I must be missing something I have a straight wall made of flat blocks I put in a dpc
So I have from the top Blocks Mortar Plastic Block Mortar Block etc
What stops the top bricks (above the dpc) slipping off the wall.
I.e. there is nothing fixing the dpc to the brick it is resting on
Or have I missed something?
MN
Friction.
and if it's a garden wall, you don't put a damp proof course in it.
A layer of mortar UNDER the DPC.
That increases the friction enough and the weight above does the rest.
The weight. The DPC should also be textured, so there is plenty of friction.
Rick
Nah! It's _gravity_ what does it. No gravity -no 'weight' !
Sometimes I contemplate how houses remain upright a and more-or-less stationary just resting on their damp proof course. The average house is tethered by a flexible electricity cable; a telephone cable; perhaps a gas pipe ; the water main; the soil pipe ; .. perhaps a cable provider's line .... it's not much but thanks to 'Big G's, little 'g'; it's sufficient.
Big G = God Little g = gravity.
Engineers use it a lot; it's normally denominated on Bills-of-Material with a quantity of 'AR' 'As required' . [Luckily one never seems to run out of it, Perhaps the texture on DPC is to enable the gravity to 'stick' to it.?]
I had an experience like this a few months ago with a brick pillar. It was two and a half courses of bricks square and at the centre of the garage opening to support two single width doors with a lintel over each. This was to be converted to a double width door and of course single lintel.
The new lintel was duly fitted into place after propping and supported on pillars on each end, thus leaving a gap below the steel in the centre and the two door frames attached to a side pillar and the centre one. This was completed a couple of weeks before the delivery and fitting of the new door.
On the day before, I removed the old doors and frames, leaving the centre pillar in splendid isolation. I'd assembled some timbers and sheets of OSB for boarding up and a barrow for the bricks and a tarpaulin to catch the bits of brick, plus trusty SDS drill with spade bit.
I was quite looking forward to this small bit of demolition work, but sadly it was not to be.
At the first contact with the pillar, the whole thing wobbled. I was able to push it over easily whereupon it broke into 4 or 5 big chunks. Of course, there was DPC material sitting underneath it on the concrete footing.
I was still able to break up the chunks with the SDS, but it wasn't the same.
Actually the brick bonding holds it in a box section and the overall weight keeps it in place. As each wall can only drift off in one direction, it is countered by the opposite wall.
That is why buttresses and trusses are incorporated in the design. And why all that hassle is raised in modern roofing when people want to utilise the roof-space as utility or living room.
The laws of motion imply that nothing will move without good reason or stop without an opposite one. Or adjust the course of said movement without yet more reason.
Movement is very reasonable.
But not for houses.
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