Kingsburg is a small city on Highway 99, north of us in Visalia, with farm country right up to its edges. The houses run from older homes around downtown, some with brick that's been standing a long time, to newer neighborhoods where block walls line the backyards. The calls we get here look a lot like the ones from Selma and Dinuba: worn mortar, a cracked or leaning wall, or a walkway that's finally due.
The deep valley soil that grows peaches and grapes so well can also shift as it wets and dries through the year, so on any wall or walkway the work below ground matters as much as the work you see.
What moves the price and the schedule
Price comes down to how much is actually failing, what it's made of and how hard it is to reach. A few cracked bricks and some worn joints cost far less than a wall that has to come down to its footing, the concrete base it sits on. Matching old brick or stone takes longer than laying new block, and a wall tucked behind a fence or against the house means more hand work. The schedule mostly turns on whether the job needs a city permit and inspection, and on the weather, because fresh mortar doesn't like a hard freeze or a very hot afternoon. I come out, look at the job myself and write your estimate.
Older brick and worn mortar
On an older brick house the first thing to go is usually the mortar between the bricks, not the bricks themselves. When the joints turn soft or sandy, we grind out the worn mortar and pack in new, which is called tuckpointing. I'd rather fix what's failing than tear out a wall that still has years in it, and a hairline crack that isn't growing can often wait. When a chimney or a whole side of the house needs more, our masonry restoration work matches the brick and mortar color as closely as we can. I'll explain why we picked the mortar we did, because a mix that's too hard can crack old brick.
New walls and walkways in a lived-in yard
A yard with kids, dogs and a garden isn't a bare lot, so we plan the job around how you use it. Before we dig, I walk the yard with you to mark sprinkler lines, plants you want kept and where we can bring in block and stone. We dig out, pack the base and set the footing before the first course goes up, because a wall is only as straight as what's under it. A small crew and I do the work, and I'm on site the whole time. We clean up as we go, and the goal is to leave your yard the way we found it, just with the new wall or walkway in it.