|
|
FBBP
Veteran Member
Posts:1215
 |
| 20 Apr 2013 08:01 PM |
|
lbear - you really like to deflect facts.
1. You said "This is a potential life and death scenario with a complete wall & structural collapse" Smartwall said not likely. You challenged him to back it up. I replied that I would.
2. Chicken Little was not name calling but the scenario you created for OP with your uninformed expert opinion. You might ask you wife to explain the story to you. (:=))
3. OP asked how to repair it not legal remedies. Not how to get revenge.
4. Nobody has said that the large voids should not be repaired.
5. Nobody has said the original contractor was not at fault.
6. For those of you who want to go the punitive route and not facilitate repairs immediately consider
a - repairing the known voids will probably cost 1500 to 2000.00. OP can get on with his dreams. OP has probed the walls, it is unlikely there is more large voids.
b - getting the board and law involved will cost at a minimum 20,000.00 and probably closer to 100,000.00. OP will have to spend the money to prove his case.
c - OP wins his case. Two to three years with no work on his dream home. Paying mortgage and rent or two mortgages.
d - contractor is bankrupt or has hidden his funds. Or is OP's brother in law.
e - OP pays for all investigations and legal bills.
f - OP declares bankruptcy and the home goes on the market realizes 30 cent on the dollar because it isn't finished.
You know, I would swallow my pride, make the repairs and move the family in!! |
|
|
|
|
sailawayrb
Veteran Member
Posts:2283
|
| 20 Apr 2013 08:14 PM |
|
This is why there are building codes and inspectors... In good states, there are also state contractor construction boards that require contractors to be licensed, bonded, and insured, and are whom are fully empowered to step in to make things right between the contractor and the customer when necessary with zero cost to the customer. Sometimes GCs that don't learn from their mistakes do need to be shutdown and go bankrupt. |
|
| Borst Engineering & Construction LLC - Competence, Integrity and Professionalism are integral to all that we do! |
|
|
evary
New Member
Posts:19
|
| 20 Apr 2013 09:30 PM |
|
Thanks everyone for all of your advice. I absolutely have engineers (and a lawyer!) involved but I really do not expect to recover anything at all from the contractor. As I said, and as is evident from this forum, I am even getting differences of opinions from engineers (and some don't even want to touch this issue), so I was merely soliciting other opinions just to make sure I had not overlooked anything. FYI I am in Canada and the foundation was inspected by our County and an engineer and it passed inspection over a year ago. Unfortunately, you can't see what you can't see so this is what I am dealing with now. I really do just want to fix it and move on with my life.
Thanks again everyone!
evary |
|
|
|
|
Lbear
Veteran Member
Posts:2740
|
| 20 Apr 2013 10:50 PM |
|
Posted By FBBP on 20 Apr 2013 08:01 PM
1. You said "This is a potential life and death scenario with a complete wall & structural collapse" Smartwall said not likely. You challenged him to back it up. I replied that I would.
2. Chicken Little was not name calling but the scenario you created for OP with your uninformed expert opinion. You might ask you wife to explain the story to you. (:=))
3. OP asked how to repair it not legal remedies. Not how to get revenge.
4. Nobody has said that the large voids should not be repaired.
5. Nobody has said the original contractor was not at fault.
6. For those of you who want to go the punitive route and not facilitate repairs immediately consider
a - repairing the known voids will probably cost 1500 to 2000.00. OP can get on with his dreams. OP has probed the walls, it is unlikely there is more large voids.
b - getting the board and law involved will cost at a minimum 20,000.00 and probably closer to 100,000.00. OP will have to spend the money to prove his case.
c - OP wins his case. Two to three years with no work on his dream home. Paying mortgage and rent or two mortgages.
d - contractor is bankrupt or has hidden his funds. Or is OP's brother in law.
e - OP pays for all investigations and legal bills.
f - OP declares bankruptcy and the home goes on the market realizes 30 cent on the dollar because it isn't finished.
You know, I would swallow my pride, make the repairs and move the family in!!
