Masonry Contractor in Richfield
10 Years
Workmanship warranty, in writing
No city we work in puts a larger share of itself up in one twenty-year stretch. 63.3 percent of Richfield's homes were built between 1940 and 1969, some 10,875 of them, with only 5.7 percent before that and under a third since.
One era, one construction method, one set of failures. It makes this an unusually easy city to be useful in, because almost everything we get called to here is a version of the same problem.
Salt, With Actual Richfield Numbers
Richfield reduced its road salt application by more than half through calibration and revised practice, saving $30,000 in 2010-11 and $70,000 the following winter. In the Nine Mile Creek watershed, the city contributes 42 tons of chloride a year from 11 lane-miles.
That is a city taking the problem seriously on public roads. It does not cover private driveways, paths, and steps, which is where the masonry damage on your property actually comes from.
If you have brick within a couple of feet of a surface that gets salted, that is the first place to look, and it is the repair most worth doing early.
What Actually Fails On A Richfield House
A wall that is bulging outward
The defining Richfield masonry problem, and the reason this city needs its own page. The mechanism is on our brick repair page. What is worth knowing, standing in Richfield, is the diagnostic: sight along the elevation from the corner of the house. Looking at it from the street tells you nothing. A bulge is obvious from one angle and nearly invisible from the other, and most people never look from the right one.
Cracked and lifting brick above a window or the garage door
A failing lintel, and our brick repair page explains the mechanism. The Richfield-specific part is the clustering. These houses went up in the same few years to the same detail, so the steel above your garage door is roughly the same age as the steel above everybody else's on the street.
A chimney crown that has never been touched
Post-war stacks are now between fifty-seven and eighty-six years old, and the crown is the part that has generally had nothing done to it in that time.
A front stoop that has tilted
Concrete and stone entries from this era were frequently set on fill rather than on footings taken below the frost line. Sixty or more freeze cycles later, they rock.
Brick at the bottom of the wall eaten away beside the driveway
Deicing salt at grade. Richfield cut its own road salt application by over half, but what happens on your driveway is your own arrangement, and the bottom courses show it.
What We Do In Richfield
Written for post-war veneer construction. These are not the same descriptions as those on our service pages or on the Minneapolis page because the work is genuinely different.
Brick veneer rebuild after wall-tie failure
The big one here. Our brick repair page sets out why ties cannot be replaced selectively; what is specific to Richfield is how uniform the problem is. Houses on the same street went up in the same years using the same detail, so if one elevation has gone, there is a fair chance the neighbors are on the same clock. The brick on a house of this vintage is nearly always sound and goes back up, which is most of what keeps the number down.
Lintel replacement
Richfield lintels arrive in batches for the same reason the ties do. If a neighbor has had brick lift above a garage door, look at yours. The repair itself is on our brick repair page; what we will tell you here is whether you are early or late, because a lintel caught before the brick has cracked through is a much smaller morning.
Individual brick replacement
Post-war brick is harder than the soft 1920s brick immediately north of here, and it does not spall the same way, so failed faces here tend to arrive one or two at a time. That is good news: it usually means a handful of units and not an elevation.
Repointing post-war brickwork
A different mortar decision from an old-house job, and one that goes the opposite way. Nearly everything else on our website warns against a mix that is too strong for the brick. On a Richfield veneer, that risk is much lower, and the specification can be chosen for durability instead.
Chimney crown rebuild and raincaps
Richfield stacks are between fifty-seven and eighty-six years old and were built to a standard detail. What that means in practice is that the crowns here are almost all the same age and the same design, and they are arriving at the end of it together.
Front stoop and step rebuild
Post-war entries in this city were commonly set on fill. Our steps page explains why footing depth decides everything. The useful thing to know standing in Richfield is that the fault is almost never the concrete or the stone you are looking at.
Salt-spall repair and sealing at grade, where it is warranted
One of the few places sealing genuinely earns its keep, though whether yours wants it is a decision made in person rather than a policy. Repair the spalled units either way, because, left alone, the damage works its way into the foundation.
Why Richfield Is Different From Minneapolis Next Door
Two things separate them, and both matter.
And the stone runs out here. The limestone that Minneapolis builders quarried and dropped into their foundations is absent or deeply buried across southern Hennepin County, and Richfield is past the line. There was no local building stone within reach of anybody working here, which is the geological half of why the housing looks the way it does.
The practical consequence is that if you own a Richfield house, the masonry problem you are most likely to have is not one your neighbors in south Minneapolis would recognize.
What It Costs
Same prices as anywhere else we work, and no charge for the drive.
Minor brick replacement starts around $1,500 and a small wall rebuild runs $2,000 to $3,000. A full veneer elevation gets a number after the visit because, on that job, the spread between a small house and a large one is wider than any published range could usefully cover. Chimney repair starts at about $3,500 for a single-story home, and a crown rebuild costs around $5,500.
Those are starting points and not quotes. The estimate is free and in person.
Every one of those figures depends on square footage and on what we find when we look. They are rough guides to help you decide whether to call, not quotes. The exact number comes after the visit, and the visit is free.
What Richfield Customers Say
Nobody has yet written a review that names Richfield, and we are not going to invent one or move a job across from another page to fill the space. What goes here instead is the live Google feed, unfiltered.
Google review, September 2025Tell us what is going on with your masonry
Tell us what you are seeing and attach photos if you have them. Sam comes out himself, and you get the options priced in writing. No charge either way, and no service call fee.
Common Questions In Richfield
Sight along the elevation from a corner. Straight on, you will see nothing. A veneer that has started to belly shows up immediately from that angle and is almost invisible from the front. If you can see a bulge, get somebody to look at it.
No, and our brick repair page sets out why. If somebody has offered you an alternative, the question to put to them is how the new ties get bedded into joints that are still buried in the wall.
Almost certainly veneer if it was built after 1940, which covers about 94 percent of the city's housing. A tell is the pattern: solid masonry walls have headers, bricks laid end-on to tie the courses together. A veneer is all stretchers, every brick laid lengthways.
Almost certainly the lintel. The wall itself is rarely the problem. Ask your neighbors whether theirs has done the same. On a street built in one go, it usually has.
The names are the same and the jobs are not. Minneapolis is soft brick over stone foundations with lime mortar. Richfield is post-war veneer over a frame. Different failures, different mortar decisions, different prices.
It is not about age; it is about whether the concrete is intact. Hairline cracking on a sound crown can be sealed. A crown that has broken up needs rebuilding, and on a stack of Richfield's vintage we see both.
Get A Free Estimate In Richfield
For a suspected veneer problem, the useful photograph is taken from the corner of the house, looking along the wall. A bulge shows immediately from that angle and disappears from any other.
Sam comes out, sights the wall, and tells you whether this is ties or something smaller.
Call (612) 509-0718 · Free estimate, in person · Ten years in writing on the workmanship