrange carriage in in smaller quantities to your site. We will always try and deliver the materials to exactly the location you require, but talking to us about site access when you make your enquiry helps us greatly to avoid last minute problems.

Large heavy pieces of stone can present particular problems. It is not recommended for objects greater than 25kg to be manually lifted without assistance. Thinking about safe and efficient means of getting heavy loads from the point of unloading to their final position is very important.

Tip 5 - Building factors

We always say that the way a piece of stonework looks has three main factors: The stone used, the person who builds it and the choice of mortar. The same stone can look completely different when built by two different people. As with all building works there is always a compromise to be made between speed, quality and price. A cheaper stone may not look at good or take longer to build with or have more wasteage.

When finding someone to do your masonary work, you are faced with a choice of buying stone yourself from us and then having a mason build it, or asking the mason to supply their own materials. Both approaches present risks: The former will make sure you do get exactly the stone you require. Problems can arise where the mason has underestimated the time it will take him to build the stonework. This could either result in a job being rushed, with a lower quality finish, or blame the quality of the stone. The solution is to employ a reputable mason whose work you have seen examples of before and question his estimates before appointing him. Using the lowest estimate may be a false economy.

If you ask a mason to supply the stone themselves, make sure you specify Lantoom as the supplier and also which of our stone range you want them to use and any other details, just the same as you would if you were buying the materials from us direct.

The choice of mortar can make a difference to the look of a wall. Pigmented mortars are available which can be much more complimentary to stone than plain mortars. Generally lime mortars are recommended for use with stonework and we agree.