1 - If you can guarantee that such a wall would not fail, all sight unseen, you know that you wouldn't be held liable if it did fall as there is no way that an online "promise" you made would stand up in court. Secondly, I never guaranteed it would collapse, I stated it was a potential life and death scenario and only the engineers can make that call when the wall is thoroughly inspected. 2 - Another personal attack. 3 - Revenge? That is your word, not mine. Reporting gross negligence by a GC is not "revenge". The OP is already seeking legal remedies. 4 - Agreed. But the repairs should wait until the voids are documented and inspected by an engineer. 5 - You apparently are apologizing for the GC and you are clearly defending him and stating that he needs to get a pass by not reporting him to the State Registrar. 6 -It has nothing to do with "pride" but doing the correct job that the contractor was paid for. The GC failed to provide the services and product that he was paid for. He needs to be held accountable, which I stated was involving the State Registrar. It does not cost anything for the complainant. How many more people will the GC victimize? According to your statements the GC is a professional and knows what he is doing because he stacked ICF and placed concrete, even though in reality he is an amateur and unschooled. In addition to putting the structure in jeopardy or failure of collapse, with possible serious life or death consequences. According to you because an architect never swings a hammer he/she is not qualified to make statements about home construction. |
|
|
|
|
Lbear
Veteran Member
Posts:2740
|
| 20 Apr 2013 10:59 PM |
|
Posted By evary on 20 Apr 2013 09:30 PM
Thanks everyone for all of your advice. I absolutely have engineers (and a lawyer!) involved but I really do not expect to recover anything at all from the contractor. As I said, and as is evident from this forum, I am even getting differences of opinions from engineers (and some don't even want to touch this issue), so I was merely soliciting other opinions just to make sure I had not overlooked anything. FYI I am in Canada and the foundation was inspected by our County and an engineer and it passed inspection over a year ago. Unfortunately, you can't see what you can't see so this is what I am dealing with now. I really do just want to fix it and move on with my life.
Thanks again everyone!
evary
Are some engineers fearful of the complications from the voids? Have any engineers given you warnings about the structure failing? It most likely can be fixed to where it will not be a future problem. Let the engineers do their job and guide you through this problem. |
|
|
|
|
sailawayrb
Veteran Member
Posts:2283
|
| 21 Apr 2013 01:22 PM |
|
As long as "moving on with your life" doesn't mean selling this building to someone else WITHOUT fully disclosing this problem and the resolution steps you took to the potential buyers... Keep any future liability associated with this problem tied to the GC and the companies affecting the structural repair. |
|
| Borst Engineering & Construction LLC - Competence, Integrity and Professionalism are integral to all that we do! |
|
|
robinnc
Advanced Member
Posts:586
|
| 21 Apr 2013 11:22 PM |
|
Did anybody here watch 'Hometime' yesterday? They just started a new project and the basement is ICF. The 'only' time I saw them vibrate was on the outside!!!! Why would they do that when the best practice is to vibrate on the inside?
|
|
|
|
|
Lbear
Veteran Member
Posts:2740
|
| 22 Apr 2013 01:32 AM |
|
Posted By robinnc on 21 Apr 2013 11:22 PM
Did anybody here watch 'Hometime' yesterday? They just started a new project and the basement is ICF. The 'only' time I saw them vibrate was on the outside!!!! Why would they do that when the best practice is to vibrate on the inside?
