I got my footer poured finally. It is 12" deep X 24 wide and has 3 #4 rods with 4X1'a every 12 " vertically.
I am going to grade my slab, put in 3-4 inches of gravel, sand on top of that and compacted. 1" styrofoam then 8 mil visgueen. Slab steel on top with chairs all tied together.
Somewhere in between grading and visqueen I figure to set my first course of ICF's and so I can pour to them.

Project is in SE tenn. Very red clay.

I need to address a drainage system around the outside. Was thinking of some kind of membrane with netted and  perferated pipe to daylight surrounded by gravel.

I'm open to any suggestions.

Slab will be walk out garage.

just to give some other thought... we built on fat clay, the worst stuff to build on.. we snaked drain tile throughout the interior and sleeved it through the footings to the outside and tied it into the outside drain tile that was laid next to the footings.. dug it down slightly lower than the footing, and tied into the sumps (so our outside drainage is actually handled with the inside sumps). Instead of using gravel or sand for fill under the basement slab, we used only pea rock and so were able to skip the tamping, something that I wanted to skip because of the tendencies of the fat clay, plus, we wanted the drain tile buried in pea rock anyway. Used 2" stryo (fastened the hydronic tubes to that and  I believe it was 6mil plastic for vapor barrier.  We did lay a filter fabric over the pea rock on the outside tile.

Did our footings with fast foot, that got pulled up the outside wall slightly and then used dimple fabric/vinyl below grade and brought that over the fast foot.

Very good results.

I seem to recall that sand is not advisable under foam, something about water retention. I don't recall where, but you may want to check into this a little more, and if I read or remember it wrong, please post the correct thinking!

Heres the latest on my build. HAve one couse of block set, gravel and sand to grade. Compacted wet down and sprayed for bugs. 
Wednesday I go up to get the slab in and build my first floor bucks.

seeing those pvc pipes reminded me.. .did you think about radon venting?

Nope, what's the deal with that?

Hi Bill,

How is the Fox Blocks project coming along? Would you mnd sending me a few of your photos? Your footings look very nice! Call if I can be of any help. This forum is an awesome resource also. Best wishes.

Dave

Well I'm back from the last 2 week trip to Beautiful SE Tenn. I have to admit I spent the first 7 days on the back of a tracked BobCat making about 5 miles of 4 wheeler, hill climbs  and walk trails throughout my 69 acres. I also mananged to build a 200 yd rifle range with berm. Enjoying the land is what I bought it for in the first place.
 Alittle bit about that machine, If you need to clear land without tearing it up too much that's the one to use. It picked up 40' trees 12-16 inches in dia. moved mass amounts of dirt without using much fuel. I recommend that machine to anyone with acreage.

Now for my progress in the ICF house, really not much, I finished the slab prep with foam and rebar, no pix of the slab poured but it took 51 yards of mud. I saw cut the second day and sealed the 3rd.

My next trip will be setting and pouring the basement walls, framing lintels and center column for the 2 over head doors.

Now comes the question, How will I attach my ledger boards?

My 3 options as I see them are,

1, Simpson type brackets.

2, Threaded J rods set in wall.

3, Formed pockets in walls.

Of course I'm looking at cost, and ease of install.

Formed pockets seem labor intensive. But I am thinking of using them for my heavy timber trusses for roof on next floor.

I also need to start thinking of my water proofing for below grade as I will be needing to back fill after this wall pour.

Open to suggestions on any of thses topics......................

Bill
I use the Simpsom LVL ledger brackets or the in-wall brackets from ICF Connect, both are good systems; one has a ledger, and the other none.

Also, I have placed large timbers in the wall prior to pouring, and it works very well, however if using large timber trusses, you may need to go the pocket route. I'll try to post a pic of a in-wall series of timber beam/joists. The beams here are rough sawn hemlock, full 4" x full 12" x 20'l, roughly 350-400# each. The ceiling, hard to see in this pic, is T&G pine stained to contrast the beams, then a 2x sleeper is installed, then the upstairs bedroom T&G old growth heart pine floor. No nails showing in the ceiling. Fun project, high satisfaction level :-)
The reason I say pockets with trusses, is you may not be able to secure them safely until you pour.

I noticed that they have a round hole on the end that goes into the icf. do you thread rebar through that?

Nice looking kitchen!

I need to decide what I'm going to use for floor joists. Seems LVL's are the best deal.

