Do-it-yourself Poured Concrete Foundation Walls

[BrerHair]

How about for a 14,000 SF luxury home?
1999, the turn-key bids were coming in around $110,000 for the poured concrete foundation walls and my boss says to me: You can do this, can't you?
I knew that I could, if I had enough labor. What if we use our eight man framing crew for labor?
But would we save money? I thought probably yes, the boss just knew we would save a ton.

So, I set out to do it. We had, of course, a structural engineer design the foundation walls, specifying wall thickness, some 14" thick, mostly 10" thick, and steel rebar reinforcement specs.

I designed a simple panel form built with 2x4's and 3/4" CDX plywood. Can't remember how many form panels we built, but it was a lot, something around 100, probably more. Have my original notes in a box in the attic somewhere with answers to questions like this.

The huge (approx. 5,000 SF) basement was a split level basement. Half had 12 ft. high poured walls and the other half had 19 ft. high walls, for an indoor half-court basketball court.

Here's an overview look at it:

Left half of pic above is 12 ft. high walls. right half are 19 ft. high walls in process - you can make out the 19 ft. high rebar but not all of the form panels are in place.

So, each form panel was 4' x 8', a 3/4" cdx plywood sheet backed-up by a 2x4 frame.

Here is a pic of the footing pour and you can see the many pre-made form panels stacked flat on the ground, covered with plastic:

Here is a close-up shot of a panel. We red-head bolted the bottom of the bottom-most panel to the footing and we nailed the panels to adjoining panels. Note also the "wall ties", the small diameter steel rods connecting panels on one side of the wall to the panels on the other side of the wall. These wall ties were held in place with the metal plates that you see in the pic, the ties were manufactured for a certain wall thickness (10", 14", etc.) and we had to add 2x4 blocks to give the metal plates something to grab ahold of:

Here you can see the wall ties, called "snap ties" by the manufacturer because after the walls are poured and the forms are stripped, you take a hammer and snap off the part of the tie sticking out of the poured concrete wall:

Note in pic above that the vertical rebar looks awful close to one side of the forms. Engineer specs called for 2" cover, meaning the vertical rebar had to be 2" from a specified wall side. Doesn't look like 2" in this pic, but we made sure we had them spaced properly before we poured. This pic is looking down on a 10" thick wall section.

Here is another pic of footing pour. Note all the pre-made form panels under plastic. The group of hombres are standing in the 12 ft. high basement half. Note the makeshift ladder going down to the 19 ft. high basement half in foreground. Note also the footing bulkheads where footing jumps down the 7 feet from 12' half to 19' half:

Here is a progress pic showing some of the forms already erected in place and some of the forms still stacked on the ground:

Another footing pour pic:

As you can see, we tied an assload of steel rebar.

Here are a few more progress pics:

This was one ******* job site!

We had to leave out a 12' high wall section so that we could get machinery down into the basement for backfill and slab plumbing purposes. Here you can see the missing wall section:

We used hand sprayers to spray some oil on concrete side of plywood forms to prevent the concrete from sticking to the plywood. Can't remember exactly what we used but it was whatever our Charlotte concrete supplier Tucker-Kirby Co. recommended.
We also tried to vibrate the wet concrete with hand vibrators to prevent honeycombing, but honestly it was like ******* in the ocean, the ******** wand did not go far enough down and it was difficult what with all the rebar etc. Better than nothing I guess, but we also knew that all of the walls would end up covered with finished material, the entire basement was finished.
Here is one of the vibrators being moved to another spot during the pour:

Here you can see the J-bolts sticking out at top of poured wall:

And here you can see rebar loops sticking out of the top of poured walls for either adjacent garages or porches:

People ask all the time, in this business, "Can you do this or that?" "Can we add a [fireplace; built-in grill; double door; interior golf putting room; home theater with rows of seats that slope down to the screen like a real theater; etc.]?" There is no limit to what could be added (or deleted). The answer is always the same: we can do anything, the real questions are a) how much will it cost and b) how long will it take?
I like to tell folks "We could build a scale model of the Golden Gate Bridge out of 2x4." It would take boatloads of 2x4 and countless thousands of man hours, but it could be done.

