LodeStone: Fly-Ash Based Veneer Block

LodeStone is just emerging from the research and development stage, and has been marketed primarily to architecture firms in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The first building to feature LodeStone is the new 13,500 ft2 (1,250 m2) administration building for the Solid Waste Department in Denton, Texas. Texas Cast Stone donated the 2,200 ft2 (200 m2) of LodeStone cladding and 650 ft (200 m) of water-table trim for the wainscoting around the building’s exterior. Everyone connected with that installation seems impressed.

The project architect was Dan Crise of Huitt-Zollars’ Ft. Worth office. The LodeStone was selected by the client and provided at no cost, so Crise didn’t research it extensively. Nevertheless, he is pleased with how it worked out. “I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend consideration of it,” Crise says, adding: “I like the way it looks.” Bill Soye, the mason who installed the LodeStone, likes it enough that he’d like to use it on his own house. “I think the architects are going to spec it on a lot of jobs. There is nothing else like it,” he says. “It lays up like any other standard product.”