r/masonry:

u/BrimstoneOmega

No, maybe $35, but I’d be laughed at if I said $200. That’s obscene. But if you can get that good for you, and btw, are you hiring? I need to quite my day job it sounds like.
u/BrimstoneOmega

God damn! People flip out when I ask for $17 a square….
u/BrimstoneOmega

More than that, lol.
u/BrimstoneOmega

This looks like someone told the contractor that it would be $15-17 a square foot to install and they said “I’ve driven past a Taco Bell before, I can do that myself”. The thing is even Taco Bell puts mortar between the joints of a bonded stone (even though they don’t bond them). This is not only terrible looking work, it’s installed incorrectly, and as someone already pointed out, that stone under the vent was installed, but has already failed due to improper installation, and only a portent of things to come.
u/BrimstoneOmega

An actual mason did not do this. That shit is just squeeze bagged in and left. This can not be fixxed after the mortar sets. The joints need to be struck with the mortar still plyable. And not just to make it look nice. The looking nice is a byproduct of the actual reason you strike a joint. The mortar nerds to be pressed into the joints. Failure to do so will cause voids inside and also severely weaken the bond. This is horseshit. Fire this guy immediately. Do not pay him. Find someone else.
u/BrimstoneOmega

Not the answer you want, but see if those yards carry type O. With stone it’s not as terrible as with old brick. Your stone is going to be harder than the old clay bricks that will be demolished by hard mortars. The problem you will face is the old mortar is now the extra weak point, and failure will be exacerbated in the areas that are good now. But push comes to shove, a crumbling and hole filled wall is worse than one that might start developing cracks down the road. Masonry failure is not a linear problem but an exponential one.
u/BrimstoneOmega

Probably a combination of those steps moving and crushing it and water getting trapped there. Do you salt these steps? There’s also a long step crack, which I’m assuming is also from the stairs moving a bit.
u/BrimstoneOmega

That block is definitely upside down, lol. The people down voting you are ignorant.
u/BrimstoneOmega

Same. I imagine the downvotes were from people that didn’t even know there is a top and bottom to block (or most brick for that matter) and thought they meant flipping it side ways. “What do you mean upside-down? I see holes, it’s the right way”.
u/BrimstoneOmega

Lol, right! I see that it’s back in the positive now, but that dude’s comment was at like -2 when I posted that.