Does anyone know how to drystack block?

[2zwudz]

     Does anyone know how to drystack block?  How did Tony's (n74tg) house turn out?  I haven't heard anything from him lately and was wonder how he liked it?

Mark

[MountainDon]

His walls are up and sheathed so I guess the concrete block work was okay. I haven't read the whole blog where he keeps progress info. It's listed in his signature line, also his profile page.

[glenn kangiser]

The reinforcement is in the parging on both sides.  AS Don said, check Tony's blog.

[n74tg]

Yes, the drystack walls are all complete.  From a structural point of view I am quite happy; the walls are very solid.  About the only disappointment in the project is I don't think the surface bonding cement is quite as waterproof as I thought it would be (or it was advertised to be).  This is evidenced by the apprearance of a wet looking (darker gray) surface on a few parts of the inside of the crawlspace.  It's not wet to the touch, it's just not all the same light gray color that I remember it looking like in the past.  To further examine this, writing this reply has made me decide to take weekly photos of the wet looking areas and see how they change (or don't change) over time.  I'll report back on this thread in maybe a month.   

And yes, like the others have said; it's all written up in in the blog.   

P.S.  The walls may be getting wet when it rains.  As the OSB subfloor isn't waterproof I think some rain might be getting to the inside surface of the crawlspace block walls through the floor.  Once the house is in the dry I'll be able to tell more.  And since the trusses are all on now, in the dry isn't far in the future as I'm going with a metal roof.  I'll start putting on purlins today.    

[SansPlans]

My house has exterior walls which are drystacked w/ white surface bonding cement.
I did the block a few years ago, while the rest of the house is not complete the block has held up fine.

All the information I used to build the walls I found online.

I used 8x8x16 hollow core concrete blocks from home depot. I special ordered the white surface bonding cement from home depot and had it delivered. I used a concrete mixer from harbor freight to mix it.

I used U-shaped 'lintel' blocks for the lintel, and to hold them up I actually just stacked more blocks into the window space to hold it up and poured concrete w/ rebar in there and after it dried I took the spacer blocks out.

For the bond beam, I ground out a channel and put two pieces of rebar in there, tied into corners and w/ some verticals going down every so often though not as often as I think I probably should have.

Then I had a big pumper truck come out and pump concrete in it. It was a total disaster. I haven ever been in so much pain in my entire life.  The concrete had too big of aggregate to fit between the rebar. I used my fingers w/ gloves to shove the rocks in the concrete down over a period of three hours and almost had no hands left when it was done. I was in pain but had no idea how bad the damage was until it was over and I pulled the gloves off. 

The concrete truck pumper guy pumped concrete all over my beautiful white SBC walls and ruined everything.

I should have done one or all of the following:

1. had help to quickly put rebar in after the concrete was poured but still wet
2. build a long funnel out of dimensional lumber to ensure concrete does not go over the side of the walls
3. poured the bond beam/cores BEFORE surface bonding (if you can do that...not sure if that works or not)
4. been sure to get pea gravel instead of big rocks in the concrete so it would go down easier.
5. called the thing off when I realized how bad it was going and done it w/ buckets and 80 lb bags of concrete.

The guy also almost knocked me off the high walls w/ the pumper crane thing. I was wearing a cowboy hard hat he let me borrow and the boom is remote controlled. He bumped me on the head square on moments after I donned the hard hat and I fell back on the wall (remember it's only 8" wide)....had he hit me at another angle I would have fallen and probably been gored on a piece of wood or something.  He also snagged the attachable pipe end on a tree and it came disconnected and then fell into my house and busted a whole in the osb floor. He also poured a massive glob  wider than two cars right in the middle of my property while 'cleaning' his pump which disgraces it this day.

I could not work for a week or more due to my hands missing huge chunks of flesh from the incident.

That being said, I plan to just coat it again on the inside to rid of the nasty gray and make it pretty and white again.

The only place it cracks is, it seems under the windows where there is no load from the rest of the wall, it zig-zag hairline fractures in the surface bonding cement. Nothing's moving really but I think the lack of weight up on top lets it move a bit.

Probably if I had filled those w/ concrete first it would not even do that.

We had tornado weather during the project. Our RV was parked near the unsecured, drystack walls. 60 MPH winds were reported in the area. I remember laying awake one night during a horrible storm wondering at what point the loose block walls would take flight and turn our RV into swiss cheese. The blocks did not move even though they were just sitting on top of each other! We have some trees to break the wind but the wind was still enough to very noticeably rock the RV. The blocks got covered in ice, blown by wind and were just fine, so I am confident that w/ the SBC and the rebar and the top plate bolted in, and the ceiling joists on it that it is sturdy enough.

However, I would strongly encourage anyone to not build their house out of concrete block.

It is sturdy and makes a good house, but there is a much better option.

I would build it out of compressed earth block. I took a three day class from some top dogs in that industry and have read reams of information about it as well as build some test walls (both slurry and thick mortar joint method) and seen the machines that make the blocks in action. There is no question in my mind that that is the best material to build with and I'll never build w/ anything but earth block in the future unless it flat out isn't available. If you're going to do all that work to make something out of block, you might as well do it out of something like earth block....unless you live in the rainforest of course.