Self-made bricks for building a house
It's good to have a house outside the city! But what if there is a plot, but there is no money for building materials? So, you need to build from what is!
Materials for making bricks and blocks
Today everyone is used to buying ready-made building materials. And our ancestors did everything with their own hands. And their houses were strong, warm, comfortable.
The current craftsmen also began to make bricks with their own hands for the construction of a suburban home. A variety of materials are used for this.
You can make the following building materials at home:
- concrete cinder blocks;
- adobe bricks;
- terrablocks.
With diligence, work and patience, all the work can be done without any purchased mechanisms. And financial investments for the material can be minimized.
Molds for bricks and blocks
You can buy them, of course. But since it is decided to do everything with your own hands, then the molds for pouring should be built yourself. Moreover, ready-made bricks are useful not only for building a house, but also for building a poultry house, pigsty, garage and other utility rooms.
If possible, metal molds can be made. But the easiest option is to put them together from plywood or wooden planks.
Either single forms, or double, or continuous multi-piece forms are made. First, the walls of the box are hammered together. The bottom of the mold is best made retractable. But the covers are not attached in any way, but simply superimposed on top. It is recommended to stuff cone-shaped cones on them to obtain voids in bricks and blocks.
Although some craftsmen do without covers at all when making bricks. Their bricks and blocks are cast, solid, without voids. In this case, more material is consumed, and the thermal conductivity of the walls is higher. That is, housing is less warm, since it is easier to share temperature with the environment.
If the mold is made for casting two or more blocks or bricks, then partitions are inserted inside. They can be made both stationary and removable. The latter option is considered more successful, since the bricks can be removed without any problems after removing the partitions.
Forms for making blocks and bricks differ only in their size. Moreover, everyone chooses for himself how large his building materials will be.
Concrete cinder blocks
This option is the most expensive of the three above. But, nevertheless, by making blocks on their own, and not purchasing, the master significantly saves money.
For a concrete cinder block you need to take:
- 1 part cement;
- 6 pieces of sand;
- 10 parts filler.
Expanded clay or crushed stone acts as a filler. But a thrifty owner can replace purchased ingredients with ordinary garbage, which is easy to collect both in his yard and from neighbors or (may people with aristocratic education forgive me!) In a landfill.
It is important to use as a filler something that does not rot or shrink.
These are:
- broken glass;
- stones;
- pieces of brick;
- plastic;
- small metal parts.
When combining ingredients, it is necessary to measure the parts based not on the weight of the materials, but on their volume.
Calculate the volume of the filler by a method based on Archimedes' law.
This will require a container of a known volume and water. First, the material is put into it.Then they fill everything with water, filling the container completely. After that, it just remains to calculate how much water fits, subtract this number from the known volume of the container. There will remain just that figure, which will be equal to the volume of the measured material.
Adobe bricks
For the production of building materials of this kind, the following ingredients are required in equal volumes:
- clay;
- sand;
- wet manure or peat;
- filler.
Used as a filler:
- shredded fibers of insulation;
- reed trifle;
- shavings;
- sawdust;
- moss;
- chopped straw.
You can add lime fluff or cement to the mass to increase strength.
If you have difficulty finding peat or manure, experts advise you to make your own brick stabilizer. To do this, vegetable tops, leaves, weeds are dumped into a special pit and poured with clay solution. After three months, the decayed mass can be used as an ingredient for preparing an adobe solution.
Terrablocks
It is even easier to use ordinary earth as a material for bricks and blocks.
For earth bricks, one should take not the top layer of the soil, in which plant roots are found in large numbers, but located deeper. Silty soils are not suitable for work.
Ingredients for terrablocks:
- 1 part clay;
- 9 pieces of land;
- 5% fluff;
- 2% cement;
- filler (slag, garbage, crushed stone, expanded clay, crushed insulation).
You can stir the ingredients for the composition with your feet by placing it in a pit, a large tub-like container. There is an option to carry out this work with the help of special devices - ground mixers, reminiscent of miniature concrete mixers.
Drying bricks
Concrete bricks and cinder blocks dry out in good warm weather in one to two days. But adobe and earthen building materials have to be kept under a canopy for a week or even about half a month. A canopy is needed to protect bricks and blocks from rain and sunlight.
Moreover, adobe and terracirpichi are first dried in a horizontal position for 2-3 days, and then turned onto a barrel. After a few days, they are shifted to the opposite side, then up with the lower part.
If brick production takes place in winter, it is necessary to equip a room with walls, a ceiling and heating for drying.
It is very important to remember when building a house from adobe or earthen bricks: the decoration cannot be carried out earlier than a year after the walls were erected!
This rule follows from the fact that buildings made of this building material tend to shrink strongly.