Thin-Veneer Stone: Lose Weight, Not Look

August 5, 2005

   Some veneer stone suppliers sold thin-cut orders to special customers for decades, but the rise of diamond tooling makes it much easier to cut the thinner faces. At the same time, the products offer an attractive – and natural – option to man-made stone veneers.
   While thin-veneer natural stone will probably never be as inexpensive as its manmade competitors, its lower weight – eliminating the need for load-bearing foundations – and faster installation time makes it an attractive, cost-effective option to a full veneer.
   Suppliers say the biggest drawback to the product is that many people still aren’t acquainted with it. However, with more builders and remodelers utilizing it both indoors and out, they believe demand will only continue to grow.

BY ANY NAME
   So what is thin-veneer natural stone? Some people define it by thickness and some by weight, but it all comes down to the same thing – a thinner version of full-sized veneer stone.
   “What we’re doing is taking the full veneer, which averages about 50 pounds-per-square-foot, and we’re cutting the face off to bring the weight down to about 12-15 pounds-per-square-foot,” says Tony Mueller, dealer sales manager for Chilton, Wis.-based Buechel Stone Corp., which refers to its product as Natural Thin Veneer (NTV).
   “Thin-veneer stone is natural stone sawn thin,” agrees Aaron Hicken of Heber City, Utah-based Delta Stone Products, Inc., which offers a variety of the products. “It should weigh between 11 and 15 pounds-per-square-foot, and range in depth from 3/4” to 1 ½”. Depending on the stone, a depth of 1 ½” is really pushing it.”
   Terrence Meck, executive sales manager for the Boyertown, Pa.-based Rolling Rock Building Stone, which is in the process of trademarking its thin-veneer product, RealStone Veneer, says another good term for the product is an adhered veneer.
   “This is not a veneer that’s constructed like a full brick or full building-stone structure where each stone piece is being supported on a foundation,” he says. “Thin-veneer is a system where you have thin pieces of stone adhered to a substrate based on a rich-mortar mixture.”
   In fact, Meck predicts that in the future, “adhered veneer” may become the preferred description because it encompasses tile and thin-veneer brick, as well.
   Regardless of the name, what’s important with the stone is the weight, explains Bill Halquist of the Sussex, Wis.-based Halquist Stone, which calls its products for this market Thin Stone. It’s weight that impacts whether or not a job requires a load-bearing foundation, he says.
   “Obviously, there are different building codes for different parts of the country, and the number does vary, but that 14-pounds-per-square-foot figure is often used as a guide under many building codes,” he says.

SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW
   Not only does the thin-veneer product have several definitions and many names, but it also isn’t really all that new an addition to the stone industry.
   Buechel’s Mueller says that company has been cutting thin veneers for almost three decades, but it’s only in the last seven or eight years that it ceased being a cut-on-demand product. Rolling Rock’s Meck says he knows of jobs in southeastern Pennsylvania done with thin veneers that date back to the 1950s and 1960s.
   What’s taken thin-veneers from cut-on-demand to its own product line at Buechel is market interest, according to Mueller.
   “Within the last seven years, the demand has really increased,” he says. “That’s when we made NTV one of our main product lines and that’s when we really got aggressive with marketing it.”
   Even for companies without a long history with thin-veneer, or even natural-stone veneer, the product has looked increasingly attractive. Lesa Bannon, vice president of corporate communications for Denver-based Robinson Brick Co., which sells stone veneer products under the Thinrock™ name, says there were multiple reasons that business entered the market.
   “We started with this about three-and-a-half years ago because we were seeing the popularity of manufactured stone veneer, which we also sell,” she says. “We saw its popularity, and we want to differentiate ourselves as a high-end supplier, so we thought we could take the concept of that manmade product and make a natural one.”
   Although Robinson has never offered full-sized (4”-6”) stone veneers, for most suppliers adding thin-veneer has simply been a matter of sawing their regular stone veneers, a task that’s become increasingly easier in recent years.
   “With the advent of new technologies related to diamond tooling and synthetic diamonds, there are more possibilities in terms of styles of stones that can be produced,” says Meck. “Just about anything that comes off a saw can be sawn into a thin veneer, although there are a number of them that are so hard it would be cost-prohibitive.”
   However, as demand for the thin-veneer product has grown, many companies have expanded their lines even beyond their full veneer products.
   That’s certainly the case at Luck Stone Corp. in Richmond, Va., where marketing specialist Lindsay Mears says its MasterCut™ Natural Veneer Stone doesn’t just encompass its full-sized veneers.
   “We carry different types of colors in the MasterCut than we do in our traditional building-stone products,” Mears affirms. “It helps set the MasterCut line apart from our other offerings, and gives people two options for installation and a larger color range to choose from.”
   “We’ve found other sources we’ve felt would be good products for thin veneer,” says Delta’s Hicken. “However, when we offer thin veneer, we do try to offer it as a full veneer, as well.”
   The reason for that, both Hicken and Buechel’s Mueller say, is that some applications call for the two products to be used together.
   “You can go with a full veneer and then step into a thin veneer to get some depth,” says Hicken. “There are also occurrences in buildings that don’t allow for a full veneer structurally. You might turn a corner and go thin.”
   Mueller says a good case in point is gable ends, which in the past might have been finished with a vinyl or wood siding.
   “These were stone homes, but the gables didn’t have the structural support for a full veneer,” he says. “Now, we see people combining the full and thin, so they can use high-quality stone throughout the project.”

