Hi all, I'm an owner-builder in an area of northern Idaho which doesn't have a building code (hence I assume I don't need an 'Engineer-of-Record', let alone an in-state one) for the residential construction being planned. I'm totally new to ICF (not much in TN where I'm from), and it was suggested by my concrete contractor last year when he poured the monolithic slab for a garage with upstairs loft (I'm waiting until lumber prices cool off again before building past that). See attached JPG image for a very basic Elevation View sketch of what I'm going for.

Welp, regarding the 'lateral resistance' & fastening the loft's floor structure to the walls, I was told that Simpson make a ledger attachment strap ICFVL, which handles that aspect of the project.

The connectors that I use are from Burmon. Best on the market. Available from Clearco Fasterners in Minn. We have a resident engineer on this site. Perhaps the gentle lady will comment when she reads this.

There are multiple ways to mount the floors to the wall. I poured my lower floor then set the floor trusses on the wall and poured the upper walls encasing the trusses in the wall. Low cost and easy.

Most that do this incase the end of the truss by wrapping waterproofing, but my inspector wanted more so I got porch post covers and cut them up to cover the truss ends. My truss ends were 3 stacked 2x4's.

Many code books have ICF rebar schedules and requirements. Michigan has it in theirs.

Thank you Smartwall. I am not a structural engineer so this is well beyond my comfort level and expertise.

Normally, unless you are doing something very unconventional, one can just use the ICF prescriptive method contained in the building code for your jurisdiction. Even in an area without a building code, I think I would at least adhere to one to some extent...maybe use the Boise structural code? Building codes are not a bad thing and can often keep you from having major problems.

I did stumble across this Boise ICF build which might provide some inspiration:

https://buildblock.com/the-wrinkler-residence/

We have used BuildBlock in the past and liked it. Same with Nudura. We never tried Fox, but by all accounts it is a good block too.

Gayle

Is the garage frame or icf ?

Thanks all for the commentary.

@smartwall, the garage walls will be ICF...I'm deliberating on whether or not the upstairs loft will have ICF walls too, instead of 2x6 studs...seems natural to keep going with ICF up there.

Thanks for the reference to Burmon hangers. I also came across Watkins Hangers last night...I think it's a.k.a. Lavann hangers

Is your drawing just a sketch? You appear to not have accounted for the space the floor joist/trusses take up. Nice design though.

The reason I asked is the lintel over the garage door needs to be designed. If you use 6" icf, I would guess you will need a 24" lintel over the door with appropriate rebar. Nudura has an excellent lintel design section. It's what I use. Otherwise everything else is pretty standard stuff. Use the Burmon it makes life simple and quick, also Clearco has other fasteners and connectors that make the job easy. If your using I- joist for thr floor, they carry a new product that really stiffens the floor system.

Posted By smartwall on 12 Apr 2022 02:11 PM
The reason I asked is the lintel over the garage door needs to be designed. If you use 6" icf, I would guess you will need a 24" lintel over the door with appropriate rebar. Nudura has an excellent lintel design section. It's what I use. Otherwise everything else is pretty standard stuff. Use the Burmon it makes life simple and quick, also Clearco has other fasteners and connectors that make the job easy. If your using I- joist for thr floor, they carry a new product that really stiffens the floor system.

I'm initially figuring 8" ICF but need to check the tables again for max wall height allowed if I switched to a 6"...would be fine with me at face-value.

Continuing on this, if I'm making prints showing ICF walls and let's say TJI joists hung from Watkins hangers and/or the Simpson ICFVL-W ledger attachment, is there an online reference showing how to denote/call-out these on prints?

I'd pay a draftsman to do these garage/loft print, but need to have them ready in 2 weeks from today and I figure most folks are swamped.