How to block up a doorway with a cavity wall using concrete blocks - this is a step by step guide of how to use concrete blocks to close off a doorway.
nice trick for situations like at @3:10 is to put your thin course on the second to last row. Then you have a full block course at the very top, gives you more room to work
Thanks for helpful video. Just a quick question. I’m wanting to block up a door in a besser block wall that are the bigger size 390*190*190mm. Do I use the same size besser blocks (so no cavity)? Do I core fill each row of blocks as I add each new row? Thanks, TP
Troy - I’m guessing you mean the hollow blocks? If so it’s up to you if you fill them depending on the strength you need. We don’t have many hollow blocks here
I have a 48” doorway to block up. I want to tie the new block in with the existing wall by replacing the half blocks with full blocks. What thoughts do you have and any advice about the best method to remove the existing half blocks?
If you want to remove the existing half blocks then you can get a mortar chisel for a SDS hacking off drill, this will help you chisel out the beds and joints to get the half blocks out easily. Or you could use an angle grinder with a diamond blade to cut out the mortar beds and joints. Unless you get all of the mortar out of the beds and joints it will be difficult to remove the half cuts. I would just use screw in ties on every other course or furfix like in the video rather than remove the half blocks. Hope this helps
Thank you very much for this video. I was looking for a definitive answer on how to do the dpc course and this video with description is perfect. The mortar ratios too. Does the kingspan also act as a vapour shield? I have a question. I can go to a row of 10 identical houses aka Barratt Boxes, Shepherds Sheds, Persimmons Plasterboard Palaces and run a finger on the mortar course. 5 of them will be as hard and smooth as prefab reinforced concrete blocks on a military base - like grey marble. And it will stay like that for 20-30 years and longer. 3 of them will give off a light powder. 2 of them i could drill a hole in with my van key! Softer than celcon/thermalite blocks and already degrading like its trying to repoint itself! What causes this please? I know some builders (NOT brickies!) i have seen squirting washing up liquid into a mix but what else can cause it? Its not pollution as it would effect all 10. What sand and cement do you use? The common staple is Builders/Cook's Sand (local) and Blue Circle and water premixed with correct measure of plasticiser but not sure what brand. The crop of skilled brick and block layers around here is bad. There are a lot of wannabe rich types with maxed mortgages wanting extensions (to show off) and it really is the wild west. All Smash & Grab. Price and speed is everything over quality and Building Control is a bad joke. I would ask these guys but its like asking Freddy Kruger about skin care. Cheers!
Thankyou, appreciate you watching the channel. The king span would have some vapour shield qualities but probably only if you used foil tape between the joints of each sheet. That’s an interesting point you make about the Barratt etc houses and the mortar. In theory their mortar should all be nice and hard as most of them will have it from a silo which has the premixed sand and cement in it you just add water to it (there’s a corkscrew type setup that mixes it with the water as it comes out) so you would think all their mortar mixes should be setting the same. But there’s lots of factors such as if the pointing was done at the right time, if they laid in too cold/too hot weather without covering their work which could affect the final strength. If they are mixing it themselves in a mixer then the mix can easily be wrong - poorly trained labourers, over mixing, under mixing , too much plasticiser which would put too much air in the mix causing a weak mix. There is such a fine line between too much and too little plasticiser and too little or too much mixing and it’s only really possible to know once you get a feel for using the mix yourself. The quality of sand varies round here and that can affect my mixes hugely. I’m using poor sand now and just struggle to get a good mix. It’s always building sand I use but one week it could be a different suppler to the merchants that I use. Always use blue circle if I can as I find that gives the best mix, cheaper cement doesn’t seem to give as good a mix. Sadly there is still lots of cowboys out there but they get found out eventually! There’s lots of good brickies too but it seems the good ones become harder and harder to find. I hope this answers most of your questions and it’s good to see someone taking a keen interest in what goes into a good mix and what can go wrong! Check out my ‘how to mix mortar’ video if you haven’t already!
@@SamDaviesBuilder I'm on it! Looking now and thank you for a very good answer. Just to give you a level of quality on of of the Persimmon homes: There is one on the very corner of the new estate and for the first 1.5 meters staggered it is in Cook sand. Then for another meter it is in regular builders sand. Then for the finish they used yellow sand! The cherry on the cake is the plastic air bricks had been put in the wrong place and had been 'gobbo'd' up and the new ones look like they had drilled and smashed the bricks out. Then used clear silicone to fit new plastic air bricks! All build on a green belt flood plane too! Out of all the very good reasons you gave for the mortar courses it's a combination of not covering up, over mixing and too much plasticiser. I saw this old boy building a wall off crates and scaffold boards. He built up the corners, moved his line, checked it a bunch of times, kept every bit he wasnt working on covered and didn't use big mixes and blue circle with a ton bag of builders sand. I was in the area a week later and went to have a look. It was perfect. Really perfect. Took him a long time but it had the marble smooth mortar finish.
