Consider the following points before deciding on whether to make your blocks on your site.

1. Space.
You must have enough space in the land you plan to build before you talk of making your own blocks on site. Keeping the sand, and spreading out the blocks you need to make will take some extra space that's not on the build space. It's not every site that has this extra space to play with.

2. Supervision.
Before you conclude on making your own blocks, you have to first ensure that you will be there with the block makers to monitor the way they are making your blocks. Or you have to place a knowledgeable person on site for all the hours the block makers are working. This is to ensure that they use your whole cement to make blocks, and not use 80 bags out of the 100 you bought, because you are not on ground. The extra 20 bags could disappear, and you wont find out.

3. Mix ratios
This is the most important matter. The mix ratio of cement to sand and or stone dust, plus water is extremely important. You have to know this, and also ensure that the ratios are applied in every mix, because in your absence, workers will do what is easier for them, without minding what you planned to achieve with your blocks.

4. Turning methods
The turning of sand is a process that has been mastered by block industry owners, and except you are knowledgeable about the methods, the block makers will circumvent the process and do what's easier for them, right in front of you. There is a method of turning, and there is a number of times you must mix, and there is a particular moisture content that must be used before your blocks turns out right. How many house owners knows how many buckets of water must be added into a mix of 1 bag, at what intervals should this water be added?

5. How many blocks per bag
Do you know that owners of block industries can make 45 - 50 blocks from one bag of cement and it will be stronger than the 28 - 30 blocks you made from your bag of cement at your own site? Do you know there are specific cement brands that gives more yield, do you know that there are some sands that will give you a lower yield of blocks, or blocks that break upon minimum impact?

6. Curing process
When are they supposed to start treating the newly made blocks with water, how many times in a day, and at what times of the day should the water be poured on the blocks? Most importantly, who's monitoring this water treatment?

We should carefully go through these points and if either one or more of these important processes are breached, your blocks might turn out to be less strong than the ones they make in the block industry.

I started buying blocks from trusted hands in the past 10 years after finding out these truths, and as you can see from those pictures, none of the 2,000 blocks offloaded in this site was broken. We are using some of the blocks as seats on site now.

spyder880:
Consider the following points before deciding on whether to make your blocks on your site.

1. Space.
You must have enough space in the land you plan to build before you talk of making your own blocks on site. Keeping the sand, and spreading out the blocks you need to make will take some extra space that's not on the build space. It's not every site that has this extra space to play with.

2. Supervision.
Before you conclude on making your own blocks, you have to first ensure that you will be there with the block makers to monitor the way they are making your blocks. Or you have to place a knowledgeable person on site for all the hours the block makers are working. This is to ensure that they use your whole cement to make blocks, and not use 80 bags out of the 100 you bought, because you are not on ground. The extra 20 bags could disappear, and you wont find out.

3. Mix ratios
This is the most important matter. The mix ratio of cement to sand and or stone dust, plus water is extremely important. You have to know this, and also ensure that the ratios are applied in every mix, because in your absence, workers will do what is easier for them, without minding what you planned to achieve with your blocks.

4. Turning methods
The turning of sand is a process that has been mastered by block industry owners, and except you are knowledgeable about the methods, the block makers will circumvent the process and do what's easier for them, right in front of you. There is a method of turning, and there is a number of times you must mix, and there is a particular moisture content that must be used before your blocks turns out right. How many house owners knows how many buckets of water must be added into a mix of 1 bag, at what intervals should this water be added?

5. How many blocks per bag
Do you know that owners of block industries can make 45 - 50 blocks from one bag of cement and it will be stronger than the 28 - 30 blocks you made from your bag of cement at your own site? Do you know there are specific cement brands that gives more yield, do you know that there are some sands that will give you a lower yield of blocks, or blocks that break upon minimum impact?

6. Curing process
When are they supposed to start treating the newly made blocks with water, how many times in a day, and at what times of the day should the water be poured on the blocks? Most importantly, who's monitoring this water treatment?

We should carefully go through these points and if either one or more of these important processes are breached, your blocks might turn out to be less strong than the ones they make in the block industry.

I started buying blocks from trusted hands in the past 10 years after finding out these truths, and as you can see from those pictures, none of the 2,000 blocks offloaded in this site was broken. We are using some of the blocks as seats on site now.

Oga mii please is the structural engineer suppose to provide us the mixing ratio for block moulding? Else , are there videos we can watch to know this? Also the turning method you mentioned, how can we obtain this knowledge?

ice4u999:


Oga mii please is the structural engineer suppose to provide us the mixing ratio for block moulding? Else , are there videos we can watch to know this? Also the turning method you mentioned, how can we obtain this knowledge?

Yes, especially a structural engineer with a good knowledge of the local sand and how it could be best utilized.

On the second question, I haven't done a recording of it yet, maybe I will do one and post on YouTube. I have a YouTube channel but dont post there often.

spyder880:


Yes, especially a structural engineer with a good knowledge of the local sand and how it could be best utilized.

On the second question, I haven't done a recording of it yet, maybe I will do one and post on YouTube. I have a YouTube channel but dont post there often.

Posting videos on YouTube is a very good idea and will definitely help. Lots of people will really love to learn

spyder880:
Some call it blocks while others call it 'sandcrete', this is an important building material which we get by mixing powdered cement, sharp sand and water in a ratio made to suit the job it was produced for. You might wonder why I used the phrase 'in a ratio made to suit the job it was produced for'? Okay,  there are many uses for blocks apart from using it to raise the walls in homes and fences. Blocks could be used for a variety of works, including

1. Walling of a house
2. Making a fence
3. Building a generator house or any other house that have vibrating machines inside it.
4. Toilet pits or soak away tanks.

Because of the various uses for blocks, the mixing ratio cannot be the same, we tend to reduce the ratio of sand to a bag of cement if we want a more solid mix or a block product which can do more than covering the walls in a house. I will like to mention here that most houses, especially those built with reinforced concrete columns and metal rods, blocks don't bear any loads, this is why you see houses built without blocks at first, the builder will first raise the columns and deck the first floor, then continue with another set of columns which will bear the next floor, and up and up we go.
There are many different types of blocks in modern building, these include

1. 9" hollow blocks
2. 6" hollow blocks
3. 6" solid blocks
4. 5" solid blocks

These blocks could be used according to the specifications of the building plan you are using. Most houses with more than one floors uses the 9" blocks on the ground floor and maybe the next few floors, but as a house rises in height, it is recommended that the weight of the blocks on the top floors be reduced, ie. If you use 9" blocks to do a ground floor, use 6" to do the top floors to ease the weight on the columns, beams and foundation.

Many more things to say about blocks, let me rest and come back to the topic later.

How many 6'' solid blocks can a Five bedroom flat take?

NnadiClinton:


How many 6'' solid blocks can a Five bedroom flat take?

About 5,000

Good