No, this isn’t an article about how to keep your child busy while you’re working on a home renovation, building things with concrete blocks is a legitimate technique when it comes to doing things around the house. There are several things that you can do when it comes to renovation jobs around the house that deal with concrete, and one of the more common is building a partition wall on the inside of a room.
Although drywall is the material that many renovators use in their homes today to divide rooms for privacy or any other reason, if your home is built on a concrete slab it is possible to use concrete blocks as an alternative. If you want to include a doorway into the partition as well, it’s a good idea to plan ahead and this will prevent you from needing to cut too many concrete blocks, which can often be a difficult job. Here you will need to allow for a wood doorframe as well as a header above the frame for support. There will also be a need for metal connectors that can join the new wall to the existing structure—plum these connectors accurately to ensure that the new wall is plumb.
Here’s how the actual job is accomplished. You need to lay the first course of blocks without using any mortar. Mark the position of the blocks before laying steps at each end and then lay out another three courses anchoring the end blocks with the connectors. Of course to do this properly, there is a skill set that you will need to use and one of the first things that is necessary is that you learn how to cut the blocks.
If you don’t have a masonry saw blade, cut the concrete block by scoring a line into the groove by using a cold chisel. It’s not uncommon that the do-it-yourselfer or the weekend warrior, as they’re called, doesn’t feel the need to invest in all the right tools for the job especially if they’re only planning on using them for the one project. Here, you can pick up these kinds of helpful hints that can help you get around having to lay out lots of money, or you can also go to your local home renovation supply store and rent the tools that you need on a daily or even weekly basis. By using the chisel technique here, it’s possible to tap all the way around the block and get it to break along the perforated edge—it takes a little more time, but it’s not as costly as either buying or renting the proper tools.
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