How Thick Does A Concrete Wall Need To Be

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How thick does a concrete wall need to be.

Although a thickness of 8 inches is typical for a home with 8 foot high concrete foundation walls an important exception exists. There is nothing in basic portland cement that will act as a bonding agent. Concrete would have gotten an f. Exterior wall thickness depends on siding material.

Poured concrete foundation walls that are less than 8 feet tall and have soil outside that is 6 or 7 feet deep against the wall can often be 8 inches thick and function quite well. The thickness of interior walls is dictated by stud width and wall covering. The recommended maximum is 12 inches. To keep the house and the room from being sucked into the air during a tornado large footings that work like anchors are added to the walls to hold the room in place.

Portland cement concrete works well in mass and provides great compressive strength but not bond. When it does you either have to patch it or replace it. Structural concrete work is planned to bear loads or hold weight but transfer the weight to the soil base beneath the structure. Calculate the required weight and volume of readymix concrete you need for your wall column steps slabs footings and others.

In order for a concrete room to effectively resist high winds and flying debris most rooms built with precast concrete walls rely on 12 to 16 inch thick blocks. Assuming that it is. The thickness of concrete is an important factor in load bearing strength but to conserve resources and avoid over building other factors are also taken into consideration. Click the button to calculate the volume of concrete and man hours not including mixing needed for this job.

The 8 inch thickness works well for homes with most types of siding but does not provide adequate support for a home with brick veneer siding. As soon as you go higher or have greater depths of soil pushing against the wall you need to increase the thickness to 10 inches. Concrete is marvelous stuff but in time it will deteriorate. Standard 2 by 4 studs are 3 1 2 inches wide and drywall is 1 2 inch thick so interior walls are usually 4 1 2 inches thick.

For example if you are pouring a retaining wall that will be 12 inches thick and will use wooden planks that are 1 1 2 inches thick for your forms you ll need to space the stakes about 15 inches apart 12 inches for the retaining wall plus two pieces of 1 1 2 inch thick wooden board.