I live in an area where basic building materials are available but expensive – there are not many places to rent tools and things are done slowly by hand. It is also an earthquake zone.
I am thinking of building a basement/foundation out of hollow blocks, filled with cement and using rebar inside. Is it a bad idea to allow the builders to fill the cores of the hollow blocks with cement one layer at a time? I've seen back home that they wait till the entire wall is built then pour down each cavity and fill, but it's not possible to get a cement truck at the location, and I have just 2 guys to do the work.
Any advice appreciated.
Best Answer
What's the phrase? "The perfect is the enemy of the good."
Or something like that?
Is it better to pour them in one go? Sure. Is it enough better to make it worth a huge effort? Perhaps not, particularly if that's the way it's usually done by your laborers. The less time between pours, the better (i.e. one per day is far better than getting to it a month later.)
I would strongly encourage having "bond beams" (horizontal reinforcement) as well as vertical reinforcement. Depending on just how expensive concrete is in your area, it might be worth doing the reinforcement as a "post and beam" rather than filling every core hole. That does require blocking off the bottom of each bond beam where it runs over empty cores below. It gets you a strong framework with less material.