Natural stone wall is coming apart!

Hello everyone,

a little over a year ago, a landscaping gardener clad our concrete stairs from the balcony to the garden with natural stones. Between the stairs and the stones, the railing is also attached using downpipes filled with concrete.

Now the top layer of stones of the "wall" is almost completely loose (see pictures).



I suspect that this wall is total botch work and only some patching will not be able to ensure the "durability" of the structure. But what will the landscaping gardener do if he didn’t manage it well the first time?

Problems I believe I recognize:

1) Using rubble stones instead of (somewhat matching) masonry stones.
2) Using a coarse-grained mortar with presumably poor adhesion properties on natural stone. -> I read that one should use "masonry mortar" or "trass cement" instead.
3) The top layer of stones should somehow be "sealed" so that moisture can drain well and does not immediately settle in the gaps.

I would be very grateful if someone could give me a tip on how to properly restore such a little wall. Something like that should last a few decades, right? I would then compare this with the repair suggestion from the "specialist company".

A thousand thanks!

Hi,

without being an expert:
The company should still be under the warranty obligation. So you have to complain to the landscaping contractor and give them the opportunity to fix the "botch". I'm not entirely sure, but I believe the landscaping contractor even has 2 chances to fix their botch.
If they still don't manage it, you can assign the job to another landscaping contractor and the invoice for this goes to the first contractor.

However, I am not a lawyer or anything similar for construction law.