First of all let me thank everyone here, this forum has a wealth of information which is given out freely and it is truly an invaluable resource. I've been reading here for several years and I feel that I am well informed for my (near) future build.

Trying to figure out the most efficient schedule for pumping my footers, walk out basement walls, frost walls and basement floor.

Most likely using fox blocks since they're nearby. Almost certainly using FastFoot bagged footings. Zonts and Zuckles for bracing. Helix is also on the radar as long as I don't get any pushback from the township or concrete pumper. Watkins hangers for floor trusses.

Here are my options that I've come up with-

1) Form and pour fastfoot footings, wet set dowels and stack block when dry. 2nd pour for all walls then 3rd pour for floor. 3 pours, 3 pumper fees.

2)Monopour Fastfoot Footings and walls. 2nd pour for just the floor. With frost wall this would mean a 11-12ft pour on walkout side which I'm not totally comfortable with.
3)Stack and glue 2 courses on top of Fast foot. Everything gets poured and doweled to a foot above basement floor level including the frost wall. For the second pour- brace from outside, stack walls above first floor hangers and pour basement walls and floor in same day.I think this method simplifies things as long as my first pour is dead level and plumb.

What does everyone here think? Thanks!

I have poured around 100 ICF foundations, most of those followed by main and sometimes second level walls. I have not tried the monopour system, but I have tried a lot of ways of pouring ICF walls. The Fastfoot Monopour certainly appears to have some advantages. If your time is cheap, then I think options 2 is the way to go. 12' pours are no big deal.

However, if time is money, AND quality matters; then option 1: pouring the footings separately, followed by the walls, followed by the floor will be the best. You are not going to be able manage a wall pour AND a floor pour in the same day if you are not an experienced concrete contractor. Paying a little more for the additional pumps is small potatoes compared to fixing out of level, plumb, or plane footings and walls. Any money spent on a pump will save money by being faster or saving remediation costs, in my humble opinion.

I've also found that our pump contractors will charge 2 pumps fees for two pours if they have to washout between them, even if they are back to back in the same location. For me it isn't worth the stress to try to pour walls and slab back to back.

We typically pour the footings, insert the dowels, snap lines, then start hauling block and bracing in. Rebar is already in. Once that is done we begin setting block. You can set it before the footings have fully hardened.

You may be able to pour the footings and/or slab without a pump; by working a bit harder and coordinating with the excavator.

I hope this helps!

That's a huge help, thank you.

What do you think of using my method #3 above and doing two separate pours for the walls and floor? That way I don't need to worry about attaching the block to the footing.

Good point on pouring the floor without a pump. Another note- The floor labor would definitely be hired out. The walls I would ideally have one experienced guy assisting me and my helpers.

I should mention, I'm not totally opposed to pouring a footing first independently. I just think that pouring it along with half of the first block would really simplify the rest of the stacking process. I could even pour the floor within a day or so after the footing. Then move right on to stacking walls.

If pouring the footing independently I would be spending a lot of time making sure its level anyway, only to have to possibly scribe the first row of blocks, glue them down etc.

I placed footings using Fastfoot. Installed basement plumbing, drain pipes, gravel, insulation, and vapor barrier. Then attached 2x4 form boards (2 boards butted 90 deg to form an "L") to the top of the footings inside the rebar dowels and placed my basement slab. You can use tapcons, i.e. blue screws, or just drill 1/4" holes in the top of the slab through the form board and drive 2 form nails into the same hole to lock down the 2x4 form boards to the top of the footing (this is what I did).  This made it easy for the floor finishers to screed and finish off the top of the form boards without worry of banging into the ICF foam.  It also made it easy to work from when installing the basement ICF and bracing (attached to slab with tapcons). Then I pulled the form boards and moved to outside the rebar dowels and set ICF between the slab edge and the outside form boards. No need to glue the ICF to the footing this way and it assures the first row of ICF doesn't move during the pour with it being sandwiched between the slab edge on the inside and form boards on the outside.  Poured basement ICF walls. Framed basement interior walls and put main floor trusses and decking down. Installed second level ICF forms and poured walls. Due to limited access for concrete trucks, I paid for 4 pumper trips, but they offered a discount for afternoon pours since most of their business is early in the morning for concrete slabs. Afternoon is when we poured the footings and ICF walls since it didn't take that long for each pour. The basement slab we started early to allow time for finishing. If you have access to all sides of your slab, you might avoid the cost of the pumper for the footings and slab doing it this way.

