Dressing Stone
Dressing stone is the process of giving a useable size, shape and finish to a rough piece of stone, whether freshly quarried or salvaged from an old Victorian stone building.
This process is undertaken by our highly skilled and experienced Stone Dresses to create a high quality building product, that's in keeping with traditional stone finishes and straight forward to build with.
Backing Off
Process often undertaken on reclaimed stone, but also common on new stone, backing off is undertaken to reduce the depth of the building stone piece to a maximum depth of 6 inch. This is done to comply with modern building regulations to allow for a 150mm insulation cavity between the outer building material and the internal walls.
By backing off the building stone pieces to 4", 5.5" or 6" it also make the pieces lighter, which helps with the strenuous task of building with stone and transportation.
Coursing Stone
Coursing stone is an additional process often undertake after the stone has been dressed and backed off. The process of coursing stone involves sorting and separation of dressed stone on different pallets in 1/4" height increments.
The “course” is the term used to describe the height of each of the stones.
A coursed wall is one which contains all the same heights of stone. The length can vary, but height of each stone remains constant throughout the wall.
What is Reclaimed Stone?
Stone that has been salvaged from disused buildings that are no longer in use. The stone is carefully hand sorted and recycled into a condition where it can be repurposed and used once again. This process is often referred to as Stone Dressing or Backing Off. Reclaimed stone often has signs of previous life and natural weathering.
