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artemus
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Posts:1
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| 09/04/2001 12:02 AM |
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| my wife and i are looking to build house by ourselves. my wife has designed the house. we want to place it on concrete piers making the one story with a loft three stories hi. since we are DIY-ing it, im woundering if there is any info out there on the technical an logistical aspects of this for diyers. we do want to build the shell out of icfs. any help or constructive hints would be greatly appreciated. thanks |
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Unregistered
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Posts:2321
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| 09/04/2001 5:24 PM |
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What you're proposing is certainly feasible. The sooner you get an engineer involved, the better off you'll be. You might analyze whether an ICF floor system is appropriate here; it might be good match based on this info.
Jerry D. Coombs, PE
American Polysteel, LLC |
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panelbuilt
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Posts:52
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| 09/05/2001 12:28 AM |
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artemus,
It is not real feasible to build with ICFs over a substructure supported only by concrete piers. It probably can be done, but it would be an engineering special design, quite complicated and not what I believe a Do it yourselfer would be too anxious to tackle.
Jerry suggests an ICF floor system that could be tied down to piers cored into the ground. Again, it would be for an engineer to design.
You may look at an alternate building system more inclined to a pier foundation. Check out
SIPweb. SIPs will provide you with the second best value for strength behind ICFs, the same
thermal values and would adapt better to a pier foundation with no special engineering.
The structural integrity of an ICF building system is the tie it achieves from the wall system to the footing buried in the gorund. It is how the ICF system anchors itself. |
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markross
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Posts:1070
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| 09/05/2001 8:38 AM |
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Artemus:
Two points here, first, yes it is very feasable to construct an ICF on a piered or piled foundation. We have done this many times, however, there has always been an analysis into the feasability by an engineer. It has been done on homes and 5 story ICF buildings by us, so we do know it works. But I would highly recommend against it without professional engineering.
Alternatly, I would highly recommend an ICF slab, Legalett comes to mind right away, as it is designed to utilize the entire footprint of the building to distribute the weight of the structure, evenly on the underlying soils.
You can see these two systems at www.arit.com, and are fairly self explanitory.
Mark Ross
"Le Canuck" |
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Mark Ross
"Le Canuck" |
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jdcoombs
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New Member
Posts:57
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| 09/05/2001 11:21 AM |
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Artemus (and panelbuilt),
Perhaps I was too brief in my earlier post.
Given that this is a structure outside of Prescriptive Methods, an engineer is required by code on this project. Also, ALL ICF floor systems installed in the US must be designed by an engineer; so the sooner that person is brought in, the better. That being established:
The fact that these walls become the structural members makes them possibly the BEST application for a wall system for an elevated structure on concrete piers; much better that SIPs or any other such construction. An ICF floor system will also become part of the structural envelope, only enhancing the structure. PanelDeck systems can be found at www.polysteel.com and I can answer any questions about design.
As for difficulty of construction for the DIY, others can answer that best; but on a scale of 1-10, I'd guess it to be about a 9.5.
Jerry D. Coombs, PE
Director of Engineering
American Polysteel, LLC |
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seflpolyst
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Basic Member
Posts:147
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| 09/06/2001 8:53 AM |
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artemus....we are the distributors for polysteel in s/e florida and have quite a few projects under construction in the florida keys, where elevatated structures on driven or poured concrete pilings are in the majority. jerry's advise would be mine as well. i would add to get a structural engineer who knows concrete and to seek out a builder who has shored and poured elevated slabs. it is relatively easy for someone with this experince to form and pour the connecting pile cap beams and the paneldeck monolithically on top of the pilings in one operation. in fact that is why our builders are embracing this technology and method as it saves time. the ends of the paneldeck units are used to provide the form for the inside (of the building) of all of the piling beams, and the deck is therefore poured flush with the top of the beams ie the beams are mostly hidden inside the slab with only a small portion showing below. saves overal building height and labor. with the elevated slab structure weighing any where from 40 to 75 lbs/sf plus the beam weight, proper shoring is critical, especially when it is more than just a few feet off the ground.
if you supply email i will be glad to send a few pictures.
peter juen
s/e florida polysteel inc. |
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