DIY'ER builds a stone barn using traditional techniques... [18 month timelapse]

[@stevebarnhart2090]

That has to be incredibly satisfying to build a structure that will be standing past your lifetime. Great video.

[@badgoy8439]

I wish more people had this attitude today.

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Thanks - appreciated & has been fun (mostly) 😀

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Well I hope so Steve! Let's see how the next few months go 🤣

[@scottnielsen1553]

I was think that this structure could last for centuries, the way he's doing it

[@TheFiown]

I passed a school renovation here in France the other day and they built the extension in stone with lime mortar and it was beautiful, really caught the eye and was surprising given the way most people build these days. I love stone walling and dry stone walling and if I were to build again I would go with this option. Great channel thank you

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Thanks Stephanie! Sounds lovely 😀

[@section8motorpool466]

Hard to find all that brick like stone! Great work!

[@snowstrobe]

Just imagie building something that you know future generations will be able to enjoy for centuries!

[@nzbrickie4082]

What a legend! the amount of work gone into the project so far, thanks for the motivation!

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Cheers mate - although you brickies have the proper skills!

[@HelluvaGuy-t3c]

Helluva an interesting project you've got going on. I've got to attend my daughter's high school graduation but when I get home I want to start watching from the beginning. Thanks for sharing.

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Hope you enjoy them!

[@j.m.k.3406]

Nice seeing a guy go it alone. Great job by the way!

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Cheers JMK!

[@peterkenny7810]

Love your enthusiasm.

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Cheers peter - will keep plugging away!

[@banetalia7724]

Complete and utter craftsmen professional great work Be proud

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Very generous!! More of a hacker but I'm getting there 😀

[@larry3034]

A lot of hard work, very satisfying.❤

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Cheers Larry - getting there!

[@estherclawson6876]

This is why above ground fortresses in Dwarf Fortress are so impressive.

[@ETBozz78]

Impressive! Work looks good, and your patience is unreal! Bravo 👏

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Cheers for that - appreciated!

[@acikacika]

I'm Alex as well, love building as well, stone work gives me headaches as well, subscribed! Good work!

[@TomWilson-ir6uq]

😊 love the videos can’t wait until the next episode Tom from Ansbach Germany

[@mikejenkins1360]

Just binged all of the episodes and this is a nice re-cap. Fun project and look forward to the upcoming episode. Hi from Missouri

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Thanks Mike and hope Missouri is treating you well.

[@chicobicalho5621]

Doing it alone is massive! This is a job for 5 or 6 people! Endless respect.

[@drjonritz]

Congratulations!

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Cheers Jon

[@djcr_91]

I only found your channel last week. Binged all the videos and now a fresh one! Fantastic build Alex, I really enjoy watching your skills develop and it inspires me to have a crack at the projects I’ve been putting off. The build looks amazing

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Go for it! I don't know if you saw the individual episodes but in episode 2 I buy a bag of stone and build a test wall. It was awful, but taught me enough to get going!

[@djcr_91]

@@AlexBuildsUK thanks for the encouragement! I finally had a go at repairing a broken concrete step at my house. Watched (far too many!) KZbin videos but I’m really happy with the result! Not perfect, but enjoyed the process and feeling more confident for the next repairs 😊

[@franzoooo2553]

This was very beautiful to watch. It goes to show that they do not build them like they used to.

[@economia-italiacom]

As a discendent of men of Roman Empire who invented che ARC, I can tell you GOOD JOB,MAN !!!!!

[@romeandcurry6915]

Exceptional effort - looking forward to the oak frame.

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Cheers Rome and Curry - it's going to be epic

[@beckyjohnson3153]

So fun to watch. That was a lot of hard work well done! It's going to be beautiful!

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Thanks Becky - let's hope so!

[@Elldeeve]

I haven’t seen an arch form like that before but I like it. 👍

[@BradandtinaGluth]

Just finished episode 28. It is looking great. The "British Weather" is a lot like ours on Whidbey Island, Washington State, USA.

[@johnkmcgregor5209]

It’s absolutely brilliant, an owl or bat entrance would have been the icing on the cake. Well done. John from Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Great point John and 100% & both will be included later on. I have bats in my attic (most welcome) and most nights I hear the owls calling to each other and so it would be great if they could benefit from the barn (one day). I also have mice scurrying around on site (I see them when I leave the camera running) and also a pair of foxes have recently moved in where I dug the bank out (in around episode 8 or so). I'll include some wildlife in a future episode. Thanks for watching😀

[@gaebrieljosephfairlight-ol4954]

The amount that I wish I could be there doing that with you is crazy, it looks fantastic!