Walls should always be completely poured in one continuous pour and properly vibrated too. You don’t ever want to have a cold joint in a wall. We always do separate and complete pours for the footings, walls and slab floor. It is really nice starting out with a well done footing before placing the ICF. If we are doing colored/stamped concrete floors, we will do several pours just for the slab floor as you can only quality stamp so much concrete at one time.

sailaway- In your opinion what is the difference in strength between a cold joint in the first course above the footing vs on top of the footing? Assuming both are properly doweled and vibrated.

Arkie- I like that method. Did you have any step footings to contend with?

Posted By scapaldo on 16 Feb 2019 12:14 AM
sailaway- In your opinion what is the difference in strength between a cold joint in the first course above the footing vs on top of the footing? Assuming both are properly doweled and vibrated.

You'll looking at the joint at the base of the wall, with the entirety of the pressure coming DOWN.  So the entire wall is in compression.  Any flexion in the wall has to overcome the entirety of the wall's compression.

With a cold joint 16" (or so) up, you have a weak spot essentially in the "middle" of the wall.  So now you have a point of flexion that doesn't have to overcome the the mass of the whole wall.

Just make sure to use a bonding agent between the foundation and wall, as well as between the foundation/wall assembly during the floor pour.

Posted By Dilettante on 16 Feb 2019 12:20 PM

Posted By scapaldo on 16 Feb 2019 12:14 AM
sailaway- In your opinion what is the difference in strength between a cold joint in the first course above the footing vs on top of the footing? Assuming both are properly doweled and vibrated.

You'll looking at the joint at the base of the wall, with the entirety of the pressure coming DOWN.  So the entire wall is in compression.  Any flexion in the wall has to overcome the entirety of the wall's compression.

With a cold joint 16" (or so) up, you have a weak spot essentially in the "middle" of the wall.  So now you have a point of flexion that doesn't have to overcome the the mass of the whole wall.

Just make sure to use a bonding agent between the foundation and wall, as well as between the foundation/wall assembly during the floor pour.

That makes alot of sense thank you.  I may end up trying to monopour everything thats going to be below finished grade, just to ensure that that there are no issues with cold joints

Basically what Dilettante stated. Cold joints are expressly not allowed in retaining walls (e.g., basement walls) and it is just very bad practice to intentionally create them in ICF or any other walls. Most engineers will call for additional doweling if you will have a cold joint and that is pretty hard to accomplish in the middle of an ICF wall. So it is just best avoided.

No, I did not have any steps in my footing. Mine was a walkout basement cut into the side of a low hill

A cold joint will more than likely have voids that will allow water to pass through. If you keep the cold joint at the wall-to-footing interface and the top of your slab is 4"-5" above the footing, then any water that might find its way through the wall is below the floor level. On the other hand, if the cold joint is 16" or more above the footing, then any failures in the outside waterproofing would potentially allow water to leak through at that level and damage interior drywall, trim, flooring, etc.

I also installed french drains on the inside and outside of my footings that drain to daylight. The french drains inside the footings and below the slab insure any groundwater or leakage through the wall at the footing cannot build up pressure under the slab and migrate inside the envelope.

I call this defense-in-depth or belt-and-suspenders design. If any single barrier fails, then there is a backup to prevent adverse consequences. Kinda like how we design things where I work (nuclear power plant).

