Ethically Sourced Stones
•
Free Samples
•
Australia wide delivery
•
Serving Globally Since 1993
•
Browse our range of natural stacked stone wall cladding, supplied as mesh-backed panels around 600x150mm with matching interlocking corners. Compare the natural split stacked stone walling products in travertine, quartzite, sandstone, slate and granite.
Search stacked stone and ledgestone, you’ll find suppliers using these two words as if they mean the same thing. They don’t and mixing them up is just confusing to make a wrong decision. You will end up ordering a panel that’s heavier than you planned for on a wall that was never built to carry that weight.
Here’s what stacked stone actually is. At the factories, dozens of small natural stone pieces are arranged into a tight, layered pattern and then glued together onto a mesh backing. It creates a panel of around 600x150mm in size that an installer can fix to the wall the same way they’d fix a large tile. All that’s left is placing it straight and keeping the joints staggered.
Also considered as DIY stone cladding, this format sells more than any other wall cladding format. It gives you the look of a wall a stonemason spent a week building, in a fraction of the time and for a fraction of the labour cost. You’ll also see it called stack stone, stackstone, stacked stone cladding, dry stack cladding. Do not get confused as it is the same product and different wordings. Ours, whatever you call it, is a genuine quarried natural stone.
| Attributes | Stone Planet Stacked Stone |
|---|---|
| Supply format | The are Mesh Backed Panels supplied in boxes. |
| Panel size | Around 600 x 150 mm approximately |
| Construction | Natural stone glued to mesh backing |
| Panel back | Flat for the ease of installation |
| Piece character | Small and tightly arranged |
| Corners | Two-piece interlocking pattern |
| Weight | Light weight panel format |
| Coverage | Around 11 panels per m² |
| Box coverage | Commonly around 0.5 m² per box |
| Wastage allowance | Around 10% |
| Suitable for | Exterior and interior walls |
It is the most common confusion of someone who’s already been quoted by two suppliers and can’t work out why the numbers don’t match.
Half the market treats stacked stone wall cladding and ledgestone as interchangeable. The other half splits them sometimes by piece sizes, sometimes by weight, sometimes for no reason anyone could explain. You can be comparing two products with completely different backings, different weights and both called the same thing. You never know it until the pallet turns up heavier than expected.
Here’s the real difference that actually matters and it comes down to what’s behind the stone rather than what it’s called. Stacked stone wall cladding is natural stone glued to a mesh backing in smaller and tightly arranged pieces in multiple layers. It’s our lighter panel. Ledge stone is cement-backed, with larger and more randomly sized pieces. It’s heavier than stacked stones. So backing is deciding the weight and this weight decides what your wall needs to be capable of carrying. This is why we’d rather bore you with the distinction now than have your builder discover it the hard way.
If it’s the cement-backed panel you’re after, that’s Ledge Stone Walling. And wherever you’re comparing products, ours included, ask what’s on the back rather than trusting the name on the box.
Our standard panel size is 600x150mm which happens to be the size most of the Australian market has settled on as well.
Do the arithmetic and a 600×150 panel covers 0.09 m², so a square metre takes about 11 panels. A box will cover half a square metre (0.5m2) which will have 5 to 6 panels and corner boxes usually cover about a linear metre of corner.
What the mesh is doing behind the scenes is worth understanding because it explains most of what makes this format work. Free style walling is arranged by hand and by piece but placing a panel that already holds a dozen stones is always going to beat placing those same twelve stones one at a time.
It also gives your installer a flat calibrated back to work with which means a thinner adhesive bed and a straighter finished face than you’d get installing irregular stone.
However, the mesh has to end up fully buried in adhesive. Skimp on coverage and the mesh will have air pockets instead. The panel will not hold onto your wall properly.
Our corners come as a two-piece interlocking system. Size of (450+150)x150mm are the two components that engage at the external corner like L shaped so the stone face wraps around it.
Cutting the end of the two panels at a certain angle to fit them togetheroften produces a thin and fragile edge that can chip the first time someone bumps it with a wheelbarrow. It leaves a visible seam running up the corner of an otherwise seamless wall. The interlocking system avoids both these problems by keeping the same module running around the corner instead of interrupting it.
Order corners separately from your flat area by linear metre. The take roughly 0.2 m2 off your flat area quantity for every linear metre of corner. This information is not provided to the clients at the time of ordering which leads to confusion and wrong order specs.
Does your pillar have four external corners? So a 1.8 metre entry pillar needs 7.2 linear metres of corner material on its own. How? We just multiplied 1.8 with your 4 corners to get 7.2 LM.
