Making a blind area around your house is a useful and important task that guards against water damage to your foundation. A blind area is the portion of your home’s perimeter that is made of concrete or another impermeable material that keeps rainwater away from the foundation. This easy addition will stop water seepage and soil erosion, greatly extending the life of your home’s foundation.
Building the formwork is one of the initial steps in building a blind area. Concrete is poured into formwork, a temporary mold, to take on the desired shape as it solidifies. Although creating your own formwork for a blind area at home may seem difficult, it’s a doable do-it-yourself project with a little help. A little preparation, patience, and some basic supplies and tools are required.
We’ll take you step-by-step through the process of creating formwork for a blind area in this article. Everything will be covered, starting with the appropriate material selection and ending with the formwork assembly, alignment, and security. After reading this guide, you’ll be equipped with the know-how and self-assurance to handle this project alone, saving money and feeling proud that you improved your home’s security on your own.
| Step | Description |
| 1 | Plan and measure the area where the blind area will be placed. |
| 2 | Mark the boundaries using wooden stakes and string. |
| 3 | Excavate the area to the desired depth, usually around 20-30 cm. |
| 4 | Place a layer of sand or gravel at the bottom of the trench for drainage. |
| 5 | Build the formwork using wooden boards, ensuring they are level and secure. |
| 6 | Reinforce the formwork with stakes or braces if necessary. |
| 7 | Install any necessary reinforcement, such as steel mesh or rebar. |
| 8 | Pour the concrete into the formwork, starting from one end and working your way to the other. |
| 9 | Level and smooth the concrete using a screed board or float. |
| 10 | Allow the concrete to cure for the recommended time, usually at least 24-48 hours. |
- Purpose of a blind area
- Determining the width of the blind area
- Materials and tools for marking and making formwork
- Preparatory stage
- We make removable formwork
- Making expansion joints
- Permanent formwork for the blind area
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Purpose of a blind area
The blind area is a waterproof covering that slopes away from the building and encircles the building along its whole perimeter. The blind area’s primary functions are to shield the foundation from rain, melted snow, and water dripping from the roof and to stop soil erosion around the house. The placement of such a strip greatly increases the building’s overall service life.
In addition to this, the blind area also performs a decorative function, giving any structure a finished look (even if it is made of concrete). It will also be a very convenient walking path along the entire building.
Regardless of the kind of foundation used during construction, the blind area arrangement needs to be followed. Installing it shouldn’t be put off for too long; it should happen right away once the facing job is completed.
Determining the width of the blind area
According to SNiP, depending on the properties of the soil, the blind area’s width around the building can range from 0.7 to 2 meters. When dealing with soils that are considered "normally bearing" and have average standard indicators, blind areas should be approximately one meter wide.
Crucial! The strip’s width ought to be 20–30 cm wider than the overhang of the roof.
Do the following to find the blind area’s width for a particular house:
- attach a plumb line to the edge of the roof (in a convenient place);
- drive a peg into the place where the weight touches the ground;
- measure the distance from the peg to the wall of the building;
- add 20-30 cm to this value and get the width of the blind area we need.
For instance, the width of the strip is 120 cm when the roof overhang is 90 cm and 30 cm is added.
Materials and tools for marking and making formwork
You won’t need rare materials or specialized equipment to create the blind area by hand.
List of required supplies:
- boards (usually standard edged 125 x 25 mm are suitable) or strips of thick plywood sawn to size;
- bars (for making marking and fastening pegs);
- boards 20 mm thick (for expansion joints);
- rope, cord or fishing line (for marking);
- self-tapping screws.
- hacksaw for wood (electric saw or jigsaw);
- hammer (or small sledgehammer);
- screwdriver (or screwdriver);
- tape measure;
- shovel;
- building level.
Preparatory stage
The blind area is easily marked by driving in one peg at each corner of the house and stringing a cord between them so that the width of the blind area around the entire perimeter (120 cm in our case) is equal to the distance from it to the base of the building.
Several tasks must be completed before beginning the formwork:
- in accordance with the markings, using a shovel, we excavate the soil to a depth of about 25-30 cm (which corresponds to the length of the bayonet of a standard construction shovel);
- carefully remove the roots of all plants so that the sprouts that break through in the future do not violate the strength of the structure;
- fill the bottom of the resulting trench with a layer of sand 10-15 cm thick;
- level the sand and moisten it with water;
- we tamp the sand using a vibrating machine or a hand rammer (this operation must be repeated 2-3 times, periodically moistening the sand).
You can now begin creating the formwork.
We make removable formwork
For a concrete blind area, formwork establishes the geometry of the solution and keeps it from spreading. The actual formwork arrangement is a fairly easy process that doesn’t call for any specialized knowledge or abilities:
- On the outside of the cord, at a distance of 1.5-2 m from each other, we drive in vertically pegs made of wooden beams.