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Cheers Gaebriel - maybe you can do your own one someday - we all have to start somewhere!

[@moose_hunter7834]

absolutely gorgeous

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Cheers mossehunter! appreciate that 😀

[@oselgonzalezgonzalez]

Amazing and wonderful work. Thank you very much. ❤

[@theyard6958]

Great video. beautiful structure, and fantastic craftsmanship. The one thing I kept wanting was to hear the Benny Hill theme music! 🎶🎵🎶🎵

[@spps5205]

Someone posted your video on Tik tok regarding stone arches along with their history and it got around 60k views as of commenting 👍

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Is that really true? Send me a link!

[@bastiat691]

Fantastic progress, good work Alex! Looking forward to see the oak frame :)

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Thanks for watching Mathias - should be a good one!

[@HactarKaigolas]

Very nice build, excited to se the start of the oak framing

[@KGTiberius]

📍IMHO, the first layer of the arch should have been dry fit/stacked, then connected with the stone/mortar for the 2nd layer. Durability (lots of this type of mortar becomes weak in 100 years. Dry fit can last longer (and has a very esthetic look). Nice work! I’ve been following for ages. Glad it keeps popping up in my YT recommendations.

[@georgewhitehouse8630]

When I mud up my stone, I think of a little high center to the mortar if I want it to be full

[@mr2ferrari]

Legendary build sir!!

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Thanks David - it's been a slog!

[@DamianPenney]

Just watched all your other videos and may I offer you a big thanks on behalf of us new binge watching new subs for ditching the intro music :) Really enjoying the videos and impressed with your progress so far, looking forward to the timber framing.

[@AlexBuildsUK]

🤣 yes it's been driving me round the twist too! Thanks for the comment, really appreciated!

[@Orphanlast]

Typically, with stonemasonry, you lay your corners first. This is called getting your leads up. So you’re building an entire wall out of stone and cement mortar. It’s structural stone, not veneer. I don’t see any steel reinforcement and that would be fine except that you didn’t put any through stones into the wall. These are stones that puncture through both sides, and extend out from either side of the wall about 2 to 4 inches, on either side. These would typically be spaced apart every 3 feet going up, and 3 feet horizontally. I do like your temporary wooden structure for the archway.

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Hey thanks for the comments - interesting point about starting with the corners, will think about that next time. Pleased to say though that there were generally 2 through stones on each section & second course, I just never seemed to capture them on the footage! Thanks for watching

[@Orphanlast]

@@AlexBuildsUK right on. Good to hear. If you do another similar project, I'd be interested in seeing you do something like the Ashler Pattern, rather than just a staggered brick styled pattern. I don't see many stone walling projects these days. Most stone masonry work are vineer. And that's fine. Work is work.

[@KGTiberius]

📍 scaffolding… glad you have it available. Other options are to mound up earth/soil in and around the structure (and excavate later).

[@myouounoanjii]

It's gorgeous!

[@SlytigerSurvival]

I was the only white man doing stone masonry and concrete in El Paso, Texas where there are stone walls everywhere you look. I learned the youtube British trowel method and the macho alpha Barracho Mexican way where they use a full size shovel to fill in the inner walls and general mortar fills. For the middle inner wall You can use all the leftover hard dried mortar and of rocks and crap to fill the inner wall but I think the best way to do it is to fill the inner wall with grouty small and large aggregate wet concrete. This Will save a lot of time Take a small 3 gallon bucket with with mortar use gloves and fill in small crevices by slapping the ass out of each joint with a handfull of mortar then have a spare bucket full of water in about a 2 1/2 inch or 3 1/2 inch paintbrush and brush it very hard. To clean it up in between the joints take the 3 1/2 inch paintbrush to do the joints have a wire brush on hand and a sponge to clean up the face of the stones. Do not let the excessive cement dry on the face of the stones. By doing it this way with a shovel the alpha mexican method, it will look great, just as good as of you messed around with the London brick trowel and took all day with a single meter of a single course. I know everything you can do also is put things like seashells different things that will stay in the mortar. You can even give it an old time look by making Roman concrete or lime mortar face. Another thing is not use a masonry line and have the texture of each face going a little bit in and out. It actually makes a nicer Stonewall.

