Concrete house

   / Concrete house #1  

Paddy

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Joined
Sep 30, 2004
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Bloomington, IN
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As you may have seen in past posts, I will be building a concrete home. I hope to incorperate as much energy saving methods as I can..afford. I have reviewed many systems and I'm working on a sandwitch of Concrete/Insulation foam/Concrete, or CIC. This is very diff from the ICF, Insulated Concrete Forms because, ICF is Foam/Concrete/Foam. The key to both systems is reduced air infilteration and thermal mass. I plan to build the entire structure from concrete, bacement slab, bacement walls, main floor, second floor walls, third floor, third floor walls and a flat roof.

The principle consruction method for CIC, is a panel poured horizontal/flat on site and then raised. I plan to pour in place. I will use a standard concrete form placed such that a 6" foan panel will be nearly centered in the form. Fiber glass ties will be used to hold the panel as a monolithic wall. All exposed surfaces will be concrete. The foam will be internal.

Dow chem makes the foam we are all familuar with. At some point they joined forces with a company to make the composite ties that hold the two concrete panels in the sandwitch with the foam. The site is not so great but just to get a idea on the the concept.

The Best Home Science Can Build

There are good research studies on concrete structures with regards to thermal mass. Go to the botom of the page and open "view Presentations" and open; "Calculation of Energy Benefits of Application of Thermal Mass in Residentail Buildings - Methodology"

Thermal Mass Discussion Forum

Roofs and floors can be done in several ways but I like the foam form from Insul-Deck. This is a form that creates the joists and deck in a single pour

http:/www.insul-deck.org

If this type of home starts to sound like living in a cave, I plan on using Radiant floor heating from a Geo-Themal source. below is a nice site

Welcome to Architectural Residential Technologies, Inc.

Additional reading on Thermal mass just for fun

Thermal Mass and R Value

Well that's enough for now. Looking for some coments.

Regards,

Patrick M
 
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   / Concrete house #2  
Patrick;
Your plans sound great. I lived in a concrete home in Southern California (Burbank). It was built in 1938. Poured in place on a slab. 2.5" exterior wall, 5" air space and another 2.5" interior wall. It was very economical to cool and heat. My house was one of ten built in the neighborhood as an experiment to create simple, solid homes quickly. I've never seen any others like them since. Being 1938 vintage it was sometimes a bear to remodel, rewire and replumb. You have to bring out a hammer drill to hang a picture!! Our contractor brought out large air powered water saws to demo prior to adding an addition. The entire city building department came down to autopsy the demo'd sections to analyze the construction techniques. It seems the walls were poured in place with "slip" forms. Very neat stuff 60+ years ago. Good luck with yours. I think the modern techniques and materials should make a great construction project.

SimS
 
   / Concrete house #3  
Paddy, with concrete exterior and interior walls do you fur out the interior walls to run electrics and such? Sounds like it would be a good system for those who live out west with the fire problems.

MarkV
 
   / Concrete house
  • Thread Starter
#4  
MarkV,

I would run all the ele in the foam. Since I will have 6" of foam, 3 layers of 2", I would leave a track/void at 16" above the floor. I idea is to build 4' x 10' by 6" thick panels laminated. They would be assembled such that the middle 2" would be off set for a Tounge and Groove effect. As the forms and steel go up, the panels would be inserted as well. Fiber glass wall ties will be used to prevent thermal bridging. Also, fiberglass conectors need to be used to hold the two concrete panels together. The exterior will be stuco and a plaster skim coat for the inside.
 
   / Concrete house #5  
Paddy, Just a couple nits and some lessons learned THE HARD WAY. I would hope you go for all the energy conservation that you can afford that has a practical payback. YOui can always spend more and get more efficient but you can also pass the point where yoiu will ever get a payback. If I am wrong and misinterpret and you wish to express GREEN sentiments with no economic basis, go for it, I don't mind.

Chases for utilities need to be easy to access for retrofits. No matter how well you plan and how much you think you know about what the future will hold, some things will just not be predictable. The lifecycle of your house will be very long and it would be good to design to accomodate change, not in form factor for room additions but in things like wiring for example. You can put miles aof wires of every kind in the hoiuse to network all rooms, have telephones in all rooms, TV and audio, intercom, and who knows what but in 5 years what will come out that requires different cable standards. Think of the suffering masses with aging RG-59 in their walls who wish there were an economical way to replace it with RG-6. Networking standards constantly evolve.

You didn't say if any of your interior walls were going to be load bearing or concrete but if they are then wiring updates for entertainment and comms and such just got harder.

I had to jump through flaming hoops to get a second TV to operate on our Sat TV system designed for 2 TVs. TV #2 is in the sitting room with 2 steel reinforced concrete walls between it and the great room (location of Sat Box.) The remote for TV #2 is RF, not IR. The RF didn't make it through the walls and things got pretty messy with multiple diplexers to get the signals all where they needed to go. The TV cables prewired in the walls can not be replaced. OOPS!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have a couple pretty nice receiver amps. Neither can get a FM station when they are in the equipment cab up against a concrete wall. I added an amplified antenna and can tell there are statons but not listenable. I will have to put up an antenna in the attic (under 12:12 oitch stick built roof) and try to drop a lead down a stud cavity which I only have availale because the ICF contractor built a crooked wall and we custom cut studs to fir out the wall and drywalled it.

