The INS and OUTS of an ICF Foundation

[Music] hey everybody Steve basic architect here live from the hole in the ground yes bringing you the build show right from the foundation I put my life on the line every week for you guys bring these videos to you live right from the job site so you understand this isn't a video that was recorded three years ago this is stuff that we are doing today and what are we doing today we're talking about ICF foundations yes in insulated concrete forms so I have one of them right here what an insulated concrete form is is basically it's two pieces of rigid insulation they have a spacer in between and then they get filled with concrete so there's a couple things that are benefits right off the bat to using ICF forms one you get the insulation as your form work but then the insulation just stays in and becomes the insulation to your wall system the other thing is is a typical Foundation here in New England we would pour a 10in wall here we're pouring a six and a quarter inch wall so that core is diminished so we're basically taking about 40% of the concrete out of the foundation system without really jeopardizing its Integrity so the forms that we're using here these are 11 and 3/4 inch forms they have two and 3/4 on each side of eps insulation so that's going to give us right around an R 2425 um insulation r value for this they have a 6 and a qu inch core they are 16 inches tall and they are 48 in long so we're very fortunate we got Danny from Blue Green Building Concepts out here they're the subcontractor doing all the foundation work out here if you saw the video um the last video we shot all the foundation work the footing work was done by those guys but we're going to catch up with Danny down in the hole and we're going to talk about how this is get how all of this gets installed so let's get going alrighty build show like I said we got a treat we got Dan here Dan's from Blue Green Building Concepts they're the subcontractor out here doing the work they are very experienced we're very fortunate to have them on this job here um how custom Building Group is the general contractor and uh blue green building concepts are the concrete sub they're taking care of the foundation and taking us up to the top of the wall like you saw earlier we're using that um 11 and 3/4 by 16inch block but Dan you guys have a a typical layout or kind of structure to how you lay this out right now tell us a little bit about that you usually start in the corners sure we kind of start from the corners and work our way all the way to the middle um we have a left and right corner so everything is staggered and then it meets in a common scene or somewhere in the wall um right so all these Corners these Corners have either a short leg or a long leg so that they're able to be stitched together and reinforce that corner so that there's not this vertical seam right exactly so we get that overlapping that allows it to gain its strength if you will right ex Y and then if you see here you've got these ribs on these blocks they almost slide together perfectly too so when so there's a female recipient and then there's a male part on there now you guys do uh what I thought was a really interesting detail on the footing itself right so tell us a little bit I'm I'm holding it this is a starter track for a steel stud wall but tell us a little bit about what you do there so what we do we uh here we had everything nice uh staked and um uh surveyed for us when we started the project even after we poured the footing so what we ended up doing was we squared all the corners out and we lay our tracks down and this helps us a stabilize the wall so it doesn't keep moving and um also creates we have the most pressure on the bottom of our our blocks when we pour concrete when you say pressure that's when the concrete goes in the weight of the concrete is pushing it and it wants to kick out and blow out the bottom correct so what we use is this metal stud and then we have essentially we able to screw some Phillips screws right into the bottom to secure our blocks and be able to have a nice uniform straight line as we right so this basically you you snap the line this gets set down on top of the footing it gets shot in and then we're able to take the block and basically put it in and push it up against there so now you have that bracing on that side and then you can just simply screw into the uh exact ICF BL here we have eight inches on Center essentially you know furring strip so we're able to screw this all in no problem and get that in there so no that's awesome now you said that you start off in the corners and you work your way to the middle now these are 4 foot blocks I would almost guarantee it's probably rare that you have a wall that's on a 48 inch um setup right so corre so how do we how do we deal with when the wall is say uh 33 feet uh 10 and a 12 inches so what we end up doing we start with both corners and work our way to the middle and we have to figure out where our bracing goes to be able to kind of cure everything nicely and we create a common common seam essentially and so you guys have a detail for that I saw it when we were walking down into the hole over here so why don't we just jump over there and we could talk about how you solve that uh vertical seam problem sounds good all right so we're over here at this section they built in from the corners and so what that does is it gives you that Oddball dimension in the middle of the wall so they inevitably end up cutting in this vertical seam and the way you solve that is a simple plywood gusset plate right correct y so do you guys have a a pattern is there concerns about what you're doing here so what we typically do our first row is the same as our third row so even and odds and our second row is you know continuous with our fourth row so what we do is we Mark our first couple rows here and then it continues as we as we build up it's the same cut all of that um we like to make sure our plywood at least catches at least two ribs on one side and then the other one at least one so we can you know secure that together and then we were talking earlier now there's a reason why you stack these and you don't say have this here and then have this one over here and this one over there and stagger them right correct it has to do with when you're bracing the wall our braces are usually between five and six feet apart so we start from the corners