Quad-Lock ICFs

[Thehardway]

Great report.  Look forard to hearing more and seeing some pics.  I have scheduled my wall pour for next Fri. and am heading out right now to do some final rebar work before I get inspection this week.  Are you doing any timber or log elements on this home?  Why are you using a conventional hot water heater rather than a de-superheater on the Geo system?  Is it because it is a water to air exchange unit only?  I have opted to do an infloor hydronic system and uses a passive solar collector system for heat and ground loop for cooling with a couple small fan coils using natural convection.  I wanted to stay away from ducts as I think they are dusty, dirty, and a good place for mold, allergens etc. to hide.  Not attacking you.  Your method seems to be the preferrred or rather most popular method for geo.  Either way it has to be better than conventional heatpump for efficiency.  Have you had a LEED or energy star assesment done?  I like your Radon vent idea.  Did you get your 2" eps sheets for the floor from your supplier and what was the going cost.  It seems pretty high at the big box stores.  I like your creative financing as well ;D

[iffy]

  Why are you using a conventional hot water heater rather than a de-superheater on the Geo system?  Is it because it is a water to air exchange unit only?    Have you had a LEED or energy star assesment done?    Did you get your 2" eps sheets for the floor from your supplier and what was the going cost. 

Am using the conventional hot water system in case the geo system doesn't keep up, or during mild weather we may have the geo system shut off entirely. The preheat loop on the geo system heats the water to 120. I will set my water heater to a few degrees below that, so the bulk of the water heating will be by geo. If that doesn't work the way I want it to, will have to add a preheat tank in front of the water heater and heat the preheat tank with geo.No energy assesment. Got the foam sheets from HD. Don't remember the cost, but for 7 of them I didnt' shop around much.
This basement gets a 9" swedish cope home on top of it. Basement portion of the stariway is enclosed so we can isolate the basement from upstairs. We are empty nesters, so we laid out the upstairs with just one bedroom and put everything else we need on that floor so we don't have to use stairs daily. We sold a multilevel home, and were getting tired of the stairs. That said, we did put a loft in half of the upstairs, as it just doesn't feel like a log home without a loft. We will use it for the grandkids. Have 3 BR, bath, and family room in the basement for guests and family. We kept our old washer and dryer and will put it in the basement bath for doing chore clothes and for guest use.
The main floor is L shaped with 10' walls over the main leg and 8' walls in the short leg. The main leg is 8 - 12 pitch with log rafters and we intend to use sips over that with metal roof. The short leg is the bedroom and bath and it will get conventional 2 x trusses with an 8' ceiling and attic, so no sips there.

[KGNC]

I have missed this thread! And it's something I know a little about.
We did our walk up basement walls with Polysteel ICF 12 years ago. Got some advise from the guy selling the forms about extra bracing and making sure that you spend the money for the pump. When we poured (pumped) the walls we did the complete 36 yards in about 5 hours.
10.5' walls, we made three or four trips around without any real issues. We had one seam that bulged ever so slightly but no real problems. We used a bit more steel than manufacture called for in their engineering info but didn't go crazy.
I was very concerned about what i would be building with this method. Before I would commit to this I bought 3 forms, put them in a frame and pour a small section by hand. I then melted the foam off of one side to see how it looked. The Polysteel is contoured to make vertical and horizontal beams in the wall. definitely makes a strong wall.
You have to be careful where you place the electrical boxes because some areas the foam is just not thick enough for a standard box.
Polysteel was about the only brand I could find then, some of the other look very nice. I wish I had gone all the way to the rafters with the ICf.

[tomboysawyer]

I have missed this thread! And it's something I know a little about.
We did our walk up basement walls with Polysteel ICF 12 years ago. Got some advise from the guy selling the forms about extra bracing and making sure that you spend the money for the pump. When we poured (pumped) the walls we did the complete 36 yards in about 5 hours.
10.5' walls, we made three or four trips around without any real issues. We had one seam that bulged ever so slightly but no real problems. We used a bit more steel than manufacture called for in their engineering info but didn't go crazy.
I was very concerned about what i would be building with this method. Before I would commit to this I bought 3 forms, put them in a frame and pour a small section by hand. I then melted the foam off of one side to see how it looked. The Polysteel is contoured to make vertical and horizontal beams in the wall. definitely makes a strong wall.
You have to be careful where you place the electrical boxes because some areas the foam is just not thick enough for a standard box.
Polysteel was about the only brand I could find then, some of the other look very nice. I wish I had gone all the way to the rafters with the ICf.

Is it worth a pump truck (at $750) for 10 yards of concrete (less than $1000) to pour 8' walls if I can get to it with my loader?

[KGNC]

Instead of a big pump truck with the boom we used one of the smaller trailer style  pumps. You have to drag the hose around and it does get heavy but it's cheaper than a boom truck. We were able to park the pump on the upper sided, above the wall level so that made it easier.

[Thehardway]

Walls were poured yesterday without incident.  The Reward iForms are extremely tough.  The pumper truck blew out a hose and had problems with the sock hose while priming up.  We ended up pouring straight out of the hose into the forms without the sock and without double 90's or a reducer.  We had no blowouts or problems of any type with the forms. That is a lot of pressure.

The only thing I would have done different is I would have glued each row of forms.  It just would have made everything tighter. Also would have double staked all the bracing.  There was a little too much play in it as I did it.

[Thomas-in-Kentucky]

Welcome to the forum iffy!  So much wonderful detail... this would have been useful to me two years ago!  Turns out I did a lot of things very similar to you.  Wish I knew more about ICF back then.  Oh well, Symon panels worked for me.  But then I had the expense of adding insulation to the outside of the walls later.  Hmmm.  Right now I'm in a 900 square foot doublewide mobile home with 4 kids and the wife.  Can't wait to finish my house!  Been working on it for three years so far!

Congrats THW on your pour.  Glad to hear there were no blow-outs!  Got any pics?!

-Thomas

[iffy]

Thanks for the welcome, Tomboy. Wish I would have found this forum several yrs ago myself. Congrats on the pour, hardway. I know what you mean by thinking about gluing the forms. I had mine tied to each other top to bottom and side to side with big zip ties, and the pucker factor is still a little high when you set there watchin those forms quiver while the concrete is droppin. In a previous post I noted that we poured the floor first, and that takes all the movement out of the anchored end of the braces, as they are bolted to the floor. Sounds like all turned out well for you. In spite of all the manufacturer's claims about strength, I still had a few chills while we poured, because I have seen plywood forms go south in a hurry. (Not tryin to diparage the folks that eat grits, just a figure of speach).

[Joel Eisner]

Thomas et al...

Checl out my blog (in the link in my footer) for pictures of "The Hardway" just before the pour.

Joel

P.S. did you ever make it to NC this summer?