Decorative Walls and Caps
Turning ordinary into awesome
by Christina Camara

Concrete has always had advantages over brick- and stone-constructed walls — cost, strength and durability to name a few — and now concrete competes in appearance as well.

The growing availability of a huge variety of decorative form liners now allows contractors to make concrete walls match just about any kind of brick or stone wall out there. Add color to these realistic, textured surfaces and the result can fool even the most savvy home and garden buff.

Many customers, be they homeowners, developers or government highway officials, are looking for alternatives to utilitarian concrete. They want their concrete walls to have the look of more expensive masonry materials and they’re willing to pay for the craftsmanship to get it.

Decorative concrete walls are showing up on subdivision entrances, retaining walls, landscape structures and patios. On highway projects, contractors are building sound barriers or bridge abutments to look like stone walls from the region. Some serve as canvases for local artists, who have discovered that concrete can display fine detail.

Bob Ware, president of The Decorative Concrete Store in Cincinnati, Ohio, uses Increte Systems Inc.’s Stone-Crete, a patented poured-in-place concrete wall system that produces deep-relief stone walls in seven patterns.

For example, he says, Sedona, a rough-cut, weathered Arizona stone pattern, is popular in the Southwest. Round river rock patterns are more common in Michigan and Wisconsin. Dry stack stone, with its many thin layers of rock, is popular in the Midwest. Cocina, a pattern with the appearance of sand and bits of shell, is popular in southern climates.
Ware says the form liners are made with a keystone system that disguises seams and prevents a repetitious look.

Custom Rock International’s Jim Bohrer, director of wall systems, says the St. Paul, Minn., manufacturer makes 30-plus patterns that replicate rock, cut stone, brick, barn wood and more. As its name implies, the company can also make custom molds for any project by forming a urethane membrane or skin over an existing wall, or by making molds from stones sent to its plant.

Custom Rock can take a mold from a local landmark, such as a church or town hall, and reconstruct the look on a new bridge or wall in the community.

Custom Rock’s forms, typically 4 feet to 10 feet long, are rotatable, reversible, and/or keyed to provide multiple looks that mimic nature. “Our surface textures are second to none because we’re taking it off the real stone. We’re not making it up,” Bohrer says.

A good long-term investment
Many contractors swear by flexible, reusable form liners for pour-in-place projects, because they are easy to handle and less expensive than standard forms. They come with varying life spans: some are disposable; some endure 10 or more pours; some 40 or more.

Contractors can rent form liners because buying them can be expensive — one 12-square-foot section may cost $1,200 — but for wall contractors it’s a good investment over time, Ware says, because the flexible rubber can be peeled off the wall and used again and again. “If it’s just a one-time job, the throwaways might be the way to go. But if you’re getting into the business, you might look into reusable forms.” The result can be high profits for contractors, he says.