"floor" for garage

[patrick_g]

Rich, I wish I could have said what I know about the flow of liquids in trees as succinctly as you did. Yes, all that is true but not the point I was making. I was offering an example of water flowing UPHILL without a mechanical pump or head of pressure from an elevation. How it did it, although interesting and well stated by you, was not a required part of the example.

Wicking, or osmosis, will move water in any direction and is much stronger than gravity so it will flow water uphill.

We have no code requirements regarding the use of vapor barriers where I am so you are left to the experience/knowledge of your contractor/sub team or other inputs such as my personal requirements based on many factors including standard practices from areas were slip joint pliers aren't considered high tech and other sources.

My basement floor is 5-7 feet below the water table. It and the walls are unsealed concrete. They are so dry that vapor barrier taped to several wall and floor locations for 10 days does not even discolor the concrete much less show any droplets of water as is often the case.

The only time I got water in the basement was when I was using a 2 inch engine driven pump to make a slurry of the sand backfill and some of the embedded snap-ties leaked a little liquid when a few feet of head was applied. Since then, even this year, the wettest year on record, The walls and floor are quite dry. I have no sump or pump. I have porcelain tile on abouit 1/2 the floor and it is non permeable and will pop if it gets much water vapor coming through the slab. The rest is glued down carpet and likewse has no problems.

There is a vapor barrier under the floor and the seams are taped with a special tape sold for that purpose. There is 2 inches of rigid foam under the vapor barrier and 16 inches of washed septic gravel under the insulation.

I excavated the original grade about 12 feet to have a walkout basement and had to allow for drainage as the hole wanted to be a swimming pool. About 10 feet from the basement wall on the walkout side there is a stand of cat tails growing in the yard beside the patio slab. They are naturally occuring, I did not plant them. They flourished during last year's RECORD DROUGHT.

Pat

 

[AndyMA]

Don't know where in CT you live, around this northeast area, most use Amrec,, This is a combination of asphalt millings, broken up concrete Jersey barriers, 1/2 " stone, and on ocassion you will find new shingles that didn't make the grade, ground up and all this concoction has binder put in., I have most of my 1600 ft driveway in Amrec, most municipalities Ct and lower Massachusetts use Amrec to go over gravel and or dirt roads. Once a rain hits it, it binds right up tight and is hard as concrete.

Amrec is the company name of a company in Charlton Mass that reclaims many materials and turns them into a usable product. Here is there web site.

..:: Amrec ::..

Andy

 

[daTeacha]

DanG, Pat! I thought I had a chance to educate you a little. I figured your engineering background left you a little light in the biology area. Oh, well.

Your basement sounds like the barnstone wall I just had put in -- my dX29 will not pick up and move sandstone blocks measuring 5' x 2.5' x 2.5', no matter how nice I talk to it, so I hired it done. Anyways, the stones are two courses thick, holding back a hillside. The lower course is on pea gravel and carefully tamped with the bucket of a track hoe to level the tops of them. The area behind this course, which backs into a layer of broken shale in the hillside, has a perforated drain surrounded by more pea gravel and is about 2 feet front to back. The gravel layer was brought up level with the top of the first course, then crusher run was laid on top of that to serve as a platform for the second course. More pea gravel was laid in to within about 3 inches of the top, then finished with dirt. I don't think there will be any problem with frost heaving in my wall.

Subgrade construction around here usually involves laying in a subfloor and peripheral drain system as yours must be, plus a vapor barrier on exterior surfaces. I'm on the glacial moraine and the soils in my county are all mixed up, ranging from broken shale to gravel, muck to clay, and lots of good loams for farming with plenty of glacial drift rocks thrown in for good measure, plus a little swamp (15,000 acres) here and there, the occasional bog, and some artesian wells and springs. The building code needs to be pretty comprehensive and any septic system must be specifically designed for the site and approved by the health department before any work can start. And yet, a few miles away and across county line, anything goes since there is no code!

Do you have Radon in your area? The common solution around here is to install a section of perforated pipe through the basement floor and connect that to a vacuum pump so you are constantly removing the air from the soil beneath the floor and pumping it outside. I don't have a condensation or moisture problem, but can't help but think something like the Radon system would help alleviate it if I did.

 

[patrick_g]

Rich, My favorite aunt was a highschool biology teacher for almost 40 years and ALWAYS lectured about everything we saw hunting and fishing together or just nature walking. She never cleaned fish or dressed a rabbit or turtle, they were dissected (with lecture) then cooked and eaten.

