Block pier 440mm wide, full blocks stacked?

[Laggy]

Hi

I’m building a pier that is 440mm wide, between a new garage door and the existing house.

Brick skin and aircrete skin, tied together.

Because of the width, and there are no corners / returns, I don’t actually need a bond as such on the blocks, I could just stack one on top of the other. The pier is only one floor so about 2.3m tall.

This seems a bit weird to me as a DIYer but surely I shouldn’t be adding cut blocks just to introduce a staggered bond, eg 150mm and 290mm pieces?

surely adding unnecessary cuts just makes it weaker?

Just checking this stacking doesn’t break any rules of bonding and all that.

Cheers!

 

[Laggy]

 

[noseall]

As a more or less stand alone pier, that is to resist the constant slammings of a garage door, Id say that needs to be a bonded brick pier or similar.

 

[Laggy]

It’s not really a “garage” door, I’ve labelled it incorrectly, it’s a double side hung door. Sorry for that.

I’m going to build it to the drawings which show two leafs and cavity, so if I was doing that would you just stack blocks and no joins?

 

[^woody^]

You're better off returning the reveals, and with ties every course that should be adequate.

 

[Laggy]

I decided against that as I read better to use cavity closers so as not to cause thermal / damp bridge etc,

sorry to be cheeky but can we pretend the diagram doesn’t exist and my question is:

when building a 440mm wide wall, is stacking blocks ok or do you need some sort of added bond even though dimensionally the joins are not needed?

 

[^woody^]

Well you should undecide against it. And it can't be unseen.

You don't need a thermal cavity barrier in a garage, just a vDPC. The main criteria would a a strong inner leaf, and a bonded reveal would satisfy that.

But if you are hell bent on a single block, then no you don't need to bond a single block as there is no point

 

[Laggy]

Thanks Woody for the advice