Stacked Stone walling is widely used on exterior walls. What will decide whether it will look right in ten years has almost nothing to do with the stone itself and everything to do with what’s happening above and below it.
We recommend grouting for all natural stone installations. But Stacked stone goes on without grouted joints. It means the joints are open and water gets in behind the cladding through them and through the stone itself. This is completely normal. What actually matters is whether that water can get out and whether most of it is getting in from above in the first place.
Most of the damage we see on stone cladding over the years starts at the top of the wall and not on the face. A coping that overhangs and throws water away does more for a wall’s condition than any sealer you could ever spray onto the surface.
Then the wall needs to be able to dry out. A breathable penetrating sealer lets moisture vapours escape through the stone. A knock off sealer sitting on top will trap the moisture in, and eventually leads to blistering, clouding or a fine white salt bloom across the surface of the stones. Many assume it to be a stone defect but it is actually a moisture management one.
Keep the bottom course clear of soil because stone sitting in damp ground will wick that moisture and whatever salt comes with it will feed straight up into the face.
And orientation matters more than as a north-facing wall in full sun will dry sooner within a few hours of rain whereas a shaded south-facing courtyard wall will stay damp for days which can develop moss and also lichen can show up.
The natural split texture looks beautiful at close range . When you are standing at an entry, a stairwell or a feature behind a bed, It suits the flat walls you get indoors far more readily than an outside wall. Because of its light weight, this walling sits comfortably on interior build-ups that a heavier format.
Two things worth sorting out before the first panel goes on.
Before you install the first panel, work out the junctions on paper. Consider skirtings, architraves, switch plates, cornices and door reveals as the cladding can build out more than the panel thickness alone once the adhesive bed is added and discovering that after the architraves are finished is not a fun afternoon for anyone.
If it’s going into a bathroom, one thing matters more than everything else : the waterproofing membrane behind the stone is what actually keeps water in the room. Your waterproofer installs that before a single piece of stone goes up. The stone contributes nothing to it and neither does the sealer sitting on top of the stone. Beyond that, textured stone inside a shower enclosure holds onto soap residue in all that relief and needs cleaning more often than a flat tile would. This is exactly why plenty of our customers run it on the wall outside the wet zone and keep something smoother inside the shower itself.
We supply the material rather than install it but this is the one format customers regularly ask about attempting themselves. So here’s what a proper job actually involves from the start to the finish.
Get the wall right first. Flat, sound, clean and dry. Rendered blockwork, brick, concrete, or an appropriate external grade sheet with porous surfaces primed and any paint or loose render taken back to something solid.
Find a level datum and fix a temporary ledger to it. Never start off the floor, the ground, or an existing paving line.
Work out from the top before you touch a panel. Wall height should be divided by panel height. If that leaves a 30 mm sliver sitting at the ceiling line then adjust your starting point now because you’ll be looking at that sliver for the next fifteen years otherwise.
Corners go on first. They set the line for every panel either side. Always work in small sections. Comb adhesive onto the wall, back-butter the panel, press it home and give it a small slide to properly bed the mesh into the adhesive rather than just resting on top of it. Remember, Full coverage every time.
Stagger the vertical joints between rows and keep pulling panels from several boxes at once rather than emptying one before opening the next. Work through a single box and whatever colour range that box happened to carry ends up concentrated into one visible portion across your wall and once it’s fixed, it’s fixed.
Cut wet with a diamond blade. Dry cutting the stone throws dust you don’t want to breathe and can give you a bad cut on the stone. Keep the cut edges tucked into internal corners or the ends of panels where nobody’s looking closely.
Keep the face clean as you go rather than at the end of the day. Wipe adhesive off while it’s still wet. Once it’s cured on a textured panel, getting it off again is genuinely difficult and most of what actually removes it will also damage the stone.
Let the ledger come off the next day and drop the bottom section underneath once everything above it has set.
So can you do this yourself? On an interior feature wall, over a flat substrate or outside, above head height. It is better to get an experienced installer or stonemason for outdoor wall cladding installations.
On a larger area, panelised supply is often the whole reason it gets chosen over a loose format. Easy to install when trades are booked in sequence and nobody has room to slip.
Small and often glanced at from a car window rather than studied, the finer module suits that scale better than a larger-piece format ever would.
The panel wraps a pillar efficiently, and the interlocking corners handle the joints cleanly. Just remember the corner count from earlier.
Our stone dresses the face of an engineered retaining structure. It doesn’t retain anything, and it was never meant to. If you’re still deciding on the whole boundary or retaining project rather than the walling itself, that decision belongs on Boundary Walls.
