So we are building a gun "vault" for my father. The walls consist of 8x8x16 cinder blocks filled with concrete and rebar. The question becomes how do we create the doorway? My research has indicated that I need to install a lintel to hold the cinder blocks above the doorway. The room will be 104" square with a 4" poured concrete ceiling. The wall that I am working on is 104" wide with a 40" rough opening for the door. From what I've read I can use either steel or concrete lintels (most common materials anyway...) For steel, I've found that angle iron or channel is typically used. The concrete lintels are either pre-formed or made on site. Unfortunately I can't seem to find either of those in the area. I'm thinking it is more to do with my lack thereof knowledge with where to look which has lead me to here. Where can I get the material for this at a reasonable price? We do have a metal supplier near us but they only sell in 24' sections and I'd hate to purchase an additional 18' for waste.... Alternatively; how hard is it to make a concrete lintel? Most of what I've read/watched people build a concrete lintel by replacing the row above the door with a poured concrete piece with 4 horizontal rebar. I've played with the idea of boarding up the area above the door and pouring 2 rows of blocks as concrete with 4 pieces of horizontal per row. That way I have a homemade 88" x 8" x 16" with 8 pieces of rebar in it. Opinions are greatly appreciated!*Big Grin*

I am dealing with two related issues right now. My sloped back yard is eroding because fire department pretty much made me remove almost all vegetation form the slope because of the fire danger. Now there is very little vegetation to hold the soil and I doubt I have time to replant anything that would. So knowing that plants can do just so much I was thinking of installing at least one retaining wall. I don't want to take out a permit, so it would have to be a 3ft wall so it won't hold much I suspect, it will most likely will have to be at least one more additional wall in the middle of the slope. I want to use Keystone Standard II with pins of course and the miragrid to stabilize it as much as possible. I know it's probably an overkill, but I'd rather have it this way than come back to it few years later. My paver patio has started slowly sliding along with that slope so I decided to pour some concrete at the edge of the pavers and embed drains to prevent water from eroding soil right next to pavers. Question 1 - should I start my first wall somewhere closer to my parev's edge and keep moving downhill or should I start from the foot of my slope and move up? Question 2 - When I installed the silt screen I noticed that in some places the solid rock is very close to the surface of the soil/clay. Should I endeavor at trying to level the bedding for the first row of block into the solid rock, seems to be very labor intensive process or move a little above that spot and embed more than one course of the block into the soil? I was thinking if that's the case, I am still going to hit the solid rock and it becomes a mute point, no? Thanks in advance for your help! [ATTACH]74552[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]74553[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]74554[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]74555[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]74556[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]74557[/ATTACH] [ATTACH]74558[/ATTACH]