STILL A NICHE
   Structural situations where a full veneer might not be possible are an obvious reason to utilize thin-veneer products. Beyond that, though, both suppliers and their mason-customers say there’s no real trend in situations where the thinner stones are really attracting the eye of homeowners.
   “Some of my clients are using it for exterior projects to save on costs but still have real stone,” says Paul Ballif of the Heber City, Utah-based RJ Enterprises. “They’ve looked at cultured stone, and with this (thin-veneer) they still have the ability to control the height and bed length, so everything works together. They still have a natural product and they’re not going to get the repeating patterns you get with a man-made product.”
   “Some people are trying to match an area where they have natural stone already, but where they don’t want to do the excavation and put in a foundation that would be required for 6” stone,” says E.J. Marvel of Kennett Square, Pa.-based Mar-John Masonry. “With thin-veneer we can lead them to something that will match.”
   Marvel adds that he’s also seeing more people put it inside their homes.
   “Because of the weight they can start doing beautiful walls inside the house on their existing walls or framing,” he adds. “I’m a big fan of interior stonework.”
   Still, there do seem to be some areas where thin-veneer is making a real mark.
   “It’s great for remodeling, because it doesn’t need that extra support,” says Luck’s Mears. “Building stone generally isn’t an option for remodeling because of the need for a load-bearing foundation, so it’s a fantastic choice for that.”
   Mears is also one of several who mention that, as with full-sized veneers, thin veneers have the reputation of being a higher-end product.
   “The most we’ve sold has been for custom homes,” says Robinson’s Bannon. “This appeals to the high-end consumer who wants something that’s going to be superior. They like the ability to blend colors, but they really like the little nuances they get because it’s a natural product.”
   Halquist’s Halquist agrees. He says from his perspective, designers seem to be taking the lead in making many people aware of thin veneer.
   “It’s still kind of a niche product in a niche industry,” he says. “Still, the designers are pushing it because it gives them the look they want while staying within their clients’ budgets.”
   In fact, if there’s one drawback to thin-veneer natural stone at this point, it’s that a lot of people still aren’t aware it’s a viable option to either a man-made stone or a full veneer.
   Marvel says one of his jobs as a mason is to educate his customers.
   “When I go to meet them, I give them all the options,” he says. “Sometimes they’ll be thinking about a nice artificial stone, but when I tell them about thin veneer, they like that idea. Artificial can be nice looking, but side-by-side with natural stone the difference is like night-and-day.”
   Fortunately, Rolling Rock’s Meck says the awareness level is also changing.
   “Even with designers and builders, many of them aren’t aware of it,” Meck says. “But, we’re getting more projects out there, and people are starting to look for this product, whether they’ve seen it on the Internet or through an authorized distributor. And, once they see it, it’s the product they’re looking for.”
   Robinson’s Bannon agrees that thin veneer is seeing a strong growth trend. While that company has worked hard to market all its thin-veneer products, one indication of its upswing is an increase in the size of the competition. When it entered the market, Bannon says Robinson had only a couple competitors; that’s now grown to about seven.
   “It’s a trend, and I definitely expect it to grow,” she says. “We’re getting a lot more requests for it.”
   “The trend we’ve seen is that it will certainly keep going,” echoes Luck’s Mears. “It’s already grown well beyond our expectations and we think it will continue for at least the next three-to-five years, and probably well beyond that. When people know about it, they love it.”