Chapter 758: The More I Think, the More Something Feels Wrong

After laughing, Wang Dazhu led a large group of people to start unloading the trucks, while Wang An led Wang Shuai and Wu Dong into the house.

After pouring each of them an enamel mug of tea and lighting a cigarette for each, Wang An sat on a stool in the outer room.

Subsequently, Wang An asked with a chuckle: "Two brothers, what's the situation? Why did you get me so much cement? It must be over 10 tons, right?"

Only hearing Wu Dong say with a chuckle:

"Mm, exactly 15 tons. I figured this stuff needs a ratio, right? One ton of cement to two and a half tons of sand is just right, so I got you 30 cubic meters of sand. Hehehehe, how about it? Are we brothers generous enough?"

It must be said that the trucks of this era were truly awesome. A large truck with a rated load of 5 tons was forced to carry 15 tons! To say it's normal is also true; after all, a single-cylinder 12-horsepower walking tractor also carried a full 4 tons of cement.

Actually, the grade of cement in this era is relatively high, so the best ratio of cement to sand is 1 to 3.

If you are building a house and laying bricks normally, 1 to 4 or even 1 to 5 is completely sufficient.

Wang An shouted exaggeratedly upon hearing this: "That's truly generous enough, hahahaha... then I'll add a few more layers of cement mortar walls under the walls of these two houses, hahaha..."

Wang An's original plan was to build the foundation with stones and cement, then pour a circle of bottom beams with cement. As for the main walls above the bottom beams, he would use black soil and mud to lay the bricks.

When it came time to lay the main walls and build the beams, he would lay two layers of bricks with cement and sand. As for the final two horizontal beams in the front and back, he would pour them with cement and steel bars.

Finally, after the house was topped off—that is, basically built—he would just point the exterior walls with cement and fine sand.

Simply put, the places where the whole house needs the most cement are the foundation, the bottom ring beams, the two horizontal beams in the front and back, and the wall pointing.

And the main walls, which consume the most cement, were replaced with black soil and mud.

If he followed Wang An's earliest plan, each house would use about six or seven tons of cement, which would basically be enough.

Because Wang An's previous idea was to build 37-centimeter walls, which is a wall as thick as the length of one brick plus the width of one brick.

After all, the floor in the room is a ground fire dragon, the place for sleeping is a heated kang, and the north wall is a hollow fire wall.

With three heating methods stacked together, the temperature in the room should theoretically be absolutely sufficient.

But this point met with strong dissatisfaction from Comrade Liu Guilan. As Comrade Liu Guilan said back then: "Buying so many bricks and not making the walls thicker, isn't that having something wrong with your head!"

So, the 37-centimeter walls became 50-centimeter ones! That is, a wall as thick as the length of 2 bricks, or the width of 4 bricks.

Of course, in Wang An's view, this didn't matter; it was just using a few more bricks, which was a small matter.

And although the amount of cement would increase accordingly, it only needed to increase by one or two tons, which was enough.

Fortunately, 50-centimeter walls, let alone being built with soil and mud, even if you didn't put any mud and just stacked them quite high, to be honest, under the pressure of the roof frame and tiles, they would be quite sturdy.

So, although building walls with cement and sand is the sturdiest and most solid, to be honest, it's really not necessary.

Besides, the method of building walls with soil and mud and pointing the outside with cement has been effectively verified in later generations, meaning such walls are already sturdy enough.

Wang Shuai's expression was clearly startled upon hearing Wang An's words, and then he frowned slightly and said:

"What's wrong, Xiao An? Listening to you, are you planning to build with soil and bricks?"

Wang An said with a chuckle:

"Mm, my mother insisted on building 50-centimeter walls. Building with soil and mud is enough; it's incredibly sturdy." After Wang An finished speaking, Wang Shuai pondered and said:

"Then if you build walls with cement and sand, how much cement would that take?"

Wang An frowned and said:

"I haven't calculated this carefully. Anyway, my house is 20 meters long and 10 meters wide, and the walls are 3 meters high."

After a pause—mainly to recall the data he had seen in his past life—Wang An continued:

"If you calculate by square meter, a 50-centimeter wall takes about 140 jin of cement and 240 jin of sand per square meter."

"Then the four walls, plus the triangular wall above the gable, if you add them all together, it's about 200 square meters! Then subtract the windows and doors."

Speaking of this, Wang An subconsciously wanted to reach into his pocket to find the blueprint, because the sizes of the windows and doors were marked on that blueprint.

It was only then that Wang An suddenly remembered that the blueprint had been taken by his father and the craftsmen to study.

So, Wang An muttered: "The front windows are 3 meters long and 1.8 meters high, four windows in total. The back windows are 1.8 meters long and 1.6 meters high, also four windows. And the doors, the front door is 2 meters high and 3.2 meters wide, and the back door is also 2 meters high and 1.2 meters wide."

After saying all this, Wang An pondered for a long time before saying: "Counting all these together, it's roughly 40-something square meters. So for the walls, it's about 160 square meters."

After Wang An finished speaking, Wang Shuai began to calculate the numbers on the kang with his hand. Before Wang An could calculate it, Wang Shuai said: "Just for building the walls, it would take 11,200 jin of cement, which is 12 tons."

Wang An thought for a moment and said: "Yeah, it would take 12 tons of cement and about 40 tons of sand. If one cubic meter of sand is 1.4 tons, then it would take about 30 cubic meters of sand."

Wu Dong blinked his eyes on the side and said:

"Then if it's 12 tons of cement, it's not much money."

Wang Shuai also suddenly realized and said:

"Yeah, 180 yuan per ton, isn't that just a matter of 2,200-something yuan? Alright, Xiao An, don't worry about it. I'll have them send it to you tomorrow."

Wu Dong felt something was wrong the more he thought about it upon hearing this.

And at this moment, Wang An was in the same state.

Only after Wang An and Wu Dong looked at each other did Wu Dong say with a sudden realization: "Xiao Shuai, that's not right. We just calculated for one house. Didn't Xiao An say he was building two?"

However, although Wang An felt something was wrong the more he thought about it, it was about the price of cement.

So after Wu Dong finished speaking, Wang An asked with a surprised face:

"Wait a minute, you guys bought this cement for 180 per ton?"

Wu Dong and Wang Shuai blinked their eyes at the same time upon hearing this, and then Wang Shuai said with a matter-of-fact face: "Yeah, isn't that the price for this stuff?"

Wu Dong also asked with a confused face:

"What do you mean, Xiao An? Wasn't the cement you bought two days ago this price?"

After the two of them finished speaking, Wang An stared with wide eyes for a long time, and then suddenly cursed: "Damn his mother, that bastard Bai Zhihong sold it to me for 210 per ton. At that price, I even had a fight with him! Damn his mother!"

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 759 =====