A woman in Fishtown called me out last spring because a chunk of her front wall had landed on the sidewalk. It wasn’t brick. It was a slab of formstone about the size of a dinner plate, and behind it the original brick looked like it had been chewed. She wanted to know whether the rest of it was coming down too, and what was underneath. Those are the two questions everybody asks, and the honest answer to the second one is that nobody knows until you take a piece off.
What formstone actually is
Formstone is a cement stucco troweled over the original brick, then stamped and colored to look like cut stone. It went up all over Philadelphia and Baltimore from the late 1930s through the 1950s, sold door to door as a permanent fix for brick that needed pointing — never paint or repoint again. It was cheap next to real masonry work, and on a block where three neighbors had done it, the fourth usually followed.
The problem is how it was attached. Installers scored the brick face with a hatchet or grinder so the cement had something to grab, hung wire lath in places, and troweled over it. That scoring is permanent damage. It’s why removal is never a clean reveal.
What you find when it comes off
Budget for a test patch before committing to anything: two square feet somewhere inconspicuous, taken off by hand with a chisel rather than a rotary hammer. You’re looking at how much original face is left and whether the joints are sound.
Three outcomes, roughly. Sometimes the brick is in decent shape with hatchet marks that read as texture from the sidewalk — that house can be repointed and left exposed. Sometimes the face is gone on half the brick, exposing soft inner clay that will spall the first hard winter; those walls need a stucco system or selective brick replacement, both dearer than people expect. And sometimes water has sat behind the formstone for forty years and the wall is soft enough to dig with a screwdriver — a structural conversation, not a cosmetic one.
The cost gap nobody warns you about
Removal isn’t the expensive part — getting formstone off a typical two-story front runs around $4,000 to $9,000 depending on height, access and how stubbornly it’s bonded. What moves the number is everything after. Repointing an exposed front is commonly $12 to $25 per square foot, and a few hundred replacement brick add meaningfully to that. So the realistic range for stripping a front and putting the brick right is wide: $15,000 to $40,000 for a standard two-story, more with cornice work or a bay. I’ve watched people start with $6,000 in their head and stop halfway, which is the worst place to stop, because a half-stripped wall is unprotected.
When leaving it alone is the better call
There’s no rule that says formstone has to go. Well bonded, uncracked and shedding water, it’s doing a job. Patching a failed section and recoloring is a legitimate repair, and on a block where most fronts are still formstoned, keeping it is arguably the more honest historic choice — that cladding is seventy years of the building’s actual history.
Where I push toward removal is when it’s failing in more than one place, because water is then getting behind it and you’re paying for damage you can’t see. Cracks running in a line, sections that sound hollow, rust stains bleeding through from the lath — it has stopped being a coat and started being a lid.
Before anyone touches the front, check whether the block sits in a historic district — the Historical Commission has jurisdiction over exterior changes on designated properties, and removal there is a review matter, not a homeowner decision. The National Park Service guidance on cement stuccos covers why repair-versus-remove isn’t as obvious as it looks.
Finding someone who has done it before
This is not general contractor work. The skill is in the chiseling — knowing when to stop, reading the brick as it comes off, and having the judgment to say halfway through that the wall wants stucco rather than exposure. Ask for addresses they’ve stripped and go look from the sidewalk; a rushed front looks patchy and over-pointed, with wide grey joints that don’t match the brick. When I hand these off I look for a Philadelphia masonry crew that does repointing as its main line of work rather than a sideline, because removal is only the first week of the job. To understand what you’re being quoted on the repointing half, the difference between repointing and tuckpointing is worth reading first — the words get used interchangeably on estimates and they are not the same labor.
Frequently asked questions
Will removing formstone damage my brick? The damage is already done — installers scored the brick face to make the cement stick. Removal reveals it rather than causing it. How much face is left varies wildly from house to house, which is why a test patch before committing is worth the few hundred dollars it costs.
Can I take formstone off myself? Physically yes, in the sense that a chisel and a hammer will do it. But the judgment calls — when the brick underneath can’t be exposed, when you’ve hit a structural problem — are the actual job. I’ve seen more damage from careful amateurs with rotary hammers than from weather.
Do I need a permit to remove formstone in Philadelphia? Exterior alteration permits through L&I are typically required, and if the property is individually designated or sits in a historic district, the Historical Commission reviews the change separately. Check both before scheduling, not after.