It can be a variety of reasons. One of which is that they edit the show for time and maybe didn't show the internal vibrating. Another is maybe they had a really high flow mix but even so, internal vibration should be done. Maybe the contractors that bid the job might not have done a lot of ICF walls, maybe this was their first ICF wall? The GBA website had a huge write-up about this Passive Home and it was featured in numerous GBA monthly articles. The contractor who did the ICF basement wall was a first timer, even though they did a lot of "concrete work" in the past, they never did ICF. In the end the wall was completely out of square by almost 10". They had numerous voids and they almost had a wall collapse on them. The homeowner was NOT happy with the results and said he regretted using that crew. This was a high profile project and they screwed it up. A very recurring theme is that a lot of people experience problems with crews that don't know ICF. I've spoken with a few industry guys and they all reiterated loudly that ICF has received more than its share of black eyes from ICF crews that didn't know what they were doing. |
|
|
|
|
smartwall
Veteran Member
Posts:1209
|
| 22 Apr 2013 10:49 AM |
|
I started my icf career using a screen grid block and there are still waffle grid blocks out there, which means there is no continuous concrete matrix inside the forms. Some how these walls have survived. So 5500 sq ft of basement wall with 8 voids and the walls should torn down. Nonsense. Evary, do you know the brand of icf used on you basement, as well as the core thickness? |
|
|
|
|
sailawayrb
Veteran Member
Posts:2283
|
| 22 Apr 2013 01:35 PM |
|
Waffle grid block structure is designed fully knowing where there isn’t any concrete. The issue here is whether the voids in this solid core block structure are significant enough to have significantly reduced the as-built strength from the intended design strength. No one can or should make that blind determination from a forum. |
|
| Borst Engineering & Construction LLC - Competence, Integrity and Professionalism are integral to all that we do! |
|
|
evary
New Member
Posts:19
|
| 22 Apr 2013 06:39 PM |
|
Hi, thank you for your reply. The brand was Logix. I believe the thickness of the concrete was either 6 or 8 inches, I'm going to check. I found another void today just by poking around the areas I already inspected - it was about 10 x 10 inches. I called my engineer and he is now recommending that I STRIP all of the foam to see what's going on behind. My basement is huge!!! I'm in a panic - looking for opinions - don't worry - I'm not making any decisions based on the forum - just looking for other ideas.
HOW DO I STRIP THIS 3 INCH FOAM??????? SHOULD I?????? |
|
|
|
|
Lbear
Veteran Member
Posts:2740
|
| 22 Apr 2013 06:46 PM |
|
Posted By evary on 22 Apr 2013 06:39 PM
Hi, thank you for your reply. The brand was Logix. I believe the thickness of the concrete was either 6 or 8 inches, I'm going to check. I found another void today just by poking around the areas I already inspected - it was about 10 x 10 inches. I called my engineer and he is now recommending that I STRIP all of the foam to see what's going on behind. My basement is huge!!! I'm in a panic - looking for opinions - don't worry - I'm not making any decisions based on the forum - just looking for other ideas.
HOW DO I STRIP THIS 3 INCH FOAM??????? SHOULD I??????
How many large voids have you found so far, over a dozen, correct? Unless you can use some type of technology that will image behind the wall, stripping the foam looks like the only way to see what is happening with the concrete. It's going to be a mess stripping that foam. See if anyone around you has imaging equipment made to see into concrete. Maybe they can scan the walls and find all the voids without ripping the foam off the wall. |
|
|
|
|
jonr
Senior Member
Posts:5341
|
| 22 Apr 2013 06:55 PM |
|
Maybe you can do the repairs (pour in more concrete) and then if you aren't comfortable that it it strong enough, test it. Testing is better than estimating. How to test a wall - I have no idea. |
|
|
|
|
Alton
Veteran Member
Posts:2164
|
| 22 Apr 2013 07:18 PM |
|
Shotcreting would be an easy way to make quick repairs. No forms needed. But the EPS foam would have to be removed before shotcreting. |
|
Residential Designer &
Construction Technology Consultant -- E-mail: Alton at Auburn dot Edu Use email format with @ and period .
334 826-3979 |
|
|
evary
New Member
Posts:19
|
| 22 Apr 2013 07:48 PM |
|
There are so far 9 voids. I inquired into gpr(ground penetrating radar) but was told that it does not penetrate the foam. I did IR but it was inconclusive. |
|
|
|
|
FBBP
Veteran Member
Posts:1215
|
| 22 Apr 2013 09:31 PM |
|
Posted By evary on 22 Apr 2013 07:48 PM
There are so far 9 voids. I inquired into gpr(ground penetrating radar) but was told that it does not penetrate the foam. I did IR but it was inconclusive.
