ICFBlocks,

We are building in Southern Indiana, Bloomington. I should fill out my profile.

We have a greater yearly heat load than cooling load. I will also have out door patios. An option I'm working on is to use a brick ledge block to carry the Hambro joists and use a insulative/expoisive joint to keep extreior/interior slabs isolated. In this case, I'm not so concerned about the monolithic pour. In fact, a joint at where the inside/outside slabs meet makes mechanical sence too.

Patrick T

Patrick,
In my opinion you would be better off to hang the Hambro joists from the wall system.  Brick ledges are not designed to carry that kind of load.  I have seen them fail.  You don't need that to fail carrying your floor.  We have always hung SpeedFloor from the wall or cast it into a monolithic wall.  It's a very similar product. 

Tom,

Thanks for the 'heads up' on NOT hanging Hambro on brick ledge. I'll just plan on using the 8" wall to support both floors

Patrick T

Kenton,

Slab connection, not truss connection.

This is not a structural question by it's self. It's a thermal question as well. As stated above, I like the idea of monolithic pour. Where floor is poured on top of the ICF walls. From a thermal stand point, this is not the best with radient heat due to the thermal path, floors dumping heat into the walls. I have seen photos where both methods are done, ie Hambro like system where the joist sits on the wall but the slab is poured to stop at inside of the foam. The only themal connection is the steel joist, approx 4' on center. The roof falls into a different thermal arena. the roof is not a heated slab. So you can see, it becomes a trade off, best structral or best thermal or a plan where I can have my cake and eat it too!

I will be using the Hambro system and their materials are 'engineered' per my plans. Though I'm a mechanical engineer, I will have the design reviewed by a PE. Now if I could find an engineer versed in both structural and thermal.

Patrick T