Masonry wall system with guiding means

A method for building a masonry wall covering a building surface, the method comprising the steps of:

• a) mounting side by side on the building surface a plurality of panels, each panel having a front face provided with a plurality of horizontally extending channels delimited by protruding ribs, wherein each of said channels has a height (hc) delimited by an upper rib and a lower rib of the protruding ribs, and rib guiding means are positioned along one of the upper rib and the lower rib of each of said channels and facing toward each of said channels;
• b) providing a plurality of artificial masonry units, each one of said masonry units having a front face, a back face, and two pairs of parallel lateral faces having a thickness (tm), wherein the front face and the back face each have a height (hm) and a length (lm), wherein at least a first one of said masonry units is positionable in the panel in (i) a horizontal orientation, wherein the length (lm) is greater than the height (hm), and (ii) a vertical orientation, wherein the height (hm) is greater than the length (lm) and is greater than the height (hc) of one of the channels, a unit guiding means being positioned along one of the lateral faces of the masonry units so that the single masonry unit lateral face comprising the unit guiding means is engaged by the rib guiding means and the remaining faces of the masonry unit are not engaged by the rib guiding means, said rib and said unit guiding means being interdependently positioned;
• and
• c) forming rows of side by side masonry units by inserting in each of the channels a number of said plurality of masonry units, each of the masonry units being positioned by coupling one of the unit guiding means of each masonry unit with one rib guiding means of the protruding ribs to form rows of horizontally-arranged masonry units equally spaced apart from each other by a predetermined gap.

A system for building a masonry wall on a building surface, the system comprising:

• a plurality of artificial masonry units, each one of said masonry units having a front face, a back face, and two pairs of parallel lateral faces having a thickness (tm);
• at least one panel having a front face provided with a plurality of horizontally extending channels delimited by protruding ribs for receiving rows of said masonry units in the channels, said ribs having a predetermined thickness (tr) smaller than said thickness (tm) of the masonry units, wherein each of said channels is delimited by an upper rib and a lower rib of the protruding ribs;
• rib guiding means comprising projecting teeth positioned along one of the upper rib and the lower rib of each of said channels and facing toward each of said channels;
• and
• unit guiding means positioned along one of the lateral faces of the masonry units, wherein the unit guiding means are cavities having a shape substantially corresponding to a three-quarter cylinder, each end of the cavity opening at a top one and a bottom one of the lateral faces, a cut-away portion of the cavity opening at the back face, angles formed by the back face of the masonry unit and an inside surface of the cavity being acute for gripping sides of the projecting teeth when said masonry unit is installed between two ribs;
• wherein the single masonry unit lateral face comprising the unit guiding means is engaged by the rib guiding means and the remaining faces of the masonry unit are not engaged by the rib guiding means, said rib and said unit guiding means being interdependently positioned for guiding the installation of the masonry units in the channels so that horizontally-arranged masonry units are equally spaced-apart from each other by a predetermined gap (g).