@@RedwolfDogrocket it just amazes me how these big house builders get away with it. I can’t see these houses standing the test of time and it’s such short sightedness from the government not to regulate it more as they should be focusing on building homes that will last and not stack ‘em high sell ‘em cheap type! Just hopefully the old boys keep passing on their tips or it will be lost forever to the persimmon brickies - although there is some good brickies on those type of sites too
Hi, i am blocking up a lanai to make it into a room. The two areas that i am blocking up measure 10' in width 8ft high. Do i need rebar in this scenario? Your help is much appreciated
Thanks! Depends on how wide the doorway is, if it’s just a standard 1m wide door or less then as long as you’re tied in on the sides with screw in ties or furfix you’d be fine but if it’s a wider opening you’d need some timber frame ties
@@SamDaviesBuilder Thanks for your response brother! I'm in southeastern USA, I'm planning on using 12x8x16" concrete blocks, but I love how you built your wall
what was put between the walls? just insulation? were the walls flush against the insulation? It seemed like there was a gap between the insulation and the wall.
It is a cavity wall so you have an outer skin, 50mm gap to the insulation, then your insulation, then your inner skin. It means your outer skin can become damp from the weather but not track it to the inner skin
Good neat job, well done
Thank you - great job Should be able to do this myself now.
Thankyou, glad the video has helped!
Great job ,
Like this video, thanks
Brilliant, do they not need to tie in things to existing brickwork for stability?
We use either a wall starter tie or a screw in tie which ties it into the existing wall
nice trick for situations like at @3:10 is to put your thin course on the second to last row. Then you have a full block course at the very top, gives you more room to work
Good tip that, thanks!
Thanks for helpful video. Just a quick question. I’m wanting to block up a door in a besser block wall that are the bigger size 390*190*190mm. Do I use the same size besser blocks (so no cavity)? Do I core fill each row of blocks as I add each new row? Thanks, TP
Troy - I’m guessing you mean the hollow blocks? If so it’s up to you if you fill them depending on the strength you need. We don’t have many hollow blocks here
Tks for response. Yes the blocks I'm referring to are hollow. I plan to fill in the core of the blocks with cement mix.
Great stuff 👏 👍 👌
Thanks 😊
I have a 48” doorway to block up. I want to tie the new block in with the existing wall by replacing the half blocks with full blocks. What thoughts do you have and any advice about the best method to remove the existing half blocks?
If you want to remove the existing half blocks then you can get a mortar chisel for a SDS hacking off drill, this will help you chisel out the beds and joints to get the half blocks out easily. Or you could use an angle grinder with a diamond blade to cut out the mortar beds and joints. Unless you get all of the mortar out of the beds and joints it will be difficult to remove the half cuts. I would just use screw in ties on every other course or furfix like in the video rather than remove the half blocks. Hope this helps
Cool Block!
Thanks
Thank you very much for this video.
I was looking for a definitive answer on how to do the dpc course and this video with description is perfect.
The mortar ratios too.
Does the kingspan also act as a vapour shield?
I have a question.
I can go to a row of 10 identical houses aka Barratt Boxes, Shepherds Sheds, Persimmons Plasterboard Palaces and run a finger on the mortar course.
5 of them will be as hard and smooth as prefab reinforced concrete blocks on a military base - like grey marble. And it will stay like that for 20-30 years and longer.
3 of them will give off a light powder.
2 of them i could drill a hole in with my van key! Softer than celcon/thermalite blocks and already degrading like its trying to repoint itself!
What causes this please? I know some builders (NOT brickies!) i have seen squirting washing up liquid into a mix but what else can cause it? Its not pollution as it would effect all 10.
What sand and cement do you use? The common staple is Builders/Cook's Sand (local) and Blue Circle and water premixed with correct measure of plasticiser but not sure what brand.
The crop of skilled brick and block layers around here is bad. There are a lot of wannabe rich types with maxed mortgages wanting extensions (to show off) and it really is the wild west. All Smash & Grab. Price and speed is everything over quality and Building Control is a bad joke. I would ask these guys but its like asking Freddy Kruger about skin care.
Cheers!
Thankyou, appreciate you watching the channel.
The king span would have some vapour shield qualities but probably only if you used foil tape between the joints of each sheet.
That’s an interesting point you make about the Barratt etc houses and the mortar. In theory their mortar should all be nice and hard as most of them will have it from a silo which has the premixed sand and cement in it you just add water to it (there’s a corkscrew type setup that mixes it with the water as it comes out) so you would think all their mortar mixes should be setting the same. But there’s lots of factors such as if the pointing was done at the right time, if they laid in too cold/too hot weather without covering their work which could affect the final strength.
