Recent content by rothbard

Update: It has been 8 months since I built this wall. A full house frame now sits on it. It has not budged, other than a tiny vertical thermal cycling crack at the halfway point lengthwise. Seems to be rock solid at loads of at least 60,000 lbs.

@Beerhippie Dude thank you so much for going back and taking pics! Looking at the kegs in the background, you are definitely the 'beerhippie'. I have no idea how to appraise it. Looking at it, I realize these guys are probably pretty expensive to ship due to their size and beyond that I...

Might want to double check if you are constrained by soil bearing. 4x10" sonotubes on their own is like 2 sq ft of bearing on soil. Where I live that's 3k# max bearing on the soil, including the weight of the sonotubes. When I was looking at using those I was planning on putting bigfoot forms...

Is occidental worth it for framing a single house? Resale value looks good but I'm not sure where the best place to buy/sell these belts secondhand. @Beerhippie Are you interested in selling your 90s setup? I am about to start framing my house.

All wise words. Unfortunately it wasn't super practical for my situation with the blockwork already in place and now I've already grouted all the cells. The wall is absolutely solid as a rock now and FWIW there was hella mortar on the bottom layer attached to the footing. We don't get any...

I used vertical rebar every 16". I have never built anything with masonry before, and originally went with the IRC 2021 codes which said I could use plain ol unreinforced masonry since I have <16" of unbalanced of backfill and only 32" of total height and not in a seismic risk zone. Now that...

As promised it has been a little over a month and I am reporting back with results. I fully grouted all the cells with quikrete #3500. I put in vertical rebar at least every other cell except where anchors are placed. I know quikrete isn't grout but it was only 4 blocks deep and had no...

Thank you all for the advice! You've graciously provided far more advice and expertise than I expected. I will go ahead and fully grout and put in rebar. I will also plan on applying surface bonding cement as an extra reinforcement to the mortar. If it is possible to drill in anchor/rebar to...

Update: I found a thread basically exactly matching my concerns. https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/threads/filling-block-walls-existing-construction.121515/page-2 Roger, probably my mixing then. Looks like the dude ended up doing as you said, locking it with grout and rebar. Joes169...

Mortar definitely does not seem to have been "right." I used Amerimix type S and got a nice workable consistency but not soupy consistency. But I don't see how it could have been a bad batch of premix as it took me two months to build the wall and several of the batches of mortar were bought...

Yeah I'm building on top of the wall, so there is lateral support (platform) at the top. I used a thick bed of mortar on top of the footing for the first course but it was otherwise unbonded.

Appreciate the advice rayra. What do you think about the remaining block if somehow the mortar completely weakens out due to the poor bonding / weakness? Do you think the blocks would basically "crash" around the fill? The surface bonding cement seems to be a good idea too as I would think...

Yes in this case by grouting I think it will really be concrete. I have not done rebar. seems like given the questionable nature of the mortar to be a good idea.

Yeah maybe so. It is an extremely dry climate. I like your idea of rebar and redimix and at this point it seems to be the best option short of rebuilding the wall.

That's consoling to hear. I have a dumb question, lets say all the mortar completely fell out. Would the core fill "grip" the blocks and basically function as stand in mortar?