Restless Granite Wallcaps

04 July 2018

The position of the Roediger House along North Spring Street is somewhat elevated from the street grade and the whole front of the property sits behind a retaining wall adjacent to the city sidewalk.

Over time, the granite wallcaps especially atop the northern end of the wall have been gradually pushed out over the sidewalk.

This next picture might be a little disorienting, but I laid down on the sidewalk and pointed my camera straight up to show how much of this unfortunate overhanging was occurring:

I decided to make that one of my small summer projects back in May and June, which means it was not without its own problems. But please understand: when I decide to tackle these projects solo, I open myself up to no small set of issues! For instance, for this little old man to move those ginormous weighty granite wallcaps, I have to use an oversized crowbar and bit by bit stack wood slats or bricks under them to get any leverage or glide. And that meant I pulverized some of the handmade 100-plus-year-old bricks that were underneath:

And you can also see that at least one of those wallcaps was broken but I didn't realize it until I disturbed their seated positions.

I have pretty limited experience with masonry but I did my best to fix up sad batches of cement and gave it an adequate fix:

I also decided to shift all the wallcaps down so that the broken one would be at the end under the false mop cypress bush.

A lot of the mortar underneath these old granite wallcaps had disintegrated; some were held in place more by the dirt and roots that had gotten under them. I now have them straight along the top of the wall in a linear sense, but they are a bit rocky and uneven given all the variation that resulted from how they're sitting atop the brick wall. I will have to let that be someone else's repair job, if I ever get around to it.