Rebuilding the wall

After the wind took down the wall, we got right to staking it up again. Trace and I were able to restack the wall in about 4 hours.

This time the wall went up fast and straight. I was much happier with it the second time through.

The last block.

Notice all the damaged block corners from thier big fall.

Happy? Oh, yeah!

Finished with the dry stacking and ready to core fill. After we finish core filling we I will surface bond the wall.



Not bad for a few rookies.



To much wind

After we finished backfilling the front wall, I finished stacking the side walls and got set up to start core filling.

Before....

After.....

I got a call at work from Vern (who had come over to pick up his backhoe).  He said, "I have some bad news. Last night in the storm the whole back wall blew down." I had seen the reports of high wind and wondered if it had stayed standing, so this was bad news but almost expected. I firmly believe that God has had his hand on this project from the time we found the land. I replied to him, "Well, if God took it down there must have been something wrong with it." Vern chuckled and said, "I guess that is one way to look at it."

I had stacked the back wall and then had to redirect my attention to backfilling (Vern had called and said that he had an opening in his schedual and had time to backfill). Unfortunatly, I did not have time to core fill or surface bond the wall before the next big storm came through.

The strom that came packing up to 80 mph wind gust and the 48' unsecured wall just could not stand aginst that kind of pressure.

The scafolding was in just the right spot to protect the cement mixer.

Luckily there was only 13 blocks that were to badly damaged to use again. My stack of foam, seen in this photo took a real beating, but was still usable. The wheelbarrow suffered a few new dents, but managed to protect the water pump under it.

The only cost of the wall falling was the loss of 13 cement blocks and time. Grand total = $12.50

We started restacking the wall that night and it was going better than it did the first time.

All in all it was a win that the wall came down. It had not turned out well the first time. It had about an inch of bow in it and the bow was in (making the wall weaker when backfilled). The second time I knew what I had done wrong the first time, and corrected it.

First shot at S.B.C. (Surface bonding cement)

Once we had dry stacked all the 12" blocks that made up the front frost footings I needed to surface bond them together. The surface bonding process is not a new technique and studies have shown that it is stronger than a mortared wall. I was mostly attracted to the fact that I did not need to be a brick layer to dry stack cement blocks, and with the use of SBC I could make a wall that was stronger than mortar with no prior experience.

The process is started by mixing a product called surface bonding cement and water. I used Quickbond (a Quickcrete product) and it worked well. Be sure you do not get it on your hands. I got big time chemical burns from it in a real short time. After mixing the batch to my desired consistency I would fill a pail and trawl the SBC to the wall. It was fast and was not to difficult. Since the coating is only about an 1/8 - 1/4" thick you need to presoak the wall, and also keep the SBC wet down for as long as practical to let it dry slower. The SBC needs to be applied to both sides of the wall to be effective. I should also mention that it is water proof once it is set.

This is how you get running water with no electricity to the build site.

The SBC is applied to full thickness in one coat.

Hear you can see that I presoaked the wall ahead of applying the SBC.

See how the SBC is drying. I tryed to keep it damp for 4 hours or so after application.

Laying the first blocks

With the footings completed and the first delivery of block at the build site it was time to get started on the next phase of construction (dry stacking the block walls). The first thing that we had to do was reset our string lines and find the house corners. Then we chalked lines on the footings so that we could place the first coarse of block.   

The first coarse is laid down the same as any other block wall. Each block is set in mortar and made level and plumb. 

The second coarse on up is simply stacked together dry (no mortar) in a running bond pattern. Each block needs to be sanded to insure they do not have burrs and stack together tightly.

The tarps and plywood were simply there to block the sun (almost 100 outside).

Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while.