Stone Walls Do Not a Prison Make

"What happened here?" The concrete blocks aren't lining up right on the rebar or with eachother.

One of the first jobs I became involved with here was this prison. The walls are going up and it was high time today for a site visit and a little coaching for our Iraqi contractor who never put up a wall to these standards before; there will be no "mud" stucco to cover the blemishes on this wall. The design called for 40cm spacing on the rebar, and those are 40cm blocks. After half a kilometer of rebar-embedded foundation was poured the sub discovered there would be a problem every other block because there was no plan for the 1cm mortar joint between each block. After some problem solving, a remediation plan was devised. Chuck is a wiz with this stuff and dug right into the mortar to show them how to butter the block ends and suggested ways to set and align the block they hadn't tried. This stretch of wall will be rebuilt, but stucco isn't a bad idea...

Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage, Minds innocent and quiet take That for an hermitage. Author: Richard LovelaceSource: To Althea, from Prison (IV)