Construction> Tips and Tricks Three Do-It-Yourselfers Offer Tips & Tricks It's been almost four years now since we first went to the expo hall in San Antonio and bumped into an interesting building material on display there called "Grid-WALL". We were considering building either a small house or studio in the backyard and thought it might be a good idea to see what new ideas had come along in construction that we might want to use in our own project. We brought home a lot of brochures and ideas and thought about what it was that we wanted to create. The one thing that had grabbed the attention of all of us, (my husband John Walton, his sister, Hillary, and her husband, Gene Brison) was an interesting 'new' building material made from cement and recycled styrofoam.  As we looked into its features, they sounded almost too good to be true.  Strong, rot proof, super energy efficient, sound dampening, fast and easy to use, no special tools required, and (best of all for us!) it was affordable, too. We did some homework, got out the calculator, and came up with a game plan that included a convenient exchange of services for materials, Amazon acquired our much needed web design and photography services and we received enough blocks to build two small backyard projects. Being thus in the unique position of both builder and jobsite photographer, we've gathered together many months of observation as well as our own construction experience. We have tried to present here a condensation of the things we've learned and observed to help you, the do-it-yourselfer, avoid potential problems, save time, money, and energy in your own project. We hope you find it helpful. Wedge and Snap-Pin Clamping System We came across this technique during one of our many visits to Grid-WALL jobsites as we gathered photos for Amazon and used this nice little system to secure all our own bracing and cutting guides.  It is a quick, easy, and reliable method for clamping braces or guides onto the walls.  The contractor who we saw using this system reused the wedges and plywood in his next construction site.  We thought it was worth the extra expense even to use them once, but of course they can be sold afterwards and much of the expense recovered. The Snap-Pins The snap pins are double headed steel pins that come with plastic cones that must be removed before use in our projects. They can be easily driven through any area of the Grid-WALL block by use of a lightweight hammer, including the solid thick areas. Even though the pin measures 15.5 inches in length, it is named a 6 inch snap pin because of the distance between the inner heads.  The double headed "snap pin" is used to sandwich together the plywood "band-aids" and the 2 x 4 braces.  We used a small piece of scrap plywood ('doughnuts') as a spacer to tighten the assembly. The whole shebang is then held in place securely by the use of cast iron wedges which are hammered until the whole assembly is squeezed tightly. The 6 inch J8HN Tie (Part # 15400) is sold in boxes of 100 at Sheplers Concrete Supply (Phone: 210-656-3010 @ 4911 Whirlwind Dr., San Antonio) for about $37.00.   After the pour has hardened and the braces removed, the exposed length of snap pin is cut off with a hand held grinder. The Wedges The wedges are available in either cast iron or stamped steel ( and are sold individually for about $0.85 each. If you are not planning to use them again for another project, you might want to consider selling them to another builder afterwards. John and I have quite a pile of wedges and doughnuts left over from our construction and we would sell them through Amazon to other do it yourselfers. Bracing We elected to use vertical bracing at every seam. Rather than try to patch all the missing corners of our broken blocks, we simply applied a plywood 'band-aid' over the whole seam, which not only took care of the missing material, but also helped provide extra insurance against the dreaded 'blow-out' We used as much recycled materials as we could find for this purpose, helping to cut our expenses on wood. Because of the height of our walls, almost every brace could be secured with only three snap pins. We marked all the lumber at 1 foot, 4 foot, and 8 foot and drilled holes for the snap pins. And because our project took many months longer to pour than a typical project of similar size, the extra braces helped stabilize the fragile walls during several spells of bad weather. When the bracing is removed after the pour, you can see that the areas where the blocks had missing material are now nicely filled. After the stucco is applied, no trace of a broken block will be visible. Ledger Bolts Because Gene is building a workshop/garage and wants lots of strong, utilitarian shelving, we decided to include ledger bolts in the grid design, set deeply into the solid concrete gridwork. These bolts extend into the interior room with room enough to fasten a horizontal ledger board that will then be able to support the shelving. We used a hole saw to cut away the block at a void where we wanted to place a bolt. We then used a long steel rod to knock two small holes through the back of the block, behind the large hole cut with the saw. These small holes in the back allow a wire to pass through the back to a 2 x 2 stick that is used to twist the wire and tightens everything in place until after the pour. The threaded end of the bolt has two nuts that grip a small piece of 1 inch thick scrap wood cut large enough to cover the hole made with the saw. The wood had two small holes drilled for the wire that we used to fasten the unit tightly in place from the exterior wall as described above. The head of the bolt sandwich is then set in place and the wire is guided through the holes in the exterior wall. We used a small piece of scrap 2 x 2 to twist the wire with a nail to keep it in position until after the pour. After the pour, the wooden face plate is removed, the small wire is cut flush with the wall on