[@AlexBuildsUK]

This is good advice and I have a future stone project, for which I will consider these points 👍

[@victorfisk]

Man, that's going to look amazing when done, love the stonework, ,absolutely beautiful! Bit miffed about the step in the concrete slab but what can you do. Cannot wait to see the timber going in! Awesome work!

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Hey fisk don't worry - when the sides are in place I'll get all that screed over!

[@stuff2008]

love the arch

[@oakmaiden2133]

I live in Arizona, it’s practically a pile of rock, sand and a bit of soil. Yet there are very, very few stone buildings. One cottage in Glendale is made from black lava found locally. A school building in Payson built with a lovely reddish tan rock. Too few considering the amount of stone here. Ashfork quarries sandstone. Yet the valley is full of wood and stucco monstrosities they call homes.

[@michaelstevens3479]

On a large site in London a massive turning piece for an arch sat on site for several days and was then sent back , it was made from MDF and it had expanded because of being rained on.

[@nylesgregory2120]

Hi Alex - Thank you for this upload. Trying to understand proper process and approach with this undertaking. Can you please help a novice understand why at minute 3:25 you chose to build on top of the concrete slab by floating the stone wall on top of a thin layer of construction fabric vs. joining the foundation with the wall via rebar or connective structure to tie the two together instead. Obviously there is a good reason and this is my 1st out of the gate lookup Q. on how to do things right. I'll watch the remaining 15 minutes and gather the remaining questions in list format before posting, but I'd really like to understand reasoning behind the use of the construction fabric before migrating to next level questions. Thanks in advance for any insights and Kudo's to you for sharing your journey. Highly value the lessons learned here.

[@user-gb7se4rx8l]

I subscribed for the arch build……you have some patience man👍👍👍👍🇮🇪

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Patient / insane? You decide 😀

[@BrettStealth]

Beautiful!

[@Mootuntbaboon]

Excellent!

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Thanks 😊

[@fern8580]

What good physical health, what energy, what technique! I too am a lover of vaults&archs, the Romans always put an odd number of voussoirs. My surprise was to find that they did not only use large stones, the use of bricks was common, even for the vaults( Pompei) ! Best regards from France !

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Merci Fern. I did not know that...

[@shortsweettoo]

That was awesome!

[@ShadowMosses]

This brings my anger down. Oh yeah, I'm doing research. I'm hooked.

[@Espeque]

Hi Alex, such a cool channel, i just bingewatched all 20 episode on an evening and looking forward to more. This stone look is so beautiful, im from the netherlands and sadly it is not really a thing here due to it being too labour intensive and no nearby quarries

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Well maybe you can be the first! Thanks for watching 😀

[@georgewhitehouse8630]

Nice brick like rock ❤

[@jamespayne8781]

Curious as to why you would use a bond breaker between the concrete and stone. Pretty excellent looking work.

[@AlexBuildsUK]

It's building regs but arguably not required - sheer mass will keep it in place though 😀

[@philbotherobot]

All good , the stoneworks rough as a badgers arse . But fair play for having a craic. Peace and love

[@UncleGenna]

Я всё думал, от куда появляются каменные замки? Оказывается это блогеры строители делают, молодец, так держать, красиво получается

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Спасибо 👍

[@objektivone3209]

It is a mental relief to listen to the English pronunciation. One can feel both the general education and the respect from the messenger in comparison with the American KZbin channels, which are constantly at grueling "macho-OCR-speed".

[@capule-vm3vk]

Beautiful ❤🎉

[@georgewhitehouse8630]

I always try to get the concrete to be in contact with the floor .

[@TG-zd9de]

Really proud of you Alex. I hope you carved the date in the first laid stone😮😊

[@AlexBuildsUK]

It would only remind me how long it took 😬🤣

[@alessandrorodrigues8083]

Muito bom isso é incrível, ganhou mais um seguidor. Saudações do Brasil

[@benhiggins811]

Great work for a beginner!! One problem is having sawn faces with live faces, to truly match the look of an old building you can punch these at any time though. Just a though keep up the good work!

[@drxym]

You should put a time capsule in the building somewhere. Might even include an SD card of the video of you building it.

