I saw the work of an ICF manufacturer's sales representative who is also a certified engineer and factory certified installer. I saw the basement ICF block walls assembled and filled with concrete, the recommended water proofing applied and the walls backfilled. OH YEAH...., and the water poured through the walls when it rained. After removing the ruined drywall, I probed the foam block and found numerous large air pockets in the concrete. Many gaps were across the entire center gap. I made some holes on the inside and I could see what I would call a huge mess. There were voids everywhere.

The installer claims that air gaps are normal and do not effect the integrity of the wall or the waterproofing. He filled some gaps with expanding foam and large gaps with hydraulic cement. But, the basement walls still leaked. The installer claimed it was bad concrete. But, he was the one ordered the concrete and he got pump he wanted and he is the engineer. He said it was defective waterproofing, but he was the one who specified the company that did it and I watched it installed. It looked like it was done right. It was a soft green coating covered with sheets of a heavy white vinyl. There was also footer tile and two sump pumps to make certain that all of the water was pumped out. But the water came through the walls.

Given this scenario, what wrong here? Who is responsible?

Ardose:
Is there Brickledge?

Kevin

Ardose,

Without any further information like concrete mix design, vibration or consolidation technique used, and many other questions, it sounds like your ICF supplier/installer/engineer/water proofing expert/all around bad person may carry the brunt of the responsibility here.

The ACI (American Concrete Institute) publishes guidelines for industy standards and best practices. It sounds to me like your job, as far as the concrete goes, is nowhere near any of the tolerences allowable in the industry. If it were me I would take tons of photos, call in a concrete expert immediately, and access the damage and find some possible solutions.

If your foundation is as bad as you describe, it may be a total loss and have to be redone. Only an expert engineer can make that determination. But I will say that spray foam is no substitute for concrete.

ICF Contractor

It is important that new readers do not see voids as the ultimate catastrophe. A window, door can be construed as a large void. As would be a screen or waffle grid system, both which have "voids" full of foam. So lets not shock new readers into a "voids are gonna make the house fall" mindset.

I will clarify, voids are not acceptable as an industry norm.
I agree, more information is needed.

Possibly, the waterproofing is not the problem, nor the voids the cause of the leak. Often, it is a not waterproofed/flashed brickledge, or brick veneer buried several inches or more into the ground with an air gap behind and no weep holes. Or poor flashing around openings.

So lets not crucify the ICF installer just yet. At least he's been back to the job to try and remediate.

Kevin

The house is IFC forms all the way to the roof. The waterproofing reaches above the soil line with vinyl siding above that.

Another thing worries me besides the water coming through the basement walls is structural stability. It's virtually impossible to know just how many voids are in walls and what will happen over time.

The house was already finished when these problems became apparent. It seems to me that factory representative who is also an "engineer" would recognize that something wasn't right when he filling the forms. But, he just kept right on filling and adding new rows of IFC forms to the top.

One thing that came to mind while I was reading the forum were the vibrators he used. They were pretty small outfits. He also filled the forms with just one assistant. He claimed that was all that was required to do the job.

This also raises some interesting questions. How do you determine if an IFC structure, especially a basement, is so structurally flawed that it is unsafe? Is it even possible to fix it properly if it was messed up during installation? Do the manufacturers of IFC forms stand behind their "authorized" sales representatives and installers? Have any of the manufacturers ever developed equipment that can "look through" the IFC wall to find voids and other flaws?

Seems to me that an IFC forms contractor is a lot like a Proctologist. You can't see what he did, but you will sure find out later if he did it wrong.

Concrete vibrators are not necessairly large in size.  Go to ebay and do a concrete vibrator searcs.  One importent aspect of a vibrator is the length of the flexable shaft.  It should reach the bottom of the pour. 

Vibrators are not necessarily large in size.  Do a search on eBay with "concrete vibrators" and see what comes up.  One important aspect of the vibrator itself is the length of the flexible shaft.  It should reach the bottom of the current pour.  The most important thing about is knowing how and where pay special attention to using it in the pour. 

Hello Ardose, seems to me who ever supervised the pour is at fault I ve repaired voids 12inches thick by 32 inches high, 17 inche overall, a large hotel project in Orlando,( not my pour), when you put double rebar in a row of block.. a lot of people suggest using a pencil vibrator, personally I don't like them. A THUMPER is real nice it's used on the the block staps, and who ever is supervising should keep his head in the form in front of the pump, even if they have to use a flashlight. You can see the concrete flow if the right size aggregate is used and the slump is right. stay away from the corners let the concrete flow around them. Remember all the weight of the concrete is going to the ends of the wall. There's alot of little tricks you learn after doing quite a few of these. Factory trainers only know what someone has put in a manual to certify and teach installers. In florida I saw a sub that had told the contractor I USED to work for he had done ICF for 17 years, and couldn't get a wall plumb or straight. As for the water the weight of the concrete is going to force some water out of the forms( hyrostatic preasure) so always watch your corners for seperation. there are ways to avoid it from happening, and with the void water is going to flow to the top of the concrete and then through the form and right down the inside of the drywall. hope I was of some help.


CHILL