If they are mixing it themselves in a mixer then the mix can easily be wrong - poorly trained labourers, over mixing, under mixing , too much plasticiser which would put too much air in the mix causing a weak mix. There is such a fine line between too much and too little plasticiser and too little or too much mixing and it’s only really possible to know once you get a feel for using the mix yourself.
The quality of sand varies round here and that can affect my mixes hugely. I’m using poor sand now and just struggle to get a good mix. It’s always building sand I use but one week it could be a different suppler to the merchants that I use. Always use blue circle if I can as I find that gives the best mix, cheaper cement doesn’t seem to give as good a mix.
Sadly there is still lots of cowboys out there but they get found out eventually! There’s lots of good brickies too but it seems the good ones become harder and harder to find.
I hope this answers most of your questions and it’s good to see someone taking a keen interest in what goes into a good mix and what can go wrong! Check out my ‘how to mix mortar’ video if you haven’t already!
@@SamDaviesBuilder I'm on it! Looking now and thank you for a very good answer.
Just to give you a level of quality on of of the Persimmon homes:
There is one on the very corner of the new estate and for the first 1.5 meters staggered it is in Cook sand.
Then for another meter it is in regular builders sand. Then for the finish they used yellow sand!
The cherry on the cake is the plastic air bricks had been put in the wrong place and had been 'gobbo'd' up and the new ones look like they had drilled and smashed the bricks out. Then used clear silicone to fit new plastic air bricks!
All build on a green belt flood plane too!
Out of all the very good reasons you gave for the mortar courses it's a combination of not covering up, over mixing and too much plasticiser.
I saw this old boy building a wall off crates and scaffold boards. He built up the corners, moved his line, checked it a bunch of times, kept every bit he wasnt working on covered and didn't use big mixes and blue circle with a ton bag of builders sand.
I was in the area a week later and went to have a look. It was perfect. Really perfect. Took him a long time but it had the marble smooth mortar finish.
@@RedwolfDogrocket it just amazes me how these big house builders get away with it. I can’t see these houses standing the test of time and it’s such short sightedness from the government not to regulate it more as they should be focusing on building homes that will last and not stack ‘em high sell ‘em cheap type!
Just hopefully the old boys keep passing on their tips or it will be lost forever to the persimmon brickies - although there is some good brickies on those type of sites too
Hi, i am blocking up a lanai to make it into a room. The two areas that i am blocking up measure 10' in width 8ft high. Do i need rebar in this scenario? Your help is much appreciated
I’m not sure where you’d incorporate rebar. Just make sure you’ve got a good foundation and are tied in both sides of the existing wall
great
Amazing explanation, cheers. I'm guessing you don't need wall ties if it's exterior block work with timber frame interior?
Thanks! Depends on how wide the doorway is, if it’s just a standard 1m wide door or less then as long as you’re tied in on the sides with screw in ties or furfix you’d be fine but if it’s a wider opening you’d need some timber frame ties
@@SamDaviesBuilder top man, appreciate it. It's just a metre wide door.
Is this method better than using hollow block? Does it provide better insulation? I’m filling in a basement garage
What part of the world are you in? A cavity wall is always better than a single wall
@@SamDaviesBuilder Thanks for your response brother! I'm in southeastern USA, I'm planning on using 12x8x16" concrete blocks, but I love how you built your wall
@@KilledByThatTrain things are a bit different in the US so you could probably get away with just one skin of blocks!
How much would this cost to have done roughly . Just to block up a garage door
So difficult to say, there’s too many factors to give a rough idea. Is it single skin or cavity to be blocked up? Any plastering afterwards?
what was put between the walls? just insulation? were the walls flush against the insulation? It seemed like there was a gap between the insulation and the wall.
It is a cavity wall so you have an outer skin, 50mm gap to the insulation, then your insulation, then your inner skin. It means your outer skin can become damp from the weather but not track it to the inner skin
@@SamDaviesBuilder NIce step by step video. Thanks. Is the insulation flat against the inner skin? Ie touching it? Or is it a 50mm gap also?
@@chazshier yes the insulation is tight to the inner skin and then the 50mm gap from the insulation to the outside skin
Can I use stone? It's an old doorway to next door which needs filling for sound proof reasons. It's an old Victorian stone property in the uk
Natashahoneypot yea there’s no reason why you couldn’t use stone to do it
getr done
Silly question but u level first course through to know what size cut u need at other side so ur cut is not in middle
Yea. Run a full block from one side first and then you have a cut at the end of the wall. Cut in the middle will cause a lot more work
Sam Davies cheers was wondering thanks 😄
Can't stand the videos when they don't talk.
Some of my early stuff this.....in some of my newer videos I am talking a lot more :)