Got the breakfast call from "SHE WHO MUST BE OBEYED" so later.

Now to continue, fortifed by a bowl of oatmeal with raisins and a banana, rye toast, and turkey bacon, and glass of OJ.

I understand, Paddy, that you are going with a flat concrete roof too so essentially you are going to be in a Faraday cage, considering the rebar. Don't forget to make allowances for getting RF signals into the house. What if later you decide you want a desktop weather statiion with the convenient "wireless" RF connections to the outside sensors? Even just a simple indoor outdoor thermometer with RF link may have trouble making it through yoiur "bunker." I have an indoor outdoor thermometer projector clock that pouts the temps and time on the bedroom wall or ceiling. I get very little latitude in placement of the ourtdoor temp sensor. it is on the window sill were the temp is integrated between the brick temp and the air temp. When the steel indoor storm shutters are closed it won't work. (Recall my master suite, less the sitting room and all its glass, is my safe room.)

Patrick_G
 
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   / Concrete house #6  
If it was an earlier post, I missed it. How is the internal wiring going to be done? Prewired and set into the internal concrete? Surely you aren't running conduit all over...
 
   / Concrete house #7  
dooleysm said:
If it was an earlier post, I missed it. How is the internal wiring going to be done? Prewired and set into the internal concrete? Surely you aren't running conduit all over...

Shawn, His first post described the wall structure. There is a 6 inch foam filled cavity and he said he'd leave a void at the 16 inch above floor height to accomodate wire.

I'd recommend a thin wall plastic tube for conduit as just loose wire in a cavity can be really hard to replace or add to. If you have a LARGE diameter "conduit" you can leave nylon cords in place so in the future you can easily pull in additional cables or whatever. I first started doing this in my sailboat as some of the cable runs were pure torture. I ran a good strong nylon cord though various cable paths. Then when I needed to add a wire for something like a different knotmeter or ??? I coild use the cord to pull it through. You only have to use the cord once to really be happy you have it.

Patrick_G
 
   / Concrete house #8  
On cording plastic tubing, an easy trick is to use light twine, a ball of paper, and a shopvac. Tie a wad of paper up with the twine (like a cat toy) and stuff it in the pipe. At the other end put a shopvac on the hole. Sucks it right through. On longer pulls you can use the ball of paper, but wrap it with a soft but lightweigh cloth... Tie the string around the base of the cloth (like a noose). Remember to always pull twine with your wired pulls. This way you always have twine to pull new cablling, which with technology going the way it is will be necessary for the next 10 years or so... After 10 yrs I think that digital wireless will be cheap and high in bandwidth for home use...

Also, this months Dwell magazine has an article on a company in North Hollywood who is setting trends on concrete walls...

Carl
 
   / Concrete house #9  
Paddy,

It's projects like yours that keep me coming back here. Your home is so far outside of anything I've ever done that every aspect of it will be interesting and exiting.

Right now I don't have a clue how it will work. The links make is sound very interesting and if they are right, it will be a very efficient home far supperior to anything else I've come across.

I'm curious how it will look when done, but also about all the steps it will take to build it. How do you attach the walls to the foundations, how do you connect each wall section to each other, how do interior walls fit together. Doors, windows and ceilings are all gonna be fun. HVAC, electrical and water also have to be done diffrently. Would it be easier to run your wiring through the ceiling and drop it down through the walls? Connecting wall sections with spaces for wires lined up might be kind of tricky. Especially on interior walls.

One thing that scares me is that those who are selling new technology seem to have allot of enthusiasm for it until a few get built, then they sort of disapear. I'm curious as to why those homes built in the 30's never amounted to anything? If they work as they were supposed to, why not build more? We have allot of dome homes around here. They were the latest, greatest thing for awhile, but after they were built, nobody liked them. Metal framing was also supposed to be the big replacement for stick built homes, but from those I've talked to, it's not that great an idea. I'm told you can feel the heat and cold from outside at every metal stud. It seems the metal is very efficiant at transfering tempatures through walls. Logs homes are supposed to be good for thermal mass, but when I've been on hunting trips to Montana in winter and visited people with log homes, they complain about how hard it is to keep them warm in winter. The logs are not very good insulators and the open ceilings create massive areas to try to heat up.

Your aproach is unique, so that makes it exiteing!!!

I'm looking forward to your progress,
Eddie
 
   / Concrete house #10  
Although is sounds like "new" tech, it really is not. I bought a new construction home (in an entire subdivision of same) in 1980. Concrete-foam-concrete sandwiched walls for interior and exterior, steel lattice (like "hog panel") encasing the foam and operating as "rebar" for the shot-on" (like a gunite swimming pool) concrete. All door casings/jambs were steel, all utilities were in chases and conduit. Insulation? It was like living in a Thermos.
 

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