‘The (wall) is greater than the sum of its parts’
WOONSOCKET – The arrival of good weather can be a good time to get some heavy lifting done, as members of Lou’s Stonework of Cumberland were doing in front of 43 Beacon Ave. Wednesday. Andrew Follett had his crew tearing down a damaged section of dry stone wall along the road and putting it back up.
A section of the wall fell down during a recent storm and needed to be put back up, he explained.
“It came down because they had the wrong pitch on it,” Follett said of the stone wall built many years ago along Beacon. The new construction would include a slight pitch toward the lawn that would prevent a similar occurrence, he noted.
Dry stone wall construction is one of the best ways to make a retaining wall, since it allows for water to seep away before it can cause problems for the structure, Follett said.
“It’s better if it’s built the proper way. It’s all about hydrostatic pressure; you want it to leak through,” he explained. Some property owners will have concrete walls poured but Follett, whose crew puts up walls stone by stone, said that comes with problems, too. “Concrete always cracks,” he said.
Follett & Co. successfully blended the new section into the still standing part of the old wall and finished the job by the end of the day (pictured below).
Top photo, Chris Lemoine, of Cumberland, places a rock on the stone wall he was helping to repair while Follett shows off one of the rocks that was installed.