Arkie, I'm trying to understand the sequence of your detailed (thank you!) explanation. Is the below correct? 1) fastfoot footings are poured 2) all the stuff under the slab is placed 3) 2x4s are put around the perimeter of the footing toward the inside (?) and attached 4) slab is poured 5) 2x4s are removed 6) ICF blocks are placed on footings (rebar sticking up already?) 7) walls poured up to above floor 8) trusses of that floor added 9) ICF blocks, rebar and openings framed for next floor. 10) next floor poured. So, I have a few questions, too. How height can you pour a wall in one shot? If I have a ten foot ceiling on top of the footing, is that too much for one pour? And, what about a two-story house with a basement. Do I pour three times for each floor? Thank you, Sir.

Q: 2x4s are put around the perimeter of the footing toward the inside (?) - Yes, to the inside the rebar footing dowels. My basement walls were 8" core, so I had ~4" to work with inside the dowels so a 2x4 layed flat worked just fine. If you have 6" core ICF walls, you will only have ~3" to the inside of the dowels and might have to rip a 2x6 down to ~2-3/4" for the bottom part of the "L" form. I screwed a 2x4 vertical to this flat board which resulted in a 5" tall form edge (3.5" + 1.5"). I used 2# density EPS that was 1" thick on top of the footing for a thermal break, so this left me with a 4" slab.

Q: (rebar sticking up already?) - Yes, string lines were run across the top of the footings to mark the center of the wall and rebar dowels ~3' long with a ~6" "L" bend on the end going into the footing were wet set into the footings at 16" on-center to align with my vertical rebar.

Q: How height can you pour a wall in one shot? - 10-12 feet high is no problem. My basement walls were 9'8" tall if I remember correctly to allow for 18" deep top hung open web floor trusses and keep 8' tall ceilings in the basement. Now we didn't pour the whole wall from top to bottom in one pass. I think we made 3 passes around the perimeter filling the walls from the pumper truck, so about 3' more or less per pass. This worked out good because it took 3 truck loads of concrete to pour my walls.

Q: And, what about a two-story house with a basement. Do I pour three times for each floor? - You need to stack the ICF and pour each level independently, so 3 levels = 3 separate pours. You need to be able to brace each level and have a platform to work off of, so it just isn't practical to try to try and stack ICF and pour more than 1 level at a time, at least on a residential home. Some commercial projects with the right equipment and experienced crews can stack and pour more than 12' of wall at a time. As you finish the basement wall, you typically have 4' long rebar dowels wet set into the basement wall ~2' so that you have ~2' of rebar sticking up to tie into the next level. And you do the same thing for the first floor wall to the second floor wall.

The issue of fastening the ICF block to the footing is simple. The sequencing of the slab is a bit more complicated.
For fastening the ICF block to the footing, simply stack 2-3 courses, kick the block on line, then foam them down. At this point if you really want you can pour the slab. However, pouring a little bit into one course is a waste of time and money. A foamed block is a great form edge for the slab.

Posted By arkie6 on 19 Feb 2019 10:42 PM

Posted By scapaldo on 18 Feb 2019 11:59 PM

Is your frost line shallow? I'm in southeast PA and frost is at 36" so I'm probably going to have 2 steps which of course will complicate things.

Yeah, our frost depth here is only 12", so the footing is one continuous level pour for a walk-out basement.

https://fab-form.com/images/fastfoo...erview.jpg

Ah yes, I saw your foundation on Fab-Forms website previously, definitely makes things easier. I may end up using some insulation wings for a frost protected foundation at the walkout to reduce the amount of steps to 1 only block height.

Okay, found a video from Quadlock doing more or less what you're talking about in #2

https://youtu.be/16vt59jDAhU

Looks like they were just pouring the footing and short frost wall. Did they leave the wood spreaders in there? That sounds like a terrible idea.

This is the system that I would use if doing a monopour.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxkREgzfbHQ