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northwoods
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Posts:3
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| 10/03/2008 10:29 AM |
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We were looking at using 6" ICF walls for the basement and first floor for ranch and have been debating on if we should also do 2x4's set 24"OC on the inside for easier wiring/drywall hanging/cabinet hanging/ect but not sure if this is the best route to do or not, any suggestions? Another thing that had crossed my mind was to stick smurf tubing in the forms pre-pouring for the electrical runs but not sure how much this will hurt the efficiency
of walls being in northern wisconsin.
Also with the install we were concerned about the noise from the "furnace room" and have been thinking about possibly having internal ICF walls in the basement for surrounding the room for noise isolation and vibration dampening, has anyone tried this? Any regrets?
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renangle
Registered Users
Posts:91
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| 10/03/2008 11:06 AM |
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Welcome Northwoods and I commend your willingness to look at the benefits of building with ICFs.
With regards to your questions. I would definately make channels in the ICF EPS for your electrical wiring and not stud in with 2 x 4's. For most forms, you can use a router, dull chain saw, hot knife, etc., run it along the horizontal seams of the completed ICF block (to aviod webs). There may be a slight learning curve for you, but from a time/money perspective you should be WAY ahead. We have done smurf tubing in the forms, then pouring successfully, but I honestly wouldn't do it. Doing that takes time and if there is a problem (during the pour or after) you could encounter greater problems.
You could do an ICF wall to surround your furnace which would certainly reduce noise (and make it fire proof), but that would be somewhat expensive. For less money I think that you could enclose it with sound suppressing sheetrock, but then it wouldn't be fire proof. Consider it as a value engineering question...cost over your peace of mind.
renangle |
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northwoods
Registered Users
Posts:3
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| 10/03/2008 5:30 PM |
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I would definately make channels in the ICF EPS for your electrical wiring and not stud in with 2 x 4's. For most forms, you can use a router, dull chain saw, hot knife, etc., run it along the horizontal seams of the completed ICF block (to aviod webs). There may be a slight learning curve for you, but from a time/money perspective you should be WAY ahead. We have done smurf tubing in the forms, then pouring successfully, but I honestly wouldn't do it. Doing that takes time and if there is a problem (during the pour or after) you could encounter greater problems
For the smurf tubing in the forms, do you mean like plastilock? |
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budden
Registered Users
Posts:16
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| 10/03/2008 7:14 PM |
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Conduit.
1. Boxes like Plastilock go at the end of each run of conduit.
2. The tubes that run between the boxes are called sweeps and if you peruse the lumberyard seem to come in three flavors:
a. smurfs, like you mentioned. Flexible plastic, with the obvious benefits in ease of handling.
b. rigid plastic
c. metal.
Ren is an experienced builder, so I'd give his opinion some weight. But there are other opinions ... else Plastilock would not be in business.
By 'efficiency' if you mean insulation, then conduit in the wall has no impact. It's the EPS foam that confers the insulation, not the concrete. If you mean structural strength, then Ren's comment has some validity -- a bunch of things cluttering up the concrete space can impair the structural integrity and horizontal conduit runs can interfere with the concrete filling all the voids on pour (see past discussions on this board about voids and vibration ad nauseum). Note that horizontal runs, whether conduit or rebar can have the same effect with poor workmanship.
Ren's advocacy of the trench-in-foam is certainly valid from the builder's perspective. When busy building the wall, having a conduit-installer around means he's getting in the way of the wall crew... multiple subcontractors and all that.
But as retired military, I've lived in several houses over the years and not one of them didn't need some tinkering with the wiring. New circuit, more plugs, whatever. Further, look at the evolution of ethernet:
- If I were building a house in 1985, I'd be stringing 75 ohm thicknet coax cable
- 5 years later it would have been 50 ohm thinnet coax
- 5 years after that, probably a mix of fiber optic cable and unshielded twisted pair
- and for the past decade, unquestionably unshielded twisted pair ... and you can't even get parts for the coax.
- next year? UTP looks pretty stable right now, but don't bet on it for 50 years.
Once you do the trenching in the foam as Ren describes and then get the drywall up ... you don't change things. And one of the biggest selling points of ICF is longevity. So from a homeowner's point of view, contrasted with the builders', I'm much more receptive to putting in a bunch of conduit so I've some flexibility after the house is finished abuild.
Ren's right -- don't fur out with the 2x4s; of the three alternatives, that's not a good one.
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northwoods
Registered Users
Posts:3
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| 10/03/2008 9:59 PM |
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I'm leaning more towards in the wall style conduit where electrical/telecom needs to be on the outside walls but move as much as possible to the inside walls where for the telecom/AV/security/ect use orange smurf tubing and debating on blue smurf or PVC for the electrical pathways.
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dmaceld
Registered Users
Posts:494
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| 10/03/2008 11:34 PM |
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Posted By northwoods on 10/03/2008 9:59 PM
I'm leaning more towards in the wall style conduit where electrical/telecom needs to be on the outside walls but move as much as possible to the inside walls where for the telecom/AV/security/ect use orange smurf tubing and debating on blue smurf or PVC for the electrical pathways.
I'm in the final stages of building my own ICF house. I was going to use PVC conduit and Plastilok boxes but changed my mind based on cost. In fact I even argued their benefit in this forum last year! When I got serious about things and checking costs closely, I found that system would cost about half again as much, or more, as run of the mill boxes and Romex. Single strand wire cost almost as much per foot per strand as does 2 wire w/ gnd Romex. But, and this is a big but, the flexibility in changing my wiring layout after the walls and partitions were up made me very glad I did not go with Plasitilok and conduit. I changed the planned height of all my boxes after the walls and roof were up, and relocated, sometimes by only a few inches, probably 50 to 75% of all boxes planned in the ICF walls. I did find out though, that standard boxes are a bit of "force fit" when it comes to using them in ICF walls.
Because I don't have a clear idea what I may want or need later in terms of low voltage wiring in the exterior walls I installed 1/2" smurf tubes in the ICF at most every room corner, both from above and below. The tubes extend about 24" below the ceiling and about 18" above the floor. To keep from having gobs of blank box covers plastered everywhere I ended the smurf tubes in the foam and placed a tin can lid at its end. I'll take photos with measuring tape to record the locations of the tube ends before we put up the drywall. The tin can lids will make it easy to locate the tube ends with a stud finder! The tubes extend several feet into the attic space and crawl space and will be easy to get to from that end.
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Building house - what a way to spend retirement! |
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dmaceld
Registered Users
Posts:494
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| 10/03/2008 11:46 PM |
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Posted By renangle on 10/03/2008 11:06 AM
For most forms, you can use a router, dull chain saw, hot knife, etc., run it along the horizontal seams of the completed ICF block (to aviod webs).
When it comes to cutting horizontal channels wider than a chain saw cut I found the best tool to be my Bosch jig saw with a blade that extends barely 2 1/2" fully extended. It's easy to start a cut by just plunging it into the foam while running. But the best part is it makes a cut almost as cleanly as a hot knife and it cuts through plastic webs much faster than any other tool! You do have to dig out the foam which is a step avoided with a chain saw or hot knife. A hammer and wood chisel will take care of web remnants that are left behind.
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Building house - what a way to spend retirement! |
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