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Apple Valley's masonry is younger than the city brick we work on, and it fails differently. The houses from Palomino Hills to Cobblestone Lake went up between the 1970s and the 1990s with brick veneer panels, stone entry surrounds, address columns and front steps. Builders loved the look and often skipped the flashing and caps behind it. Thirty years later, water has found every one of those shortcuts. Veneer pieces loosen, columns crack at the cap, and steps pull away from the house.
All of it is brick repair work we do every week. We reset loose veneer and accent stone, correct the flashing and caps that let the water in, rebuild cracked columns and piers, and cut out spalled brick for matched replacements. Fixing the water path is the part that keeps the repair fixed. Re-gluing a stone without it means the same stone is loose again in two winters.
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On a 1980s or 1990s house the brick face itself is usually fine. The trouble starts where the veneer meets a sill, a cap or a roofline. Thin flashing, an uncapped column or a failed caulk joint lets water behind the veneer, and Minnesota's 80 to 100 freeze-thaw cycles a year push it outward a little each winter. The first sign is one loose stone at an entry surround. The second is a whole panel that sounds hollow when you tap it.
We fix the cause and the symptom in the same visit. Caps get replaced with ones that shed water. Flashing gets corrected. Weep holes get opened where the builder skipped them. Then the stone or brick goes back on, anchored and matched, so the repair disappears into the wall.
Address columns and entry piers crack at the cap first, then the cracks run down the joints. We rebuild them plumb on their footings with a solid cap that overhangs. Front steps that have pulled away from the house or worn hollow get rebuilt safe and level, which is work our walkways and steps page covers in detail. Where mortar joints have gone soft across a whole elevation, tuckpointing in matched mortar goes with the brick repair.
Apple Valley's commercial spine along Cedar Avenue and County Road 42 carries the same kind of brick at storefront scale: sign bands, entry masonry and veneer panels that take weather and traffic every day. That work runs through our commercial masonry restoration process, scoped in writing and sequenced around business hours.
More about the service itself is on our Brick Repair page, and everything we do around town is on the Apple Valley service-area page.
Answers specific to brick repair work around Apple Valley. Something else on your mind? Call us.
A wall that worries you, a driveway past its best, or a backyard ready to become the good part of the house? Call or send the form and we will look at the site with you and hand you a straight written quote.
Tell us about your project and we’ll get right back to you.