Hey guys, a while ago I posted that we were going to be building our home this year. Well, we got a good jump on the season, broke through the 6-12" of seasonal frost in early April and had the basement excevation done. On the 27th of April, we poured the monolithic slab and footers for the basement. We ended up being quite a bit over budget for this pour since it was cold out, and we are building a three story concrete home, so the footers were huge and we needed alot of concrete. We ended up using 56 cubic yards. They had to pre-heat the concrete and add additives to help it set up in cold weather. Also, the rebar and mesh work was very extensive and took them quite some time.

We have the first four levels of ARXX building forms up. You can research these at www.arxxbuild.com These are styrofoam forms that have a webbed brace throughout the center every 8". These work as nailers for siding and drywall once installed. The basement forms are 8" wide on the inside, and the top two floors of the house are 6" wide. The larger forms were necessary on the bottom floor due to the weight of the top floor. So far we have the first four layers done (67") for our 8'4" tall basement ceilings. The alignment system is going up today and the next three layers will be installed before the first wall pour will be done. After the walls are poured, a rim joist will go around the top layer and the floor joist will be attached to them. A 33X25' garage slab will have to be excevated and poured next before the next levels can go on.

I've set up an album on my webshots page, but I don't think I can post the pictures over here. Here is a link and I'll try to post a photo to see if it works. My brother is a member here (jdpollen) and will hopefully post every once in a while too. If you have any questions about this stuff, feel free to fire away.

Pictures of the construction

 

Interesting, ive never seen a basement floor poured before the walls get put up. Maybe its just how they do things where you live. Suprised they dont have any footings going down the center where the support walls will be? Those outside footings look HUGE. Good lord go measure them!

We have built 3 full concrete homes. Thats the way to go here in the Midwest. Efficient by far.

I see your going heated floors as well...good choice! Should be a nice house when you get done. Keep us updated with the pictures. Im curious to see how they pour the upper walls. Id like to see how they brace the walls. We use Fold-Form and every company has their own way of doing things.

 

A monolithic slab is where the footers are poured with the slab. It is pretty common where we live, but so is the normal way of pouring after the walls are up. The footers are 2' tall all around, and are 2.5 foot wide in most areas, but wider in some. There are also footers for bracing walls throughout the interior, 3 to be exact. They are only 6-8" deep though.

The radiant tubing will be on all three floors, and on the top two floors, a 1.5" layer of quickcrete will be added to cover them. I doubt I'll have any creaks in this house.

The bracing is pretty simple. Just straight edges rising up to make sure the walls are at a 90 Deg. with the floor. They are supported with angled brackets that are screwed into the concrete. Braces will be installed every 6 feet. Hopefully the wall pour will be early next week. It is done pretty much the same way the foundation pour was done, but with a thinner concrete. A vibrator will be used to help make sure it gets poured evenly and thoroughly.

Also, as far as bracing inside the walls, we are putting 1/2" rebar horizontally on every layer of forms, and vertically every 16" when the last forms are put up before the pour. We will have three wall pours and two foundation pours total. I guess you can call the top two floors another pour, but that will be more hands on.

 

Whos bronco?



Adrianspeeder

 

lol...nice attempt at thread hijacking!!

 

That used to be my dads bronco, but he rolled it last winter and my brother bought it back from insurance and fixed it up. He did a pretty good job on it too. The truck runs and looks great, although not everything is fixed, it is a great second truck for him. I think it has around 60K miles on it too, so he got a great deal for a low mileage rig.

 

Interesting. I am going to built a new house also.
A week ago a company determined the footers.
Sandlayers here are at a depth of about 28 feet and 60 feet.
Footers are going to be poured or rammed.(sp)
I have a neighbour close by and he doesn't want they are going to ram the footers. He is afraid of cracks in his house.
A company is going to decide if ramming(sp) is ok.

(Not sure if that's the right term "ram")

 

Just out of curiosity, where do you work?

(And are you looking for help?)

 

That is weird to see the basment floor poured before the walls. I do this pretty much as a living and havn't seen one house go up like that before.

Looks very good so far! I bet ur excited seeing all this go up!

 

Thats what i said. Id be worried about water seeping in through the dry seem. But if they get a good water membrane on the outside it should cover it up. But i didnt notice any form-a-drain for footings....are they going to put tile around it?

The monolithic slab isnt as common i dont think. I have learned about them in school but we always put the footings in, then the walls and then pour the basement floor. It sucks **** pooring the basement floor with walls up and sometimes the subfloor down already. But, keeps it outta the sun this way.

I can say it looks as if they are not cutting any corners in the rebar or size of the footings. Too many guys put less than required rebar in and pour them undersize and wonder why the house sinks or tips later on. The footings are the most important part of the house.

 

We plan on staying there for quite some time. We have a 5 year old that starts kindegarden this fall, and a 4 month old, so we will be there at least till they both finish high school.

We are very excited about this, we drew the plans ourselves about 8 years ago, and have been saving and planning all this time. We have about 10 more days in Vegas, then we move back to Fairbanks for good. We weren't planning on breaking ground until we got back home in mid May, and now it looks like we'll be erecting the second story by then.

As for work, I own a small business up in northern Alaska.

 

Water seepage is the issue with monolithic slabs. We are going to use a membrane called bitchothane (sp?) I think it is actually beachothane or something to that effect, but everybody has been pronouncing it with the bitch. They said it sticks like you wouldn't believe, and if you get it on yourself, it is a bitch to get off.

We built my brothers house the same way and he had a small area of leakage during the first break up. I don't think we took as much care with the sealing as we could have, and plan to make sure it is sealed well with my house.

 

It'd be mine, I was using it while my 2003 F150 was in the shop getting the 4x4 to work (broken front shift engagement fork). Here's the thread I started on it a while back:

https://www.f150online.com/forums/sh...ghlight=bronco

Still runs great, just needs an alignment and some new brake pads up front, they're squealing pretty bad.

 

Starting with a monolithic slab had more advantages than disadvantages. For one, it saves time. Granted, the DWV pipe had to be laid out first, as well as the barrier, insulation, and radiant tubing, but know we don't have to go back and do it. Also, having the slab bonded to the footers makes the foundation that much stronger.

Today, the alignement system showed up on site, and unfortunately, there are no doors and the only windows are on the complete wrong side of the house to pass the system through. So, I have the keys to the backhoe (man, that thing is beechin') and was able to load the system in the bucket and run it up the hill next to the ladder, then heave every part of the system (there's 114 steel pieces) into the basement. I'll get some pics up tomorrow. Hopefully, if all goes well, we'll be able to pour on Monday or Tuesday.

 

heated floors are nice but you pay to heat dirt....a polly ( plastic barrier ) helps to a minor degree but it takes the concreat longer to set, most concreat guy's end up punching holes in the polly, also if you decide to finish your bassment, be extreamly careful when nailing down your bottom plates, you don't want to drive a nail threw a heating coil, over time the coil will leak and it becomes a major expensive repair, don't drive the nails all the way down on your bottom plates.....I have seen so called professionals wreck developed basements...