Radon: My take on handling a potential radon problem in my basement was to bury a 4 inch perf drain pipe under the basement floor within the 16 inches of washed septic gravel. I have a super good vapor barrier on top of the gravel and 2 inches of rigid foam insulation. The barrier plastic (Stego Wrap) is taped at all seams and penetrations with an expensive "super tape" for that purpose (NOT masking or duct tape.) The perf pipe is reduced to 2 inch for the vertical run to the house top away from windows.

I don't know if I have radon, the "FIX" was so simple I did it instead of testing. This is not a particularly HOT zone for radon but better safe that irradiated. One of the worst offenders in radon is shower water. Well water often has radon and it is released in your shower. I have an exhaust vent in the ceiling of my tile shower and it is exhausting air 24-7 but at varying rates as controlled by a humidistat.

I have two French drains at the elevation of my foundation (2 ft below the top of the floor.) One is all the way around the basement on the outside of the foundation and the other on the inside. This gives you 4 ends. Each is run underground to a backyard pond independently. Should a pipe plug the water in the French drain will get an inch deeper and drain out the other end.

I also have an intercepting trench parallel to the front of the house (the uphill side) but about 8 ft away. It too has a French drain in it which has its own run to the pond. All 5 of these drain lines have been running a small but fairly steady stream of clear water sine they were installed. After all they are installed below the water table on a slope so the high water level of the pond is about 5 ft below the French drains.

All the French drains are 4 inch perf pipe embedded in washed septic gravel and that all wrapped in geotextile and backfilled with gravel for the first few feet and then a layer of geotextile and then sand.

This drain system (and the foundation) was designed in collaboration with a consulting soils engineer who brought out a drilling rig and operators to drill a bore hole and take soil samples every 6 inches till we hit solid rock in the middle of the basement site prior to excavation. I like the results. This is the wettest year on record in Oklahoma and the floor and walls of the basement are quite dry as tested with plastic coverings left on for a week.

Pat

 

[daTeacha]

Radon around here is very spotty, depending on which mix of glacial till your house is on. One guy I teach with had to have 3 radon vents put into his house (AFTER he had bought it!) to alleviate the problem, while another house about 300 feet away had no radon showing up at all.

My place was built in '88. The radon test was marginal when we bought it, so the seller installed the system and it now tests out just fine. I hadn't heard about the shower water situation although it makes sense. I suspect that might vary quite a lot, too depending on how deep your well is and what the materials surrounding it are.

Is there some test that you know of for shower radon? The common house test involves having the detector sitting in the basement for several days. It just might be fun to tell the local health department about the shower water thing so they can add even more to their already lengthy list of conditions for buildings around here. Even more important, it might keep some houses from being built and ruining more farmland and open space.

 

[patrick_g]

http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/radon/presentationssummary.pdf

Health Risks | Radon | Indoor Air Quality | Air | US EPA

The second greatest cause of lung cancer (after smoking which is first) is radon. The #3 cause of lung cancer is second hand smoke. Lots of folks worry about second hand smoke and are blissfully ignorant of a greater danger. partially because radon is invisible and odorless.

Radon in solution when consumed with water is not as health threatening as breathing it. That is why the shower is such a radon danger. There is lots of well water which has radon in it and it is available to breath in higher concentration in the shower.

There have been worse things. How about the concrete blocks which were made from sand that was the tailings of uranium mining and were used to build a nice new grade school.

So much for the idea that we don't need no stinking EPA.

Pat

 

[gemini5362]

http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/radon/presentationssummary.pdf

Health Risks | Radon | Indoor Air Quality | Air | US EPA

The second greatest cause of lung cancer (after smoking which is first) is radon. The #3 cause of lung cancer is second hand smoke. Lots of folks worry about second hand smoke and are blissfully ignorant of a greater danger. partially because radon is invisible and odorless.

Radon in solution when consumed with water is not as health threatening as breathing it. That is why the shower is such a radon danger. There is lots of well water which has radon in it and it is available to breath in higher concentration in the shower.

There have been worse things. How about the concrete blocks which were made from sand that was the tailings of uranium mining and were used to build a nice new grade school.

So much for the idea that we don't need no stinking EPA.

Pat

Pat I am not sure we need a stinking EPA. Having the EPA might be ok but do they need to stink ?

 

[LarryRB]

Thanks for all the feedback everyone.
Larry - I'm near Enfield. How does Amrec's cost compare to cement (about $100 CU) and who offers it?
?

Amrec is on Rte 20 in Charlton MA.. About 12 miles from my home and I am on 84 right on the MA/CT lines. I pay 375 for a 20 yeard load of Amrec,, You're not too far from me being in Enfield