I am an ICF builder here in New Orleans and have an idea but am unsure exactly how to do it. We drive pilings for everything down here. Here is my idea. I would like to keep my wood pilings exposed 4 - 5 feet above grade build a beam around the pilings and then pour the insuldeck. But am unsure how this would work, my partner and I have been debating as to how we would build something like this but every idea we have seems to be very labor intesive and cannot come up with an easier way. Has anyone done this before? I am trying to get away from pouring a footer eliminating that cost. We have been seeing several houses pop up with pilings exposed 4 - 5 feet and then wood framing in the floor. Why can we not do this with concrete. Gives us the best of both worlds crawl space with a slab, the insurance company would love me. Thanks is advance

Just use concrete piles, whether pre cast driven,or cast in place. You would then be able to place a cast in place beam on top fo the piles, and then the insul deck. I would not try to put this together on wood piles.

Good luck
Greg Fasano
ICON Structures

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Greg & arckie, I'm guessing you're not familiar with the piles they use in New Orleans. The ones I saw were 40' wood piles driven full depth into the soil. Sometimes there's one pile on top of another, driven until resistance is high enough to ensure stability.  The soil is so soft it takes maybe 15 or 20, or more, piles to support a house. The ground then settles away from the slab, leaving a nice gap between the slab and grade. A little bit different than building on bedrock in the NE.

Concrete piles are probably cost prohibitive. Gravel is not a conveniently closely available commodity in NOLA.

Whether it be wood, or precast concrete friction piles, the methodology of each are the same, as well as the installation process, other that larger equipment for the precast concrete. The pile will need to be designed to carry "X" load per pile. They are then driven to a resistance, equivalent to that load requirement. They are then load tested, to confirm that they will carry that load. Again, this can be with wood or precast concrete. I am suggesting that precast concrete be used in lieu of wood, where you are placing a concrete deck over the top of the piles. Regarding the cost, i would imagine that a precast pre-stressed concrete pile cannot be that much more than a continuous 40' long wood pile. Here is a link to a home we built on Captiva Island, on the water in Florida. This home is supported on precast concrete piles. http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewPicture&friendID=461703942&albumId=737642&page=3

the piling foundations we have seen on the gulf coast, and especially in the nola area, are multiple wood/helical piles connected by a common concrete pile cap. i suspect they help spread the load/create friction compared to one long/deep pile. these are then connected by a grade beam grid, which then is usually covered with a frangible slab that is not connected to the piles or beams. any one needing help with design please contact me, we can supply local structural engineers who specialize in foundation and icf/insuldeck design.
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You're going to have a considerable load on the wood piles for that length, especially w/ the concrete floor. It can be done, but you might want to consider concrete. A trade-off for longer vs. fewer piles. Then you'll nead a beam grid as Peter describes. You need a structural engineer to design it for you.

Hello,

Quad-Deck was recently used in the new Slidell High School exactly as you describe it. See our Project Profile and Photo Gallery for details.

Georg Kustermann