All about shell masonry

Shellfish is a stone that consists of many small sea shells of molluscs. The most common variant is considered to be the Crimean variety. This breed is not produced - it is mined in finished form from the coastal lands. Today we will talk about the features of this stone and how to properly lay such material with your own hands.

Shell rock is often also called shell rock. This rock has a texture that is similar to the texture of gravel. Depending on its main characteristics, the stone is divided into several separate types: congeria, gastropod and brachiopod.

Shell rock has excellent decorative properties, so it is becoming increasingly popular in finishing renovation work. In addition, it has an interesting and beautiful color scheme. The surface of the stone is permeated with many small pores, which allows it to retain heat for a long time.

With proper processing, the stone becomes a material with maximum resistance to various adverse weather conditions, so it can be used for finishing structures that will be located later in the open air.

Rakushnyak is increasingly used for finishing residential buildings, because it will cost much less than the usual building blocks.... In some cases, it is additionally covered with bricks from the outside - this is done in order to protect the material from excessive moisture.

To lay the shell rock, you should prepare in advance everything you need for this. In addition to the stone itself, you need to purchase the constituent components for the solution. For this, you can use ordinary cement. And also you need to prepare a volumetric container in which the solution will be prepared.

As the necessary tools for masonry, you need to take a building level, a trowel, a tape measure, a hammer and a spatula for mixing the mortar. When calculating the required amount of stone, the area to be covered should be taken into account (window and door openings are not taken into account).

Before starting construction work, it is necessary to mix the mortar correctly, observing all proportions. As the main building material, you can use either ordinary cement, or a special mixture of grades 10, 25 or 50.

When preparing the mass, a small amount of lime should be added to it. Water is an obligatory element. When mixing all the constituent components, a viscous mortar should be obtained. The composition is sometimes made using tyrsa. And also other elements can be included in it:

• clay;
• mura;
• sand;

If you use sand for cooking, then 4 buckets of such material will take 1 bucket of cement. In the manufacture of the composition, first all dry components are mixed with each other, and only then water is gradually added to the resulting mass, and all this is thoroughly mixed.

When the solution and the shell rock itself are ready, you can proceed directly to the installation of the material. First, you can outline a scheme for future masonry, which will help with installation.

The very laying of the walls can be done in several ways: single-row, double-row and multi-row method with bandaging the seams. In the last two cases, the installation is carried out in such a way that blocks laid across (spoon rows) and along (butt rows) of the wall covering alternate with each other.

With the two-row method, such blocks will alternate continuously. In the multi-row method, several spoon lines are first formed (most often 3-5), and then one butt row is mounted. The one-row installation method is used when the masonry is ½ brick. In all cases, work begins with the formation of the corner of the structure.

In any case, care must be taken to ensure that the vertical filling of the joints is sufficient. In some cases, the finished building compound has to be poured into them from above.

In the process of laying the shell rock, special attention should be paid to the seams. If they are filled incorrectly, then small empty "bridges" will form in the coating, which will let the cold pass through themselves, which will significantly weaken the thermal insulation of the entire building.

The thickness of the load-bearing wall coverings is generally the same as the thickness of the stone blocks. If you are building internal partitions that are not load-bearing structures, then it is better to lay the masonry in half the block.

When finishing with such material, you can bind to another building. This will make the overall structure even more robust and reliable. Such laying for joining will look the most presentable and neat.

When you have laid the last top layer of shell rock, it will need to be poured with concrete screed. Do this to level the surface. Then you need to place a special reinforcing belt on top of all this. For this, it is better to use reinforcement; a reinforcing mesh will also be able to fit.

For the pros and cons of shell rock, see the next video.