Turn CMU block for more depth?

[Bammer25]

Has anyone designed a wall to have standard 16x8 block turned 90 degrees to take advantage of a much greater depth to rebar?

Only draw back I can think of is how you would run horizontal bar through it

 

[phamENG]

Probably more cost effective to do a buttressed wall.

Put 24x24 pilasters full height at regular intervals and span 8" block horizontally between them.

 

[Celt83]

unless your doing stack bond turning the block 90 would have the face shell conflicting with the core every other course. A buttressed wall as PhamENG suggest would be plausible.

 

[KootK]

Has anyone designed a wall to have standard 16x8 block turned 90 degrees to take advantage of a much greater depth to rebar?

Never. It's a clever idea though. If it would be acceptable aesthetically, just rotate a course every once in a while so that you get good load distribution and avoid the stack bond thing. This is quite similar to how soldier courses worked in the multi-wythe brick walls of old.

For horizontal reinforcing, I suppose that you're either custom knocking out face shell to facilitate that or getting by with whatever you can stuff into the bed joints.

If you truly need a 16" wall, this may be a cheaper way to get it that using larger individual blocks. That, just because it pretty much takes two people to lift and place a block larger than 8".

I summon masonrygeek!

 

[Bammer25]

The plaster is a good idea. It’s a 20 ft wall so spanning one third points horizontally is easy with a bar every course. The pilaster may need to be 32x32. I am getting it way over stressed with 24x24 and a number six in each cell

 

[dik]

You used to be able to get 16" deep 'U' blocks...

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik