If you are building a new home or remodeling your existing home, you need to check out thin stone veneers, one of the hottest products in the natural stone home construction materials market today. Natural stone has long been used in high end construction because of its beauty and durability, but the cost involved usually prohibits extensive use of full sized natural stone in more conventional projects.
Thin stone veneers have the timeless classic beauty of full-depth traditional stone, but with a much lower cost and ease of installation that makes it an attractive option for applications where full sized natural stone would be too heavy or too expensive.
Thin stone is real, rough cut natural stone that is cut to a thickiness of about 3/4” to 1 1/4”. The cost of thin cut stone is equivalent to that of thicker cut stone, but there is a tremendous savings in the shipping, construction and installation costs because thin stone weighs far less than full cut stone veneer. Thin cut stone weighs a fraction of full cut stone – as much as 80% less. Lower weight means shipping costs are much lower.
In addition, thin stone veneers can be set on almost any structurally sound conventional surface using standard mortar. Eliminating the need for special footings or other structural support significantly reduces the construction costs normally associated with full depth natural stone.
The reduced weight makes thin stone siding veneers much easier to work with. An installation crew can install thin cut stone veneer in about one third to one half the time it would take to install a similar square footage of traditional stone.
Full cut stone will probably continue to be the standard in high end construction, but thin cut stone now provides the opportunity to have advantages of natural stone at a fraction of the cost.