both the front and back, and the ledger bolts are secured into the solid concrete grid. Salvage Supplies Another tip: We were fortunate to find a large supply of galvanized hardware for our construction at a recycling center run by the City of San Antonio, (the CPS yard off Nacogdoches Rd) which saved us a great deal of money on this industrial strength hardware. (They are open twice a month on Fridays.) Gluing This tip might save you a few bucks: read the directions on the glue can! Don't do what we did and detach the glue gun from the can after each use. Detach ONLY after the can is empty and you are ready to replace it with a fresh one. John discovered that detaching and cleaning after each use results in lower life expectancy of the expensive gun. Just follow the directions that come with the glue and gun and you will be ahead on this one. We do recommend gluing all seams, especially if you think your walls will have to withstand severe weather before the pour. Cutting Guide We used 2 x 4's clamped to the wall as a cutting guide for the chainsaw. We had to move our vertical braces out of the way while the horizontal cuts were made, then we replaced them. This makes a very even cut quickly and accurately. Use Scaffolding and a Motorized Winch If you do not have a close friend or family member in the construction business, you will have to either purchase or rent the scaffolding for your project. Since we knew our construction would take months, renting did not seem a very cost effective way to go about things. We consulted a good friend of ours when planning our project about buying our used scaffolding for a nice discount after we've finished using it. It was a great arrangement for both of us financially. And it is undoubtedly a much safer way to handle the stacking process. We consider it an absolute essential piece of equipment. We bought a motorized winch with a lift capability of 200 pounds and mounted it to the top of the scaffolding. We used a fiberglass belt and a bent piece of scrap rebar from our foundation construction to fasten the blocks to the lift cable. We extended the wiring to the motor control so we could operate it from the ground. This system was easy to use, fast, and it sure was a lot cheaper than even one visit to a chiropractor. None of us had to do any heavy lifting, and this was a good thing as none of us are really fit enough to be doing any. We used this "Navigator" saw to plumb the blocks. Available for $20 at the Black & Decker factory refurb store in San Marcos. Small, lightweight, inexpensive and easily trims the Grid-WALL blocks. Chainsaws cut away more material, and sometimes you need to remove less. Invaluable for plumbing the walls. Use An Experienced Concrete Delivery Company John and I cannot say for sure how many pours we'd visited that went badly or were delayed because the cement mixture delivered was not what was ordered, but enough to know that this could be a very sticky ordeal. We'd heard stories about how carefully others had emphasized the importance of their critical mixture when placing their order, but sure enough what would arrive at the pour would be something else altogether. It was amazing to us how often this seemed to happen during our months of photography work for Amazon. So, even before our foundations were started, I was secretly planning my strategy for handling our own order. I was already on to some of the better excuses, like "Hey, I'm just the delivery man" or, "Who'd you talk to about that mix?" I am a redhead, and I was prepared for trouble!  Fortunately for someone out there, by the time we were ready for our own pour, Amazon had long been recommending a particular delivery company who was by that time very experienced with their specifications. And, lucky for us, we live within their delivery area, and so this settled the question for us of which concrete delivery company to use. But if you are not so fortunate as to be able to get Texstar Enterprises who now has many Grid-WALL pours under their belt, you might want to have something prepared for the snappy truck driver excuse you might get instead of the mix you so carefully ordered. We can't tell you that you should or shouldn't use a specific concrete delivery service, but we can certainly tell you that our experience with Texstar was wonderful. And because of a faulty pumper truck during our first attempt to pour, they actually went to a lot of extra trouble to get the job done for us. [Texstar's number is 210-863-1154, tell Dennis the Walton's say "hi"] We used Grid-WALL factory seconds, which are no longer available, to build a 28 x 40 foot workshop/garage for Gene and a 27 x 23 foot art studio/computer training classroom for John and myself. While it did require more time and patience to use them, the results are just as satisfactory as if we'd used premium grade blocks. Once the walls are poured, they have the same strength and characteristics as any other, and once they are stuccoed over, no one is going to ever notice the blemishes or imperfections. We often had to enlarge the diameter of the hollow horizontal grid with a chainsaw until they were the correct size, and sometimes we had to be creative in deciding where to place the blocks, and how to orient them, but we are all very pleased with the results. Safety One last piece of advice, perhaps the best tip we can pass on, is a word about safety.  The reason it took over a year for us to complete the studio we have been chronicling above, is because there was a momentary lapse of caution when it came to safety, and a split second later Mr. John Walton found himself unexpectedly on the concrete drive below the roof he very nearly finished.  Two shattered heal bones make quite a long detour in construction progress and can change the way you think of simple safety measures forever.  Eight months in a wheelchair will do a lot to change your work habits, during which John took a lot of ribbing about having "forgotten his cape".