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Good idea! Like it...

[@JohnnyArtPavlou]

In the future, it might become an unreadable format. I rather suggest good solid writing on paper. Maybe with some drawings of some other keepsakes. I would expect all magnetic and electronic media to degrade over time. Or to be rendered obsolete.

[@georgewhitehouse8630]

Key stone has been the most important one in my arches

[@tounsicorp1487]

wasting sooo much mortar between those blocks. You can use the filler rock. :D

[@arnostoermer3563]

Super! Danke!😍🤗

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Bitte! 😀😀

[@alexgalitschenko3633]

well done mate. it is so fcking difficult to do such labor alone. Respect

[@seanmcguire7974]

I'm not a Mason, but it looked Ike you didn't tie in Amy of the corner stones or wall stones. Still looks great.

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Nor am I (clearly 🤣)

[@frater_niram]

amazing !!

[@quollitytime8350]

Impressive. We both jumped as you knocked the formwork down. Not much engagement though? No through-stones (headers)? Piers arent engaged? And the corners are just relying on mortar too. Engagement =strength.

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Hi good point however the video is misleading... I changed the design at course 3 or 4 and decided to put the piers in, and so the blocks do stich in / overlap after the first course all the way up. Also that sequence at the top before the arch also suggests that it's not overlapping, but it's just one course which in fairness was a bit like that. All others have good long interlocking blocks! Thanks for watching.

[@InquisitiveImmortal]

If you don't mind my questioning, why is it that you put that tarp under the stones? Like you built atop the black tarp instead of the concrete.

[@southernlandscapedesigns8081]

Why not put the black plastic moisture barrier underneath the concrete slab instead of under the wall's first row of stone?

[@davidwayne68]

what is your opinion of all the thousands of stone castles, and cathedrals built out of stone in 1-3 years in the last part of the 19th century? 1890s-1910

[@timvillasana7583]

This is exactly the video I have been looking for. I am a novice and I am planning to build a 10'x10' shed of limestone remnants I have been gathering from leftover building material in our new subdivision. My shed will have a arched doorway as well. I don't know the right terminology but why did you leave a space between the two layers of stone? I think you filled it with mortar. Would my shed be okay if I didn't have a space between the layers? I was planning on mortaring the two layers together?

[@AlexBuildsUK]

That was just to achieve a thick wall, in some cases I had stones which went all the way through but I didn’t have enough of those that was thick enough. So now you don’t need to leave any sort of gap but if the wall is gonna be high you’re gonna want to achieve some with to make it stable, doesn’t sound like that’s the case with your shed. Good luck!

[@andrewjames3109]

I didn’t see any through stones going in the wall??? Sand and cement is good under compression, but the two skins can easily drift apart.

[@lazycarper]

i think the stones have verticle angles making them very hard to lay,

[@thewiggleroom811]

Awesome!!

[@AndreiDante]

What is the composite material that you bind the stones together with? Looks like mud but I bet there are some additives to it

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Cement + sand + lime mortar, plus a bit of that liquid (forget the name now) which puts air in it (washing up liquid does the job)

[@daniadejonghe4980]

great Job!!! ... have a question..... why the layer of plastic under the stone courses?

[@AlexBuildsUK]

A couple of peopel have asked - a damp proof course. Not sure it it was needed but saw other people doing them so went with it!

[@mihaisalajan]

This membrane is very common in construction here in Romania, the purpose of it is to break the capillary effect of the water (preventing water infiltration from ground moisture )

[@Ulquiorra465]

I have seen other stonemasons spraying with water the stones before applying cement for better adhesion, but here you suggest the stones have to be dry?

[@Shalva-q1o]

Great video - Stones themselves are like bricks - what kind of stones are they ?

[@yuhengsun2642]

What skill made the masonry building like this survived from earthquake ?!!

[@Watusifarm]

I’m a stone mason. Your project looks very nice and it must have been frustrating to learn. There were so many easier ways to do the masonry and move the rocks. Would have been fun to teach you.

