Rebar and concrete in cinder blocks

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Is it not "standard practice" for contractors to extend retrofit rebar up through the cinder blocks to and thru the sill/mud plate a couple of inches when filling every other block wall with concrete to prevent further leaning of a cinder block wall?

Reply to
burnselk
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I guess that depends on where you live. In Florida it is the law. They "dowel" every corner, door or window opening and every 4' along a running stretch of unbroken wall. That gets tied to the top 2 courses of block that have horizontal reinforcing (4 #5s) and poured solid. All the steel is lapped and tied.

Reply to
gfretwell

It is not "standard practice". It is just common sense, good workmanship, and engineeringly correct. In some areas, it is law. For a contractor not to do that shows he's sloppy. For him not to do that upon your request, even if it is not locally required is reason for termination. Cost wise, you're talking another twenty bucks or so materials. Otherwise, you have a big heavy chunk sitting up there unsecured. What if a car hit it? Earthquake? BIG wind, as in hurricane?

PLOP! Uh-oh.

MHO, How I'd Have It Done, YMMV

Steve

Reply to
SteveB

"extend retrofit rebar" "further leaning"?

Are you asking a contractor to *fix* your leaning wall by making it stronger? and he's saying- "Tear it down and start over."?

In that case- he's right.

Jim

Reply to
Jim Elbrecht

burnselk wrote:

By 'retrofit', do you mean repairing an existing wall? If the wall is visibly leaning, the proper answer is to excavate the buried side, and rebuild. Not try some half-ass in-place repair, that even if it doesn't collapse, would in all odds leak from the same hydrostatic pressure or hill slump that broke the wall in the first place. Repairing it the right way is expensive and labor-intensive, but not technically complicated. Support the structure above with pilings, temporary wall, or cribbing, expose old wall, demo and build back. I recall one house as a kid where a sudden rainstorm took out a section of basement wall on an unfinished house, and my old man had to pay a week's rent on a crane to hold that end of the house up, using a steel cable dropped through house to a hunk of steel in basement slung under a dozen joists. They simply didn't have time to do it any other way, because the water was rising fast in the backfill pit. Needless to say, that killed any profit on that house. On another house, I was cleaning the basement so they could pour the slab, while they were dumping the sand in the garage so that slab could be poured. I saw the basement wall by the garage flexing. That is about the quickest I ever climbed out of a basement pit up a kickboard in my life- I was sure the whole damn place was gonna be on top of me. All the grownups on the site were pissed, of course, but not terribly worried.

On a new wall, especially an above-ground one, local quake or hurricane code may require all sorts of rebar, horizontal 'Z' strips every 2nd or

3rd course, extra mudded-in J bolts to tie sill plate down, and filled pockets every X feet. Your building designer, competent local mason, or code office, should all know the local code and custom.

-- aem sends...

Reply to
aemeijers

On another house, I was cleaning the basement so they could

In my last basement with poured concrete walls I watched a crack appear as the track loader sped by to dump dirt around to the side of the house. As I ran up to tell him to take a different route, I remembered the guy took a shortcut when excavating and made a 2nd access ramp at that spot so he didn't have to go halfway around the house to dump the dirt. He should have at least been extra careful and/or stayed out of that area until it settled.

Reply to
Tony

Standard practice, whether in quotes or not, varies tremendously by location, code and local custom.

Extending the rebar through the sill plate is definitely not how it is done. The correct way is to use anchor bolts embedded in mortar in the concrete block (many areas cinder blocks are no longer available).

Further leaning is a scary phrase - not necessarily from the danger, but how it loads the question with different meanings. If you want a bullshit answer, dance around, but if you want help, ask specific questions and provide specific detail and pictures.

R
Reply to
RicodJour

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