It has been some time since our last technical blog post, for both objective reasons—the slowdown during the pandemic—and more personal ones.
A recent tender nevertheless provided a useful case study.
Marbled Jura Limestone occurs in layers and is quarried by hydraulically separating blocks from the stepped rock face. The deposit contains 25 recognised layers, and decades of service data are available for stone from these layers in facades and interiors.
During the tender, our proposal was almost 11% more expensive than a competitor's. The project involved a bonded stone facade at the full-height ground-floor plinth of a premium residence, using standard formats without ornament or milling. The specification itself did not explain the price difference.
🔍Right: Jura Cream from JuraLimestone. Left: material offered by another supplier.
We asked which stone the competing supplier had proposed. They confirmed that it came from a quarry in northern Bavaria and from a lower layer. This explains the difference: in our view, Jura stone from layers below 10 should not be used as exterior facade cladding. Long-standing negative experience in outdoor applications underlies this position across the Jura stone industry. For light-beige exterior work, we specify Jura Cream from suitable layers.
One example is Kvartal 38A in Moscow.
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🔍Another is the Mirozdanie residential complex in St Petersburg, presented in our project section under Jura Cream cladding.
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🔍For light interior flooring, our corresponding material is Jura Beige, as used at Kalina Mall in Vladivostok.
🔍We are also using Jura Cream on the Morskaya Residence project in St Petersburg.
🔍Full-scale tests were performed at the VNIPIIstromsyrye institute to establish the physical and technical properties of our Jura Limestone.
Laboratory tests still examine selected samples, and stone durability is usually judged largely through frost resistance. The decisive quality criteria are a correctly chosen quarry layer with a long service record and careful selection at the quarry under the producer's responsibility.