How to estimate the amount of block for a foundation

hey guys what's up i'm mason the mason and in this video i'm going to show you how to figure out uh how many blocks you're going to need for a job so like your material list you know what i mean i'm just going to make a video on uh like prints stuff like that like how to read a print and how to figure out how many blocks you're going to need in a foundation all right let me use this notebook paper ain't going to lie it might be a little weird to see on my camera it keeps i can't get the lines to look normal we're going to pretend each of these lines here are 16 inches right each one 16 16. you know what i mean 16 because a block is 16 inches so 16 inches right we're gonna do three of them one two three sixteen times three is 48 inches which that means it's a four foot in three block so three over four that's what that means so three or four three quarters 0.75 so so you got six block or you have eight foot wall you know one two three four five six that's eight feet but it's one two three four five six block so what that means is however many lineal feet which i mean is like uh the feet of your wall um lineal foot that means the distance that they tell you on your print so like 20 foot 24 foot however long it is on one side of your wall is a lineal foot so if you had a square like this the lineal foot of your building is just the outside perimeter of just what the print says so let's just say you got a 20 foot wall so 20 foot [Music] 20 lineal feet right here all you have to do is take 20 and times it by the three quarters or i i like to do like the 0.75 and that equals 15 so when you type that lineal foot by the three quarters that gives you your block count 15 block one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen oh another math thing here you got twenty foot right there's twelve inches in a foot so twenty times 12 equals 240 if you divide that by 16 inches because that's how many inches are in a block you get 15. so basically it doesn't matter what the lineal foot is like you just total up the lineal foot like here total it all up and then just times it by 0.75 tells you how many blocks you have i turn the page and i'm gonna do i'm gonna pretend i'm doing a garage foundation just a simple box so anytime you're given a print this is what it's gonna look like it's gonna have these uh lines here two lines and then slashes that means a masonry all these slashes on your blueprints and it gives you the dimensions on the outside where the walls go so 24 by 24 and then over in the side or on a different page it's going to tell you all the specifications like here five forces of eight inch block it's going to tell you about the the rebar the core pouring all that good stuff you know what i mean it all the extra information all we're focused on is this right here and the five courses of block so 24 by 24 it's pretty simple so all you do is uh you add up the lineal foot the lineal foot is the distance around your perimeter pretty simple stuff so you just do 24 plus 24 plus 24 plus 24. okay do this up here so 24 plus 24 plus 24 plus 24 equals 96. so that's your lineal feet all you do times that by 0.75 and that equals 72 so what that means is in one single course and your foundation is 72 block and we have five courses so all you do is 72 times five courses and that equals 360. so for a 24 by 24 foundation five courses you'll need 360 block for the job and this is just a really simple one you know you're not all the time gonna have it workout block or showing you the basics there's tons of other ways to do this i mean this is just the simplest to me it makes sense you just add up the lineal foot times it by three quarters times by the how many courses you need boom you're done you know exactly how many block you need it takes a couple of minutes if you got any additional questions just put them in the comments i mean i it's pretty simple for me but if you uh need me to elaborate a little more just let me know i'll be happy to answer you i'll draw up another one a little more complicated than just a box not much more complicated i am going to use the standard measurements like 24 i don't want no pieces but this is just for basic things and do a basement drawing now and yes i actually drew this to scale so like each line is 16 inches and there are 18 per side 18 times 4 is 72. so here's this print we're going to pretend this is a basement 40 32 20 16 20 16 just easy numbers that work out block over here basement 14 courses 10 inch block so all you do is you add up all of the numbers around the lineal foot of the perimeter of your foundation so you add them all up 20 plus 32 plus 20 plus 16 plus 20 plus 16 equals 144 and so that's the total fee times 5.75 equals 108 block per course then so 108 you have 14 courses 108 times 14 equals 15 12. so that's how many block it will take to do the whole basement there the last part is there might be some openings in your foundation uh most of the time they put two or three windows in a foundation and a a doorway so i'll draw those out quick so when you have a window usually there's a it would be actually over here but i already drew on that but it's usually like an x a little box so i got two windows here and then i got the door and over here where it gives you all your information the windows are 16 inches by 32 inches which is just like four block and then four by eight it's just an easy number to use with the windows you got four block here so eight block total so you just minus eight and then minus again with the door four by eight so three block times twelve courses because blocker eight inches high but anyway so three times twelve thirty six you just subtract those and that is 14 68 block for a simple foundation like this so if you had these measurements two windows and a basement door you would need 1468 block exactly if you were gonna order some block i probably get a couple extra in case some of them break or you know just i'd get like 10 extra it's always better to have more and not need it this is like a basic basement foundation here usually there'd be like a garage over here that you'd build at eight inch block and then there'd be like a porch here yeah so just be like a simple eight inch wall here and an eight inch wall here then you just do the same thing it would be you just do i'll just draw it out quick so if you're gonna do this all you'd have to do is do the lineal foot of this right here 16 and 20 and uh four and eight and we're gonna say they're all uh five courses of eight inch block so so if you totaled up all the lineal foot for your eight inch block here it would be 48 times .75 equals 36 per course and uh you just times that by your five times five and you'll need a hundred and eighty eight inch block for these other walls so real basic there's a little more to it like when you do garages they have like setbacks and things like that and different heights for your your porch and your garage and your basement and it all gets told over on the side or on another page of your print i hope this helped you out all right thanks for watching this video if you have any more uh questions or comments or anything uh just drop them below i will answer all of them and if you have any more like ideas for videos that you want me to do to explain this in more detail just ask and i'll make a video for you thanks for watching

Channel: Mason The Mason

Views: 20,700

Keywords: block, block foundation, house foundation, Mason the Mason, Mason, how to read a blueprint, masonry blueprint, how to count block, how to figure out block count, estimating block count, counting block, estimating block foundation

Id: qv57uUTNATc

Length: 11min 4sec (664 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 07 2022