Hey Everyone. I'm building a 4'8" (3.5 course) ICF garage stem wall using AMVIC this weekend. About 125 linear feet of wall. I plan to pour next weekend. Note that I'll be around 3c in my location (35-40F) I was about to order 2 concrete trucks to arrive 1.25 hours apart but noticed that in the AMVIC manual the pour rate table values are based on a 14' wall height. If i pour a 4'8" wall in two lifts within 1 hour, am I playing with fire? Thanks.

You could do it in one lift. I take it your pouring out of the truck. You can have both trucks there at the same time.. The batch company will probably send both at the same time. It's their way of moving you along. Amvics' a great block should be no problem. I would suggest building a plywood funnel for lack of a better word. Pouring out of a truck can be messy. Also realize that the truck will weight about 25-30 tons loaded so it has to stay away from the edge with access all the way around the pour.

I'll be using a 50ft telescopic conveyor truck with a 'sock'. we used the conveyor with a solid tube on the footings, it was great! My two good friends pour curbs\sidewalks slabs etc every day of the week, they refuse to make me pay for a pump and have assured me that a conveyor with a sock will be fine for this job. I'll build some funnels out of scrap plywood and 2x to make things easier - great idea. I can fix a few of them away from the corners so that we don't get carried away.

If your using the conveyor you shouldn't need the funnel trick. Use two pieces of furring and 2 c- clamps to cut back the flow from the tremme on the end. Most are 8" and the concrete flows a little too fast so slow it down by folding the end to cut it back to about 5" and you should be alright. I'm assuming your using a 6" block.

Update. The pour was a shit show but the final result was great.

I accidentally order a traditional (old!) conveyor truck vs a telescopic one. This was a big mistake because of my specific circumstances.

Twice the shoot fell off. The first time dumping concrete on my head and back. This was partially my fault because i was trying too hard to compensate for the lack of control by bending the sock. Thr main problem was that we couldn't move the truck because it was too full and wouldn't move up a slight incline due to slippery snow on top of a frozen lawn. We had to dump mostly in a 6-8ft area of the wall and let the concrete 'waterfall' along the wall. The vibrator helped with this but the amount of vibrating was making me very anxious. As expected by the operator, the truck moved no problem once we unloaded 2-3 yards of concrete.

In the chaos we wasted a lot of concrete. 15min into the pour the truck was spewing out a disturbing amount of hydraulic fluid adding to control problems. I ended up ordering 2 extra meters for being an estimated 1.3meters short. We were able to top up the 'garage door wall' with a traditional chute truck.

Lessons learned:

- small probems become big problems doing concrete in the winter.

- I went way overboard with my wood bracing. (braced thr hell out of the corners. Inside and outside along walls; brace every 3-4ft)Had I not, it might have been another icf horror story as we had to go way off script because of the issues of the day - concentrating a lot of load in a few areas that I'm sure would make people cringe.

Dispite the site looking like a war zone, the walls didn't move and I'm very happy with the final result.

Congrats. And always better a little too much concrete, even with an occasional spill, than not enough.

Hopefully, you properly vibrated the concrete after pouring it. The only time I can honestly claim that I am fully happy with an ICF pour is after testing a 28 day cured concrete core sample and verifying that there are no significant voids in the walls. Yes, too much concrete is way better than too little concrete.

The most experienced guy was on the vibrator. We vibrated every 6 inch on a 6in slump w/10mm stone.

I did however have to speak up a bit to get the old timers to agree to vibrate such a wet mix. They dont leave room for debate in the amvic documentation.

I drilled 2 - 3-1/4" holes right before backfilling. No signs of voids. I saved one of the cores.... N

Excellent...sounds like you have things well in hand!