- Along the entire perimeter, we install boards on the edge (we fasten them to the pegs with self-tapping screws).
Counseling! We use extra pegs to reinforce the corners and the joints between the boards.
- We connect whole boards together from the outside using self-tapping screws and pieces of the same board about 40 cm long (overlap in each direction 20 cm).
- We set the upper ends of the formwork boards according to the level to the height of the blind area.
- We additionally strengthen the corners of the formwork with metal corners, securing them from the outside with self-tapping screws.
Since an inch board (2.5 cm thick) is typically 6 m long, figuring out how many boards are needed is not too tough. Using the markings as a guide, we measure the blind area’s perimeter length. To find the number of complete boards, divide the resultant value by 6. Additionally, we add one more board to connect complete boards to one another; this will be sufficient because there won’t likely be more than fifteen joints.
Making expansion joints
Such seams are necessary to prevent cracking of concrete at low temperatures. To create expansion joints, we use 20 mm thick boards, which we place on edge. We install them perpendicular to the formwork boards at a distance of 2-2.5 meters from each other along the entire length of the blind area, and in the corners diagonally from the corner of the building to the corner of the formwork. The length of each compensation board (except for the corner ones) corresponds to the width of the blind area, with one end resting against the foundation of the building, and the other attached to the formwork board (with flush screws). Subsequently, these compensation boards will be guide beacons when pouring and leveling the cement mortar.
The blind area needs to be sloped because its primary function is to shield the foundation from precipitation and melted snow. We accomplish this by angling compensation boards relative to the building’s base. SNiP permits blind area height variations between 2 and 10%. Walking on this strip will not be very convenient, though, if you make it the steepest possible slope. Generally, an average indicator of 5% is selected, which is equivalent to 5 cm per 1 m of the blind area’s width. This kind of difference enables you to swiftly remove water from the building’s walls.
Use a building level to ensure that compensation boards are installed correctly. On the end of the board that is next to the house, we install one end of the level. After positioning the level horizontally, we measure the separation between the formwork board and the level’s lower surface. It should be 5 cm with a blind area width of 1 m (in our example, with a width of 1.2 m – 6 cm). Similarly, we verify that every transverse compensation board is installed correctly.
Counseling! Many people depart from the strip’s compensation boards. Nevertheless, the wood expands when it absorbs moisture and contracts when it dries, which may cause the blind area to crack. It is therefore advised to carefully remove the boards without waiting for the concrete mixture to set completely. The resulting cavities need to be filled with liquid rubber or construction sealant (mastic) once the solution has dried.
Now that the formwork is prepared, you can start pouring the concrete mixture and installing thermal insulation boards made of expanded polystyrene and 100×100 mm reinforcing mesh.
Permanent formwork for the blind area
The permanent formwork remains an essential component of the structure even if the removable formwork is disassembled after the strip has solidified. Curb stones are occasionally used in the construction of permanent formwork; they are buried all the way around the perimeter. Every element’s top end is positioned at the height of the blind area.
Be aware that when curbstones are installed, gaps must be left between them for compensation. These gaps then need to be filled with construction sealant.
Curbstones are a perfectly reasonable and technologically advanced permanent formwork option; however, the cost of the blind area structure as a whole goes up significantly as a result.
Permanent formwork made of plastic or ceramics with external decorated surfaces for arranging the blind area is used quite rarely, since the height of the end of the blind area often does not exceed 5-7 cm, and there is no point in using such expensive materials.
With some simple tools and materials, you can create formwork for a blind area surrounding your home. Your home’s durability and appearance can be improved with this project, and it can be completed successfully with a little bit of planning and preparation.
Accuracy and stability are essential for a formwork project to be successful. The location of the blind area should be precisely measured and marked. To ensure that there is no movement when the concrete is poured, use strong materials for the formwork, such as wooden boards, and fasten them securely.
Don’t hurry the procedure. Take your time to ensure that the formwork is level and aligned to prevent unevenness in the finished concrete surface. To ensure that the blind area lasts for many years, additional strength can be added by reinforcing the concrete with steel mesh or rebar.
Lastly, give the concrete a few days to properly cure by keeping it moist after pouring and smoothing it. This will guarantee a sturdy, long-lasting surface and stop cracks. Even for a do-it-yourself project, you can produce results that look professional with patience and close attention to detail.
Formwork creation for a blind area surrounding your home can be a simple do-it-yourself project that guards against water damage to your foundation. You can construct a strong formwork that will hold concrete in place while it sets by using basic materials and paying attention to a few important instructions. This tutorial will take you step-by-step through the entire process, from measuring and marking the space to assembling and fastening the wooden frames, guaranteeing a long-lasting and polished appearance for the blind area in your house.