Before you go to the trouble of stripping everything do a search for "concrete scanning" and whichever province you are in and it might give you some leads as to who has what equipment. Also check your area for firms that do concrete testing as they might be able to source you some other non destructive testing such as impulse radar.
If you want to do more checking yourself, select the areas associated with the extra rebar, i.e. above and beside windows and doors. Even if you are going to strip, do these areas first. In the open parts of the wall i.e. where there is no windows and doors, there is little to stop the flow of concrete so the likelihood of voids in these areas is much lower.
In the areas where you have opened the wall and where the aggregate is exposed, can you tell what the largest stones in the concrete mix is? |
|
|
|
|
evary
New Member
Posts:19
|
| 22 Apr 2013 11:59 PM |
|
Well, I spent the last 4 hours at the house doing even more poking with my marshmellow stick (every 3 inches or so) and found another 12 x 12 void and several smaller voids which may be just honeycombing???
I reviewed the invoices for the concrete and the aggregate size was stated to be 14 mm on 2 invoices, 20 mm on 2 other invoices and 40 mm on one invoice. In all, I paid for 144 cubic meters.
Thanks for the tip about impulse radar - I saw this somewhere else and I will look it into.
Wish me luck. |
|
|
|
|
arkie6
Veteran Member
Posts:1453
|
| 23 Apr 2013 06:22 AM |
|
144 cubic meters = 188 cubic yards. Down here, most concrete trucks can only haul 10 cubic yards per load, so you would be looking at 19 or more loads for that amount of concrete. That is a lot of concrete. Are you sure you used that much concrete? Were you on site the day of the pour? Did your invoices cover more than one load? Do you have time stamps on your invoices to show which size aggregate was delivered first, what was second, and so on?
14mm = 1/2" = OK for wall pours of 6" thickness.
20mm = 3/4" = OK for 8" and thicker walls. Often used on 6" walls, but increases the chances of bridging and creating voids.
40mm = 1.5" = Not OK for a wall pour because it will bridge across ties and rebar. Generally used for slabs. Did you have any flat work done?
Not that it really matters at this point, but maybe someone else can learn from this, but did you happen to see how your horizontal rebar was placed in the wall? Were the lap joints placed side-by-side or one on top of the other? Side-by-side laps tend to accumulate concrete on top of them from one lift to the next and this can create voids under the horizontal bar. |
|
|
|
|
jonr
Senior Member
Posts:5341
|
| 23 Apr 2013 08:11 AM |
|
An interesting study on consolidation and voids.
http://www.icfmag.com/documents/PCA_Consolidation_Report.pdf |
|
|
|
|
FBBP
Veteran Member
Posts:1215
|
| 23 Apr 2013 09:03 AM |
|
Posted By arkie6 on 23 Apr 2013 06:22 AM
144 cubic meters = 188 cubic yards. Down here, most concrete trucks can only haul 10 cubic yards per load, so you would be looking at 19 or more loads for that amount of concrete. That is a lot of concrete. Are you sure you used that much concrete? Were you on site the day of the pour? Did your invoices cover more than one load? Do you have time stamps on your invoices to show which size aggregate was delivered first, what was second, and so on?
14mm = 1/2" = OK for wall pours of 6" thickness.
20mm = 3/4" = OK for 8" and thicker walls. Often used on 6" walls, but increases the chances of bridging and creating voids.
40mm = 1.5" = Not OK for a wall pour because it will bridge across ties and rebar. Generally used for slabs. Did you have any flat work done?
Not that it really matters at this point, but maybe someone else can learn from this, but did you happen to see how your horizontal rebar was placed in the wall? Were the lap joints placed side-by-side or one on top of the other? Side-by-side laps tend to accumulate concrete on top of them from one lift to the next and this can create voids under the horizontal bar.
arkie - I suspect that OP is from Alberta and up here we use trailers that will haul 12, 16 and 18 meters. That not withstanding, you are on the right track with a lot of concrete. If OP lays the bills out in date order It might show that the one 40 mm load went into the footings, the 14 mm went into the walls and the 20mm went in for the basement floor slab. |
|
|
|
|