Immediately after determining “block bond”, the mason must note the exact location of all windows and doors. The window and door opening widths and heights are written directly on the concrete slab. The window sill height is also noted so that the masonry crew knows at what height the window begins and the block stops.
When the mason is laying out all of the openings, he can verify the accuracy of the vertical rebar and make the necessary corrections at that time. The photo depicts a door opening of 40” wide. Notice that the door opening does not match the previously poured slab door opening. The right blue mark shows where the actual door jamb will be, the blue dot denotes that a rebar dowel will have to be added by drilling 8” into the concrete, injecting epoxy and then placing the rebar dowel.
The rough opening specifications of the windows and sill heights are transferred to the wall for the mason to readily see.
Alternate corner/jamb block with a standard 8x8x8 half block to create each jamb. These grout cells are the same as standard CMU.
Steel lintels that bear 6” on each side of openings are common. A Powers Steel lintel is shown above which allows the Omni Block stretcher to be inverted and placed in a bed of mortar on the lintel (not shown).
Most any other structural steel lintel may be used. Other lintels may require the mason to knock-out the top of an Omni Block center face shell before inverting it and placing onto the lintel. Another common option is to use standard bond beam CMU and invert it before placing onto the lintel.
A complete library of architectural details, product specifications and wall renderings can be found here.
Omni Block door jamb looks and is installed the same as standard CMU.
This photo shows a masonry lintel that utilized a temporary form with rebar and grout above in two courses per engineering.
Another option would be to use a solid-bottom bond beam block and is generally used when the masonry is going to be exposed (see detail below).
Masonry lintel detail. Omni Block System 8 allows for the integration of standard CMU. In the case of masonry lintels, solid-bottom CMU is used in the sill of windows by inverting it and above the window so that matching exposed block is framed around the entire opening.