Masonry Contractor in Lawrenceburg, Indiana

Masonry contractor for Lawrenceburg and Dearborn County, Indiana

Swiss Masonry is a masonry contractor serving Lawrenceburg, Indiana, along with Greendale, Aurora and the rest of Dearborn County. We are a Cincinnati masonry contractor and general contractor, and our 50-mile service area crosses into southeast Indiana, including Franklin County around Brookville and Ohio County around Rising Sun.

Older Dearborn County properties tend to need work on river-town brick, stone foundations, chimneys and hillside walls. When a project needs more than masonry, we run the job and bring in licensed trade partners where the work needs them. The owner, Adriel Moore, makes the trip to see every job and prices it himself. Swiss Masonry has done masonry in Cincinnati since 1993. We are insured, with a certificate of insurance on request, and we give a one-year workmanship warranty.

Downtown Lawrenceburg’s 1800s brick

The Downtown Lawrenceburg Historic District joined the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. It takes in 257 contributing buildings from roughly 1815 to 1900, in Federal, Greek Revival and Late Victorian styles, and covers both the business blocks and the streets of houses around them. Lawrenceburg is the Dearborn County seat, and the courthouse stands inside the district.

Brick of that age was fired softer than modern brick and laid in mortar rich in lime. The repair has to respect that:

1. Find out what the old mortar is. For a street front, a lab analyzes the binder, sand gradation and color.
2. Build a trial repair. You approve a sample panel before production work starts.
3. Rake by hand. Joints come out by hand to about two and a half times their width. Power tools only score head joints, with silica dust control.
4. Repoint in lifts with lime-rich Type N or Type O mortar, tooled to the existing profile. Spalled brick is replaced with reclaimed brick matched in size and color.

See historic masonry restoration and brick repair for more on each step.

Behind the levee: foundations, basements and damp walls

Lawrenceburg and Greendale sit behind Ohio River levees. In the 1937 flood the Lawrenceburg levee gave way and water stood in the city for about two weeks. Older foundations on low ground near a river tend to stay damp long after any flood. You see it as crumbling joints low on the wall, white salts on the brick and musty basements.

We fix the water path first: gutters, downspout extensions and grade that slopes away from the house. Then we repoint stone and brick foundation walls with breathable, lime-rich mortar, rebuild loose sections and parge block where it is cracked. Hard cement patches over soft foundation stone trap water and speed up the damage. More on our foundation repair page.

Greendale, Aurora and the hills above the river

Each town has its own housing age. In Greendale, Census estimates show more than half of homes were built between the 1940s and the 1970s, with the median about 1958. Aurora is older still, with about four in ten homes built before 1940. Lawrenceburg mixes its old downtown with newer houses, and its median home dates to about 1983.

If your house sits up the hill rather than on the river flats, the masonry work changes. A sloped lot brings retaining walls that lean when drainage clogs, stone and brick steps that heave, and chimneys that catch the full force of the weather. We rebuild leaning walls with drainage stone and a drain at the base (retaining walls), and rebuild chimney crowns in reinforced cast concrete with a drip groove and a bond break at the flue liner (chimney repair).

General contractor work in southeast Indiana

For homeowners looking for a general contractor in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, we take on the work around the masonry and run it as one project: concrete steps, walks and patios (concrete work), porch repair, box gutters and soffits, storm damage repair and remodels. Electrical, plumbing and HVAC go to licensed trade partners who pull their own permits.

Before work starts, we confirm with the city or county building office what your address needs, and we pull the permits our work requires. Every job is priced after the owner sees it. Common masonry ranges are on our pricing page. To see how we run a whole project, read about our general contracting.