Hello again. Just want to see how others are pouring the front porch slab: pouring together with the walls or after the walls are up? In our case, we have a cold room under the front porch. All the walls are 6" core so no ledge for the slab to sit on the house side just rebar to make the connection. I asked the architect if I can pour the porch slab after the walls are up and he said just remove the foam and pour the slab. I was wondering if I can pour the slab at the same time pouring the walls or will be too much trouble supporting the slab and bracing the walls. How you guys will do in my case. Thank you for any suggestion.

We usually pour the walls for the cold room with the rest of the foundation, then brace the slab and pour when the garage floor is poured. We run some #5 rebar thru the foam before the wall pour to catch the back of the slab and #5 bent for the top of the cold room walls. We never remove the foam. It depends how big the porch slab will be. 12' x 8' is most common here.

We recently poured a safe room as a monolithic ICF wall/insulated concrete deck. The room was about 10' x 12'. Walls were poured at a typical 6" slump, then additional water added to mix for the deck (this was planned so redi-mix ensured strength was sufficient after water was added). Mistake we made was adding the water after the walls were filled - we didn't account for the +/- half yard of concrete in the pump. The first 1/4 of the slab were poured with a mix that was drier than ideal, although it all turned out great. Horizontal 2x4's were fastened about 1/2" above the top of the ICF and leveled, then 2x4 bracing was placed vertically below this horizontal 2x4 and down to the slab. Interior of the slab was supporting with adjustable bracing.

FYI, the extra slump was needed, since we were not able to access the top of the slab for finishing and walls could only be externally vibrated. The safe room was poured inside the basement of a previously built home. Space from top of finished concrete deck to bottom of floor joists was about 14" and we could only access this during construction/concrete placement from 2 sides (other 2 sides were tied into existing basement walls).