Living rooms, entries, stairwells, the wall behind a bed or a bar is the most common areas for stacked stone installation.
The horizontal layers play nicely against the vertical line of a chimney. We supply stone cladding, not fire ratings, and we won’t tell you otherwise.
Reception walls, hospitality interiors, retail frontages also prefer Stacked stones. Quick to install and it photographs well.
Our stacked stone is available across a handful of natural stones with Travertine and quartzite being the top sellers. Sandstone, granite and slatestone are next in line.
The stone you choose sets the colour but it also sets how the wall behaves once it’s up. Denser stones hold up better in exposed and coastal positions. Stones like travertine won’t tolerate an acidic cleaner which is worth knowing before this ends up in a bathroom where someone reaches for commercial products under the sink.
For the deeper knowledge on any particular natural stone material: Travertine, Sandstone, Slatestone
| Attributes | Stacked Stone | Ledge Stone |
|---|---|---|
| Backing | Stone glued to mesh | Cement-backed |
| Panel size | Around 600 x 150 mm | Around 600 x 200 mm |
| Pieces | Small, tightly arranged | Larger, more random |
| Stone thickness | Approx 15 to 22mm | Around 20 to 35mm |
| Weight | Lighter panel | Heavier Panel |
| Texture | Natural Split | Natural Split |
| Best at | Feature walls, interiors, entries, smaller areas | Large elevations and facades |
| Corners | Two-piece interlocking | Two-piece interlocking |
Do you prefer individual pieces over a panel altogether? Free Style Walling covers loose irregular stone and Traditional Walling covers rectangles & Squares. If you want more details about panels versus loose stone laid out properly, it’s here at Stacked Stone Panels vs Loose Stone Walling.
Stone Planet has been importing and supplying natural stone walling in Australia and stacked stone wall cladding is the format that our forklift lights more than any other walling format.
We’ll tell you exactly what the panel is -mesh backed of around 600 x 150 mm with a flat back and lighter weight rather than letting the name on the box do the talking.
We quote against the real quantity. Flat area by sqm, corners by linear metre, pillars counted properly and wastage built in. Corners and pillars are where stacked stone quotes usually go wrong and a quote that’s missed them only looks cheaper right up until the second order lands.
We source our stacked stone wall cladding from China, Turkey, India and Vietnam. On a panelised product specifically, dimensional checking is the one that earns its keep, because the whole system lives or dies on module consistency.
And we supply the material. We don’t install it and we’d rather say so plainly than let you assume a service we don’t offer.
Before you order anything, Read Our Blog Natural Stone Wall Cladding: What to Check Before You Buy. It runs through the checks worth making across any wall cladding format and not just this one.
Yes, Stone planet deals in stacked stone wall cladding made of genuinely quarried natural stones which are glued to a mesh backing. Cultured stone or manufactured stone is a different material altogether: concrete, cast in a mould which resembles stacked stone but it is not real stone. It is advised checking whenever the price looks a little too good to be true.
There is about 11pcs for a panel size of around 600x150mm in 1sqm. They are sold in boxes with 6 pieces in 1 box. Boxes commonly cover roughly half a square metre. Order corners separately by vertical linear metre and always allow 10% for wastage.
Yes, stacked stone walling is majorly sold for exterior walls.
At Stone Planet, stacked stone is mesh-backed with small, tightly arranged natural stone pieces and lighter in weight. Ledge stone is cement-backed with larger and more random pieces and it's heavier
Yes, it is known as a DIY natural stone wall cladding. On an interior feature wall, over a sound flat substrate, a person with tiling experience often can. For exterior,, on a sheet or framed wall or in a wet area or anywhere with a lot of corners, bring in someone experienced instead.
Staggering the vertical joints between rows instead of letting them line up is the only way to stop the panel joints from showing. Pull the panels from five or six boxes at once rather than working through one before opening the next. A single box will give the natural variation it carries.
Stone Planet supplies stacked stone wall cladding at wholesale prices nationally and can quote freight to your project location. Let us know the delivery address and site access when you enquire, since a tight site with no truck access changes how the material needs to be sent.
11 panels per sqm metre for panel size of 600x150mm
No. Stone Planet uses Stacked Stone for mesh-backed panels and Ledge Stone for the heavier cement-backed panel format.
Yes, Stacked stone wall cladding should get sealed using a penetrating water based sealer. Resealing depends on the actual stone, sealer and exposure.
At Stone Planet, you can buy stackstone wall cladding in a selection of natural stone colours and textures for residential and commercial projects. Our stackstone cladding is suitable for feature walls, exterior walls, fireplaces, garden areas and other architectural applications, helping create a natural and timeless finish.
