How to Pour a Buttress Wall

Buttresses are constructions that are designed and placed to give walls more stability, supporting and reinforcing them. In the past they were fabricated from wood and stone, but today concrete can be used. A poured concrete buttress is essentially a footing to the wall – as concrete must be poured into a hole, it cannot stand up as a vertical structure – that is often installed in areas where subsidence may be a problem.

Tape measure
Chalk or paint
Building plans
Shovel
Pickax
Wooden stakes
Wooden planks
Screws
Drill
Rebar
Concrete
Cement mixer
Wheelbarrow

Instructions

- 1
  Mark the area for the buttress with chalk or paint, depending on the surface you are going to cut into. Refer to the building plans for preferred dimensions.
- 2
  Dig out the buttress area. Use a shovel and pickax as required. The depth will be determined by the building plans, as in how far the foundations go down.
- 3
  Place wooden stakes into the buttress hole. They should be placed regularly throughout the dug area at distances that will allow you to fasten the wooden planks to them, and approximately two-thirds the depth of the dug area.
- 4
  Screw the wooden planks to the stakes.
- 5
  Lay rebar – a grid of reinforcing steel bars – into the footing according to the specs in the foundation plans, on top of the planks. This structure will give integrity to the buttress, giving it more tensile strength, ensuring it keeps its shape and is not itself prone to subsidence.
- 6
  Mix the concrete in the cement mixer. The cement packaging will give you specific instructions.
- 7
  Transfer the concrete from the cement mixer to a wheelbarrow. Pour from the wheelbarrow into the area for the buttress, working from one end of the structure to the other.
- 8
  Use a shovel to level out the concrete and spread it across the whole area.

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