Doing Block Walls Instead Of A Poured Foundation

Mike Finley

I've been slowly gathering information over the last few years in anticipation of building a house on some property we own at a lake in Nebraska. Right now I've just been in the mental note gathering mode trying to categorize what I will actually tackle myself and what I will sub.

Anyways, it will be a walk out basement, probably about a 1200 sq foor ranch on top and I had always thought I would do poured walls for the foundation, but a recent article in JLC magazine showing how one contractor does block foundations and why he deos them has peeked my curiousity about maybe doing that instead, maybe even tackling it myself for fun. Anybody have any comments about that?

maj

Not to change the subject or your mind, Mike, but have you researched PWF at all? PWF is ideal for walk outs. And you can do it all yourself at a leisurely pace.

joasis

You should give ICF's a look. My new home is planned with a garage/ walkout basement, and I will pour the footings, set the first course "wet bedded" in the footing, then stack the ICF walls and fill. You will kill 3 birds with one stone: 6 inch walls, r40 insulation, and of course, forming you don't have to screw with. I am getting pricing in for a custom home, which will be my first shot into ICF's, but I am sold on it....you might look at insulatedconcretehomes.com and see what grabes you. Only downside for some is the thickness of the walls, which in the custom we are doing, will be 12 inches + the brick and rock on the inside. The windows are flanged to the outside of the V-Bucks, and it gives a fortress like look, but I think they are great.

maj

ICF's are another great alternative. Becoming very common around here. Although rather expensive, the advantages make it worthwhile. I have been involved in a couple ICF foundations, but only helping another contractor out.

ron schenker

My brother in law is in the process of building a B+B in rural Ontario, and he used ICF's throughout. It's becoming more common here in snow country. He swears by it and would recommend it to anyone.

PipeGuy

Mike, I think both products are good ones provided they are properly constructed. I'd have to consider soil and climate conditions to arrive at a preference.
My experience is that really good masons build better foundations than average concrete subs. I also think the worst masons build better foundations than the worst concrete subs.
With both products one needs to provide for adequate foundation drainage, proper dampproofing and controlled backfill. Quality assurance of the ready-mix concrete or mason's mortar both demand effort. It would seem to me that assuring the proper placement of block is easier than assuring the proper placement of concrete (you can see the block go up, you can't see inside a form). Likewise, with a masonry foundation, a large part of the product is finished upon its delivery to the site - the block itself. One can inspect it immediately for quality.

denick

Mike,

The guys have all brought up good points. It's all in the quality put into the completion of the job with all these types of foundations.

Knowing that quality counts in a foundation seems to be some lost mythical idea today though.

There are tricks to block work that once you know them you can do a proper job. Just as a good paint job, framing or trim work. It's all in the tricks.

__________________
Nick

"Every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving" Albert Einstein

ApgarNJ

Mike.

I do block foundations on all my jobs here in NJ. never did a poured foundation. it's just the way most contractors do things here, the bigger developers are doing poured. lots of guys also doing Superior walls brand of prefabs. i'm not sold on them yet.
the ICF is something that isn't common around here, but right now, i'm designing an addition for my own house and seriously thinking of doing them, just for the foundation, so that i can do it myself, quicker forming than doing a poured. and i don't have to pay my mason to lay block here for me. i'm not interested in doing the block myself but had a friend do a whole house, foundation all the way up to the gables in the ICF walls, he love the house. r40 walls and r60 in the roof with urethane foam. not sure i'll go that far, but he has a very efficient house.

i'm still doing my research into the ICF to see which brands are the best ones to use. the only thing that turns me off to them is the plastic strips that everything gets fastened to, inside and outside.

another question is do guys do a scatch coat over the outside foam that is exposed above grade? i would think that would be a pain to deal with because it would get knocked into eventually and the foam would break apart causing the scratch coat to chip or break.

joasis

The outside can be finished in a myriad of ways. The "stud" strips every 8 inches on center look to be pretty great. The only gripe I have heard is nailing the base trim down...about everything you attach to ICF has to be screwed, but the strips hold well from what I have seen.

I have seen a stucco coat done that was spectacular, and of course, all conventional exteriors will work great. The only thing you notice is the thickness of the walls.

tkle

Concrete foundations require an investment in form material resulting in higher costs for the single job but are more cost effective as the material is used over and over.You end up with a lot of lumber to store and you have a warpage problem.Otherwise there really isn't much difference between a quality block foundation and a quality placed concrete foundation.

Teetorbilt

ICF's are gaining strength here in hurricane land and it's not just for the integrity, the R value speaks for itself. The numbers that I hear are about 10% more but that should pay back in just a few years. Less if energy costs continue to rise.

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Mike Finley

A little background on this house. I plan on building it only to sell it. The consensus on here from some other posts I made seems to be it would be smarter to build a house and sell it then just sell the land. Also, it's my pet project to build a house. I have goals for at least 2 others, one in the mountains here in Colorado as a vacation house and building the next personal residence for us.

The land is lake front and it is paid for already and I plan on paying cash for the expenses of building this house so there are relatively no holding costs. It's kind of a no-brainer as long as I don't do anything stupid I can get the experience and make a nice profit at the same time kind of thing.

The ICF wouldn't be something I would consider because of the higher costs associated with it. My brother-in-law actually built his house using ICFs so I'm pretty familiar with it.