Thanks, I use pics of that kitchen finished to show clients that I can do just about anything with concrete as with wood. In particular on the right side of the pic is the farmhouse sink, in front of that sink is a gang set of casements spanning over 8' looking out over a great country landscape. I'd have to find a low res pic someday, the high res are too large to post.

As to the holes, both Simpson and ICF Connect have holes in the wall units, it is not necessary to install rebar thru them as the holes are to create voids for the concrete to hold by flowing thru. Whats nice about either one is you get your wall up, then install the wall plates at the proper spacing between the bracing uprights. When using ICF connect, you need to think about the installation and plan a little more because they typ are 16, 19.2 or 24 OC

I'm not sure what you mean LVLs are the best deal?? You don't need to use LVLs for joists with either system.

Does the simpson system come as a 2 peice set or are they seperate?

My project is 40x48 my thinking is lvl would give me the longest spans. I plan 4 posts for beams to rest them on for support on the basememt.

Also I'm doing the work myself so weight is also a issue.

Thanks for the replies.

Here's what I'm doing in my soon-to-start house. LVL ledger boards hanging on Simpson ICFVL connectors on opposite walls with I-joists hanging from them. I'm supporting the center of the I-joists with pony walls. This is in a crawl space so clear floor area isn't a concern.

If you don't need the clear space around posts consider using one bearing wall in the middle rather than posts and beams. Most likely cheaper, and easier to build. Use I-joists for the joists, not LVLs. They're less costly, and stronger. Local lumber yard quoted me $1.48/lf for 9 1/2" I-joist and $3.59/lf for 7 1/4" LVL. Without going through the calcs I'm guesstimating the I-joist is 2 to 3 times stronger than the LVL. You can get I-joists up to 40' long and 16" deep. LVLs will also twist more under load than I-joists will. In case you aren't aware of it , here's an engineering fact. Given the same amount of material, an I beam shape is always much stronger than a rectangular shape.

I'm using LVLs for joists in one application only, under the showers. Since they're only 5' long they're plenty strong for the shower load, and 2 1/4" less deep than the I-joists. This means I can hang them from the same ledger board and have the top plane 2" below the bathroom floor. I can put in a mortar base and tile the shower and keep it on the same level as the bathroom floor. This is so the shower will be wheelchair accessible.

The Simpson setup consists of 2 pieces, you buy boxes of each, 10 or 15 pieces per box. The box with the actual lvl bracket is packaged with the drill tek screws!

Well I just fell into a large amount of J-bolts so I guess that's what I'm using. I also got several sticks of threaded rod I will use to tie both inside and outside ledgers through the block with for the front deck/porch.

Well, if you want to play with j bolts, go for it, kindly check into the rating and number of bolts required by following The Prescriptive Method for building with ICFs. I imagine you'll be surprised. The Simpson brackets have a standard spacing of 48", but I use them at 42".

When you use ABs, you need to either use anchor tunnels or create your own method of getting the concrete to the face of the wall, but I doubt you'll buy anchor tunnels either!

The reason we post the answers we do is because many of us have already used the archaic methods of 10 years ago, such as single anchor bolts, and now we embrace the beter stronger designed products specifically for ICFs. These products save time and are inherently stronger, time is money, as is convenience.

We post where to buy stuff to help, not see our words in print!

Not so fast Jim. NONE of the Simpson ledger ties are fire-safe, and none can be used in commercial buildings. So, if a fire your shell will remain, but the deck may collapse. Same is true if an earthquake.

Anchor bolts are safe in these respects, but I prefer post-tensioned decks myself.

There's even more to it than that.
For example, the Simpson Bkts are not rated for exterior exposure, however I do agree therte are ways and means different between residential and commercial.

I'm just tired of posting elements that many people don't have access to, and having the path turn into unacceptable
It boils down to does the person using a technolgy, whatever it may be, understand that very technology, or in this simple case, a method of achieving ledger anchoring?

In using the J-bolts I will carve out a "flared tunnel" to allow the mud to come through to the back of the ledger board and spread out.

I was actually about to order the simpson system to take up with me on the next trip to Tenn but a friend that is in the concrete business GAVE me both the J-bolts and threaded rod. Big savings to me with some extra elbow grease. In that I am building this house out of pocket with no bank involved this is a good thing for my wallet if not for my back.

House will have a full length deck in front so I'm going to bolt the inside and outside front ledger boards together with the threaded rod using the same pocket cuts but will offset them between inside and out.

Both are 3/4 inch that was left over from a high rise project they did.

Jim,

I thank you and the rest of the experts here for every bit of info you give me.

Bill