When building with TF System, I was faced with the decision of how to brace the forms and provide scaffolding for doing the pour. It's possible to rent bracing/scaffolding designed specifically for ICF construction. The guys at TF System showed us an aluminum brace/scaffold device that works really well. They quoted a price of $7 per brace per week. I figured that I needed 40 braces over a period of about a month. I was looking at a cost well over $1000 plus the cost of shipping the braces back to Green Bay when I finished with them. I simply couldn’t fit that into my budget.

I decided to make my own braces out of 2x4 lumber and plywood. As you can see in the pictures, each unit is a vertical 2x4 (strongback) cut to a length of 8’-10” (my foundation walls are 10'.)  The scaffold bracket is made out of a 2’ length of 2x4 and two triangular pieces of ½” exterior grade plywood (I recommend fir instead of pine for strength and rot resistance.) Each bracket is screwed together with 22 1-1/2" drywall screws. Another length of 2x4 provides the kickout brace. I bought some turnbuckes for about half of the kickouts to make straightening the forms at mid-wall easier during the pour.  You can get by without them, though.  Two rows of 2x8 planks were screwed to the bracket arms to provide a wide, strong walking surface all around the interior of the wall. 

Each strongback rested on the footing (or deck for the main floor) and was screwed to the ICF PVC I-beam with three 3-1/2" drywall screws.  The length of the strongback was cut accurately so that later it would support the 14” deep LVL ledger board to which the floor joists are attached. These LVLs are quite heavy, so having the strongbacks to support them while they are being bolted to the Simpson Strong Tie ledger board connectors was really helpful.

I reused the strongback braces when building the 9’ above grade walls in similar fashion. When it was time to frame the roof, I used these braces again as shown in the last picture to set the ridge boards and provide footing for installing the rafters. These homemade braces were very sturdy and resulted in a very solid scaffold.

The material cost for the 40 braces was about $350 plus the cost of 16 turnbuckles which I plan to resell on eBay, if I ever get around to it.  When I was finally finished with the braces, I disassembled them and reused the 2x4s for framing the soffits and for miscellaneous blocking. The screws were also reused. The 80 plywood triangles (equivalent of 5 sheets of 4x8 plywood) were disgarded.

 

If I build another ICF house, I'll use the same method.