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Cheers - learning on the job is half the fun (see E22!) 😀

[@DatBoiOrly]

damn no wonder it took 18 months, i've seen tea spoons bigger than you're trowel XD. personally for a wall that size i would have used a medium/large sized shovel, another thing i noticed was your mixer practices why isn't it running constantly, when you empty a mix throw another one in that means when you've finished with your borrow load of gobbo the next mix is ready also your gobbo is too dry making the job 5 times as hard as it should be. the final thing i've seen you do wrong is messing about trying to get the right stone's so they're close to perfect you really don't need to do that if you wanted perfect why not go for bricks instead, it's suppose to look crazy if you look at some old church's or even some old stone wall's non of them are perfect. apart from all those rookie mistakes you did a bang up job well done!

[@topherh5093]

Why the rubber membrane down first? Never seen that before.

[@valleycarpentry5269]

I see uve put down a vapor barrier of sorts between the slab on grade and the first course of brick.... I wonder how much the first layer of mortar for the first course will hold.....?

[@DisasterAuntie]

This is lovely! I can't help but ask -- was this an 18 month build because you were working on it full-time, every single day, like it was your job? Or was it 18 months because you were doing it at the weekend and/or evenings after your day job was done? Either way I'm dead impressed! Just wondering about how long it would take a professional individual or crew, because this is the sort of house I'd like to build one day. Stone, made the traditional way.

[@AlexBuildsUK]

God no - mainly weekend work, but tbh doing about 3-4hrs per week at present. Hoping to pick up the pace soon, but heading into winter (yet again!)

[@jonboy8181]

When he started the stone work, what was the plastic for? Looks amazing

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Damp proof membrane - a few people have asked that. Not sure it was needed in hindsight but just copying other people on youtube! 😀

[@jonboy8181]

@@AlexBuildsUK do you think it makes a good bond with the foundation? I was worried about it holding moisture. But if you’re not worried, I’m not worried! 😀 you’ve inspired me to build something.

[@mihaisalajan]

This membrane is very common in construction here in Romania, the purpose of it is to break the capillary effect of the water (preventing water infiltration from ground moisture )

[@Jonathan_Doe_]

Wait, so traditional arch lintels can still pass regs if you have the structural calculations done for them? The front of my house originally would’ve had a brick nice arch with a small open entry porch to the front door. They’ve replaced it with a really low steel lintel and a terrible upvc door to make the hallway slightly bigger… I wanna put it back to its original form.

[@BRZZ-xw4hd]

great vid loved it thumbs up .....peace out

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Cheers mate!

[@michaelmckeown3164]

Does the wall have enough buttressing so it doesn’t slowly pull apart from the center?

[@Chris.Davies]

Amazing. Such a structure would be completely illegal in New Zealand. It would fall over in the first decent earthquake.

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Hmmm. never thought about earthquakes! 😬

[@NSYresearch]

We're very lucky, we have very few earthquakes and those we do have are very minor. Hence we still have buildings that are hundreds of years old.

[@KhordotaShlatt]

I feel like dry laying would be doing double the work like laying it twice. Need explanation

[@georgevprochazka5316]

NICE ! What's the cost of the stones alone ? Thanks

[@marcellebaudry5786]

bravo super

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Cheers Marcelle!

[@grassabrutta]

great build ! ... 2 questions : how many man hours do you think you spent working on site ? and, how much of that time could you have cut out if you were not creating these excellent videos ?

[@mobiousenigma]

alex..first off thanks for the videos! stone masonry is an ancient profession which still requires mastery to perfect its application...you have to do it to get good and you have to do a lot of it to figure out the better methods. apart from that castle in france yours is the only structural stone construction i have seen new...concrete with a non structural rock veneer is the norm now . as a student of architecture i favour your simplicity of design but am somewhat surprised not to see a hipped barrel vaulted roof in the classic roman style of your barn. mistakes will be made ...we learn best that way cheer up you will not be the first to make whatever mistakes you make while constructing with stone ...not being a mason i wont judge your abilities but as an architect and labourer i see nothing of immediate concern :D keep your site clean though as that is the cause of many mishaps and a lot of wasted time.

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Thanks Mike - some great advice! 😀

[@djka8083]

Stupid question, why do you use plastic foil under the first row of stones? Seems like asking for water penetration 🤔

[@maksmaso4741]

awesome build! the rest of the shed will be wooden? or why did you make it from stone to the roof only on that side?

[@AlexBuildsUK]

Hey Maks, the rest is going to be an oak frame which I'm currently building. New video will explain all this in a few weeks time!

[@jamaldubey3026]

What type of stone is this