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Part 7 - ICF up, up and away

Stones

Entry posted by Stones

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A busy week on site has seen us transition from foundations to solid structure.

First order of the day, getting prepared -  ICF blocks, braces, window formers and other equipment moved onto the slab.

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Building the walls up - basically a giant lego kit!

 

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Blockwork finished and scaffolding going up.

 

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Although the ICF blocks interlock with each other, the walls themselves (6 blocks high) are subject to a lot of movement.  To counter this and secure them for the concrete pour, adjustable braces are fixed to the slab, and to tracks bolted into the plastic ties that form the core of the ICF block.  Timber sheets are bolted over internal and external corners for additional strengthening, 

 

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Timber window formers are fixed into place inside and out to prevent movement during the pour.

 

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Rebar is used to reinforce around openings;

 

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and finally, any gaps or damage to the ICF blockwork is sealed with expanding foam;

 

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Erecting the ICF took two days, with all the preparations taking another two.  Concrete was finally poured on day five, using exactly the same method as per the foundations.  A hoistable skip attached to a crane, was filled with steel fibre reinforced concrete.  The builders worked their way around the walls in three circuits, filling to a depth of 2 1/2 blocks on the first two passes, and finishing the depth of the last block on the final pass.  Again the same hopper was used to run along the top of the block wall and direct the concrete from the skip outlet down into the wall.

 

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A vibrating poker was used to help settle the concrete.  A lot of work went into getting the concrete to flow around the window openings.  To ensure full fill beneath the windows, the builders cored holes in the window formers and manually topped up the concrete in areas where required, again using the vibrating poker to ensure the concrete filled any gaps and settled.

 

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Having filled the ICF core, the final things to be done were floating the surface of the concrete in readiness for the wall plate, inserting lengths of rebar into the gables in readiness for the final sections of ICF being built when the roof goes on, and checking all the walls were true.    

 

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Two separate rounds of checking the walls and adjusting the bracing were made, to ensure any movement in the curing process was countered.  In this picture you can see the curing process in action - water from the concrete being forced out of the joints in the blockwork;

 

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Around 22 m3 of concrete went into the walls.  The builder had ordered an additional 1 m3 but it wasn't wasted, being deposited in the garage foundation (it's a useful tip - have somewhere prepared where you can deposit / use any spare concrete)

 

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All being well, the roof goes up this week.

 

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ProDave

All looking good. Clearly this is a well rehearsed procedure that your builders have done before.

My only comment is they seem to have drilled holes in the slab to fix the temporary braces to. How do you know they haven't hit UFH pipes and how will you fill those holes so they don't show on your floated concrete floor?

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Crofter

I don't know much about ICF so find this fascinating. Seems to be going smoothly, well done. I can see the appeal of such solid construction, Orkney is even windier than Skye!

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Stones

Thanks chaps. It's clear from watching the builders that they are very good at what they do. They have been building with this system for the past 6 or so years, and have as Dave indicates, got very proficient at doing it. Of course, having the right kit for the job makes it seem almost effortless.

Having never built with ICF before, ( having always built with timber frame ), I have to say I am a complete convert.  I'm finding the whole process of how the ICF system goes together really interesting, and I'm glad others are as well. It certainly is a very robust structure!

To answer Dave's comment about the fixings used to secure the bracing to the slab, they used 50mm fixings and a spacer (10mm nut). Once the fixing plate of the brace is taken into account, the fixings only penetrate the slab to a depth of 35mm, well above the UFH pipes (100mm slab).  At this stage I have no idea how the fixing holes will be filled. The slab will be covered with a mix of tile and engineered timber flooring so we aren't going to see anything.

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ProDave

I only wondered as a lot of people that have floated / polished concrete leave that as the finished floor.

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Stones

I must admit when we did see the finished floated slab, we did talk about using it (properly sealed) as a finished floor surface, but it's a bit too industrial looking for our liking.  We may yet retain it in the utility room, could work quite well in there.  

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