Each real man in life has three primary tasks that he must fulfill in order to confirm his belonging to the stronger sex. And if there shouldn’t be any problems with the birth and upbringing of a son, as well as planting a tree or even a whole garden, then building a house is a rather complicated process, for which you need to prepare materially, morally, but even more “educationally” for a long time.
Before the future architect in the process of work there will be a lot of problems, one of the priorities is the purchase of building materials. To successfully resolve this issue, you need to have a ready-made construction project, this will help determine the required amount of brick, make it possible to calculate the cement consumption per 1 cubic meter of brickwork and stock up on the right amount of other necessary mortar components, avoiding unnecessary waste.
Do you want a strong house? Build right!
Professional construction is carried out by specially trained people. Even in order to be able to properly lay brickwork, it is necessary to obtain the qualification of a bricklayer. Supervisors supervise all processes on a building site. It may seem to an uninitiated person in all the wisdom of architectural work that in such a work there is nothing complicated at all, but in reality houses can be built in different ways, and many nuances must be observed every time.
Even such subtleties as the topography of the area on which the building will be located, its climatic conditions are taken into account. The method by which the foundation of the house will be made depends on all this, how they will lay the brick, which solution will hold the stones together. Knowing these and other factors will help to understand how much cement is needed for masonry, what characteristics a mortar must have, so that the walls are strong, do not give cracks and distortions after the first wintering, and are not covered with efflorescences.
Not so simple
Based on the averaged indicators, which indicate that the masonry is made with a width of one brick (with its long side equal to 250 mm), about 75 liters are needed per square meter of mortar wall. But what is the consumption of cement per 1 cubic meter of masonry, if it is an interior wall, which is usually made in half a brick, or a thickened outer wall of 2-2.5 stones?
To determine the amount of solution, and, accordingly, necessary for mixing cement, sand, water and other optional, but sometimes simply irreplaceable components, it is important to know several factors. This is the thickness of the joints, the structure of the bricks and their size, and the mixture proportions themselves are an important factor affecting the consumption of cement for 1m3 and 1m2 of masonry of different types of bricks.
Here are some data that will be useful for preliminary calculations, but it is worthwhile to understand that it is better to always buy material with an increase of 10-15%, this will save you from a second visit to the construction site.
Type of masonry by thickness (bricks) | Standard brick (m3 mortar) | One and a half bricks (m3 mortar) |
0.5 | 0.189 | 0.160 |
1 | 0.221 | 0,200 |
1,5 | 0.234 | 0.216 |
2 | 0.240 | 0.222 |
2,5 | 0.245 | 0.227 |
As can be seen from the table, the maximum cement consumption per 1 cubic meter of masonry is 250 cubic meters, but this value is true for the thickest walls. The complexity of the calculations lies in the fact that the solution is not sold already mixed up, and its main components are measured not in liters, but in kilograms.
What is a masonry mortar?
In everyday life, or rather, at a construction site, it’s rare when you hear a phrase from workers like: “Bring me a bucket of mortar!” Most often, it is customary to ask just a bucket of cement, but it is worthwhile to understand that in addition to the bonding agent itself, other components also enter the mixture. Moreover, in such a matter as the consumption of cement for a cube of masonry, the proportions of the mortar are very important, and although they are set for an ideal environment, in practice they may slightly differ.
Traditionally, the solution consists directly of cement, which can be of different grades, meaning different strength of the composition. For masonry, it is customary to take grades with the numbering M200 or M300, and the more “powerful” cement, M500, is usually required to fill the screed or form concrete blocks, the foundation. Other essential components are sand and water. So, the classic formula of the solution is 1 part cement and 4 parts sand, water is taken about half the weight of cement.
Cement Cement
Why is this cement consumption per 1 cube of brickwork - approximate, and do not blindly rely on the above formula. How to make an estimate for ordering all the necessary material necessary for mixing the solution is a question that often haunts inexperienced builders. As for the order of cement, you should know that it is sold in bags, their weight is 50 kg. If you make calculations by weight, then for mixing 1m3 of a solution of grade M150 from cement M400 you need to take 400 kg of cement, and for a solution with a strength of M 200 the same cement will need 490 kg. When cement of grade M 500 is purchased, its consumption for creating a solution of grade M 150 is 330 kg, and M 200 is 410 kg. These data are the consumption of cement for brick laying in 1 cube, which are taken from generally accepted building standards.
The subtleties of kneading
Sand - the second important component - is also sold from bases and quarries by weight. This material will require several times more to complete the work, so talking about the purchase of sand per kilogram is inappropriate, we will talk about tons.
Competent specialists convince that when mixing sand-cement mortar, it is important to make a mixture of suitable density, which would be comfortable to work with. It is sand that gives the necessary plasticity to the solution, on the contrary, cement has a very fine grinding, because of which its particles are not able to significantly affect the density of the mixture.
Water should be poured into the solution in small portions, based on weight, but not on the volume of cement. However, you can not pour out all the liquid at once, so that later you do not have to correct the situation, again and again mixing the components in the eye. The fact is that it is impossible to predict in advance how clean the sand will be, what its humidity will be, and also the weather conditions in which the construction will take place.
In addition to sand, water and cement, the solution may contain other components: lime, clay, mixtures that help prevent the mixture from freezing, as well as additives that prevent the formation of efflorescence (whitish spots) on the walls.
Brick to brick
How much cement is needed per 1 cubic meter of bricklaying depends on what kind of masonry material to work with. The use of large bricks (one and a half and double) can reduce the volume of the mortar, but this statement is not entirely true with respect to hollow stone. With a batch of cement for him you need to be extremely careful and cautious. A too liquid mixture will penetrate into the voids, which, firstly, eliminates the heat-saving and sound-insulating effect of the brick, and secondly, increases the consumption of sand-cement mortar.
Experts recommend kneading the mixture in such a proportion that during operation it was easy to apply it with a trowel to the working area of the masonry, and suturing the seams did not become excessive labor. The amount of cement consumed also depends on how much mortar is applied to the brick. For masonry, which will subsequently be hidden under the finish (siding, decorative plaster, lining), it is usually enough to apply a cement mixture to the central part of the brick. Then there is no need for the design of seams, which also have quite specific requirements. So, vertically located should not exceed a width of 8-15 mm, and horizontal - 10-15 mm.
Useful Tips
Summing up the publication, I want to note a few more important points:
- Cement is a material that is not subject to long-term storage. Saturating with moisture, it “dubs” and turns into stone. In addition, it quickly loses its astringent properties; under incorrect storage conditions, this parameter decreases on average by 20% per month.
- To get a quality solution, you need to choose the right sand. Ideally, it should be medium-grained, and its moisture saturation should not exceed 7%.
- The shelf life of the finished solution is very small. After 1-2 hours after mixing the components, the composition will already be unsuitable, so you can not mix cement for the future.