Howdy, I'm planning building a home this summer. It has to be a crawl space, no basements permitted. Is there a section of the IBC that deals with this? I want to pour a "rat slab". I am not a professional builder. I did use the search feature here & it did not seem to work.

Not sure what code requirements are since it's been several years since I built my ICF house. The search function in the forum doesn't always work too good, but you can do a search from Google. Put the following into a Google search box: rat slab site:greenbuildingtalk.com. It'll bring up a lot of hits. If you want to specifically see what I had to say about installing a rat slab add dmaceld to the search string.

Just poured one in July. Footing, 5' frost walls and 3 " rat slab poured in 1 step. What questions do you have?

Posted By smartwall on 13 Jan 2017 08:54 AM
Just poured one in July. Footing, 5' frost walls and 3 " rat slab poured in 1 step. What questions do you have?

Thank you for the reply. I'm just starting to plan, so my first question is how deep can a person go with a "crawl space" with the current code? If possible I would like to have an enclosed crawl space that is heated. I'm meeting with the flood plain administrator later today to get a better understanding of what we can and cant do.

This was done in the Adirondack Mountains so it was a 20"x10" footing with a 5' of 6" icf on top. The rat slab was poured over 6.25" of reclaimed eps foam. We poured everything with helix fiber instead of rebar. It made life simple. The building inspector never heard of a rat slab so no problemo with IBC. I don't think there is a notation for rat slabs in the IBC.

Posted By BBCFan on 13 Jan 2017 10:34 AM
  If possible I would like to have an enclosed crawl space that is heated. I'm meeting with the flood plain administrator later today to get a better understanding of what we can and cant do.

Put the following into a Google search box: crawl space dmaceld site:greenbuildingtalk.com. You'll get hits on my postings about how I heat my house using the crawl space for the supply plenum.

Yes I've done the same with a rat slab and insulated walls, you should pitch the slab to one corner with a small pit for a sump pump in case it ever floods

Use Form-a-Drain, it takes care of that problem

If there is a concern in a flood zone, I have seen several examples of "flood vents" or breakaway wall sections. This should definitely be a consideration if flooding is likely as flood pressure with no equalization on the interior could result in pressures which weren't accounted for in a standard design.