One large issues in regard to this project is qualified subs. This is western Nebraska, pretty isolated and qualified contractors for all the trades aren't exactly crawling out of the wood work out there. So part of what is intriguing about doing it with cement blocks is the do-it-yourself aspect, with time not really being a factor.

Also the soil is all sand out there- they call that part of the state the sand hills region, and drainage should be no problem considering it is a walk out so the foundation drains could be run right out on the hill. There is electric on site, the sewer would be septic and the water is a well that I already have a 99 year lease on.

PipeGuy

If it were me, I'd use CMU's.

K2

I've done block walls in the East and poured concrete in Colorado. A block foundation would not stand a chance in Colorado's expansive soils simply because it is not strong enough. I've got the engineering around here to support my statement.

I can do either foundation myself and would not consider a block foundation even if local building codes allowed it.

Of course a block foundation would probably last 4 to 5 hundred years in most situations. A concrete foundation would probably last 1500 to 2000 years.

Block has some advantages like it's easier to to keep perfectly straight, plum, level, and square. Concrete wins in every other regard. In my opinion.

PipeGuy

These are my biggest concerns with concrete:
1. In residential work, most people who pour it add water to improve the ease of placement instead of using an add-mixture. Too much water ruins concrete so from the instant it goes into the form it's substandard.
2. In residential work, few people know how to properly vibrate concrete.
3 In residential work, most concrete is nearly unreinforced.
I'd want a commercial concrete sub to pour my basement and I'd spec a whole lot more rebar tahn what seems to be typical.

K2

I've been around a lot of concrete foundations. The chemical reaction, (hydration), of concrete like any chemical reaction, is never 100% complete and under the best circunstance only achieves 70% to 80% completion.

In my opinion I would take a concrete foundation at 30% reaction over a block foundations.

Our reinforcing for 8 ft. walls on residential has always been 2 bars on the bottom and 3 bars on the top. I have never seen anything close to a failure with this reinforcing layout. We have always done a complete backfill with full compaction without any framing in place or bracing.

If I remember my days of block foundations, back east, we always had at least the subfloor on before we did a complete backfill.

As i mentioned before, I am in an area with expansive soils. The last block foundations were done in this area in the late 50's and seeing a block foundation on expansive soil would easily convince me that concrete would be the way for me.

denick

Mike,

In my opinion you haven't been given any bad advice here about your foundation. A foundation can be constructed properly using any of the material types talked about in this thread.

If this is a spec house you might look into what is the preferred type of foundation in that area. Everybody has an opinion about everything. What do the real estate people feel sells better.? Does a house appraise better there with one type of foundation or the other?
Is someone building houses there that are good sellers, what are they doing?

That known, what is the correct way to build the type of foundation you chose? A lot of good advice available here once you make that decision.

Can you find a qualified sub there to do it?

What are the things you need know or have to do it yourself?

You really can't go wrong if you have thought it through this far.

Good luck with the house.

__________________
Nick

"Every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving" Albert Einstein

Mike Finley

Thanks Nick, you bring up some good points. This area is so wierd that there is no preferred construction. Actually I'll take that back, anything not a double wide is preferred construction! This is a sleeply little area that has grown from farmers, to a few fishermen building shacks to sleep in during fishing season, to some enterpising fisherman bringing up a old junker RV and throwing it on blocks to one up his buddies fishing shacks... to a few trailer parks... to some really progressive thinkers who brought in a few modular homes, to then people finally looking around and realizing what they had thier hands on here and started building some stick built homes.

There are some old A-frames, even a geo dome, a log cabin or two, a bunch of self-built homes that you would swear were built without a tape measure and built from salvage, everything from a few people from Colorado who came in and created a duplicate of their suburban paradise homes complete with beige everything. To say the least it is bizzare. There are little pockets of different things all around the lake with the period it was established really defining what is there. The older first established places are crazier, with the last established areas more normal and defined. They actually hired thier first full time building inspector about 5 years ago.
The land around this lake only 15% of it is privately owned, the other 85% is owned by the power company, and there is actually only 1 lake front buildible lot left on this lake - and I just happen to own it!

Really, as long as there are no issues with block vs poured that would stop me from doing one or the other the only deciding factor between doing block wall or a poured one is time. If I decide that I can't spare the time to spend putzing around up there doing the blocks then I would just hire somebody to do the concrete foundation and be done with it.

A lot of this project just depends on the fun factor vs the druge factor as far as doing it myself or hiring somebody.

Mike Finley

So getting back to the topic - anybody have an real world tips or advice as far a what to expect under-taking doing a block wall foundation as a one or (one man & a wife) operation? Is it crazy to move that much tonnage around by hand? Will I get about 5 courses into this and wonder what the fu#k I was thinking? Will the wife divorce me over this as she is shoveling sand into the mixer in the hot Nebraska?

Glasshousebltr

Yeap, yeap. but I think the gal might stick with ya.

Blocks a bit more work but I like to do it, however you have to keep in mind I can correctly lay about 250 to 300 block a day with one morter forker helping. Thats not real fast but it's just fast enough to make money. You'll start out a hell of a lot slower than that and should catch on pretty quick. The first few days will drag on ya good.

Also, I've had bad days I couldn't get past 200 block.

Just my thoughts.

Bob

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Bob