two feet away and then we essentially build our way as far as we can and you know obviously not everything will line up five or six feet but right but this allows you to put bracing say here and then catch bracing over there and by having that in the middle it helps you uh you know keep that stuff out of your way right exactly so we have a detail over here that we can just walk over the step footing um you know we we talked about that in the uh concrete you're fine you're fine you can see it here but how the ICF blocks and how the step was coarsed out right so it's csed out perfect so that it that one step here and what I'm talking about really is this Dimension from here to here is exactly the dimension of two courses of block so we didn't get into having to cut a block or that so in the planning stages we're laying out all of these details and ensuring that we're getting it just right so there's uh some things to look at inside the block why don't we get up we'll take a walk over to the wall there and uh we'll talk about what's happening in the inside these blocks all right so Dan uh did a gave us a little treat here dismantled the little bit of the wall so we can see down inside you know we talked about it earlier that the core has these braces in there but these braces have these little scallops and hooks in them right Dan so tell us what those are all about yep so uh we have on the outside we have uh room for a number five bar so we typically use those um in the middle you've got a number four bar that can run uh all the way and then number three uh two two holes for number three there and for our non-construction viewers when we're talking bar we're talking reinforcing bar right so these just basically fall right in and you can see down here they already have some of them placed and you can also see we have the vertical leg that comes out of the footing so the concrete will go down there grab that and that keeps that horizontal displacement of the wall all sturdy and then these horizontal bars basically will get tied to some vertical bars in here also so we basically have this steel cage that's happening inside here now that takes care of the structural requirements that the structural engineer gave us but there's certain things that have to happen and that you do that allows you to put this together keep it fastened so the the blocks don't blow away doesn't come apart part right so talk a little bit about that for us Dan sure so we can see here when we connect our blocks we have these uh vertical clips and they basically allow us to hold uh each block together um which helps us stabilize the wall uh during our pores and what that does is that just keeps this block from lifting up corre on those blocks corre so the vertical snugness of the wall if you will is taken care of by every time you put a block in you snap in one of these now now these are made by the ICF manufacturer right so they ship those out and you get the whole package here so you're not going and finding a place to get those bent or made now what do you is there anything that we do when the blocks come together horizontally yes there's a clip right here as you can see we just same thing it Clips in nicely and typically what we do is one vertical per block and then horizontally clip to the next block which is clipped vertically as well so those are pretty much on 4 foot center exactly you don't Overkill it too much but it helps stabilize and we do a lot more for the first two courses which for us is very important because that's when we place the concrete we go three courses at a time but the most pressure is in those two first two two blocks there gotcha now I noticed that we have the the metal ties but I see a zip tie over here talk to me like why did we switch so this right here is the common seam which we uh discussed earlier uh it's connected by the plywood Corners we work from our Corners to the to one area uh we choose to do it closer to the corner so we can put one brace here and another staggered and then basically what we do is this is too big for the vertical clip so we still use uh uh uh zip ties here to tie them together just to give that extra reinforcement um stabiliz pretty neat system and I mean it's you know it's pretty rigid you get some concrete in there this is going nowhere so while we step over there you got some really cool stations and some pretty cool tools Let's uh go look at some of the tools of the trade that's happening here all right so we have a couple cutting stations you see all of the rebar is stationed down here they drop it down in the hole we don't want to be handing it bar by bar when you're down here right you want to make sure you have everything down here I see you have a cutting station over there so you can cut all the rebar to the length you want but this is a pretty nifty little tool here and you know you you've said something earlier to me that I've heard pretty much for the last 30 years work smarter not harder right right so this is a you know typical uh or not want say atypical bending machine so a lot of times you get the rebar and it might come pre-bent from a factory you go through the shop drawings and they just send you you know 300 pieces of bent rebar but if you want to do it out on the site and kind of manufacture or fabricate it yourself then you need some kind of tool right so he's going to let me this is my first time bending it so bear with me I'm told I just pull the trigger here right nice and slow and then the releas is release right here so almost a i overbent it a little we have to bend that back but uh I mean you pull the trigger and Bam there you go easy it beats it beats our uh hand hand you know rebar Bender that we have it's hot oh is all right so so there you have it folks we're down here in the hall Dan thanks for uh you know giving us all your quick tips and sharing your uh vast experience of putting these together um we'll we'll come back at you more as this you know project uh progresses and we'll talk about you know when the bracing is up and try and get out here when they're uh casting the walls and all of that but thanks for uh the tips and the uh initial layout from the build show Steve basic architect until next time [Music] right

Channel: Steven Baczek Architect

Views: 16,182

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Id: LEDoD4lM8bw

Length: 13min 40sec (820 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 15 2024