This poured wall project was a minor lesson in " . . . give us enough 2x4's".
We braced the wall forms simply by gut feel, there was certainly nothing scientific about it. We had seen our share of collapses over the years to know that we better brace the Bejesus out of it.

Here's one I like, looking at part of the 19' high walls:

There's more to the story but this is all I can do for now.
Enjoy, you DIY-ers.

 

[930dreamer]

If there's a will, there's a way. Nice work, how did it all turn out?

 

[Moosefire]

I cant see the pics...

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

 

[BrerHair]

If there's a will, there's a way. Nice work, how did it all turn out?

Well we ended up spending about $108,000, didn't really save any money. It was a fun project. The walls turned out fine, the house was on the market about a year ago for about 5 Million, quite a house.

Stripping forms:

Had some cold joints as you can see here. We used some kind of spray-on bonding agent between pours. There's so much steel that the cold joints were not an issue. We had very little honeycomb or spalling, this is 12' high wall section:

After we stripped the forms, we took the form panels apart and re-used the cdx plywood for subflooring and some of the 2x4's for bracing:

Looking into the 19' high basement section:

You can see why we left out a wall section:

Prepping slab at the 19' deep side (skidsteer is dropping gravel over 7' jump from 12' side to 19' side:

Note the standing water in this pic. We duga 24' deep hole for the deep side of the basement and hit ground water, which is the standing water:

I had a civil engineer design a drainage system for under the basement slab. It consisted of a "tree" of slotted pipe buried under the slab through the standing water, draining into a large sump pit, These two guys are hand digging the sump pit:

Here is the drainage "tree" going in:

And the sump pit going in:

The sump pit and drainage system installed:

We had to pump water out of pit with a gas powered 2" line pump until later in the project when we could install the permanent sump pumps:

 

[larry4406]

Hecka of a foundation pour. Good job on the wood forms.

 

[NUTTSGT]

That's one helluva project. Well done.

 

[yeldogt]

I can see why the 110k cost --- that's a lot of work


That earth wall in the back. Don't think I could have gotten away (OSHA) w/o some support --- even in 09

 

[matt_i]

It looks like an overall great job at the end.

I am curious why you didn't set the top of the forms level with the pour so you could strike it off right there, or was that an intermediate step where it didn't really matter?

https://imgur.com/a/1RiuE7F#zWCYx3B

 

[HotrodHR]

I guess no permanent horizontal supports were required to anchor the tall walls outside into the banking (backfill sides)?

 

[BrerHair]

It looks like an overall great job at the end.

I am curious why you didn't set the top of the forms level with the pour so you could strike it off right there, or was that an intermediate step where it didn't really matter?

https://imgur.com/a/1RiuE7F#zWCYx3B

Just easier to pre-make all form panels the same size and screed off concrete below top of form. Easier=faster

 

[BrerHair]

I guess no permanent horizontal supports were required to anchor the tall walls outside into the banking (backfill sides)?

Good question. Once concrete sets up with all that steel, those walls don't want to move. But still, we framed wood floor system before we backfilled walls, in order to support the tops of the walls.

Here you see the floor plywood diaphram is installed before backfill and note that the plywood is the 3/4" cdx from the form panels:

And here you see the loader backfilling during framing:

 

[BrerHair]

We had some beam pockets in the walls for some rather large steel beams, one of them was something like a W36x211:

Took a monster crane to set the steel beams:

 

[BrerHair]

 

[brownbagg]

OHSA have a field day on that job

 

[Farmall450]

I can see why the 110k cost --- that's a lot of work


That earth wall in the back. I I don't think I could have gotten away w/o some support --- even in 09

Yeah, imagine what it would cost today w/ added labor costs alone

 

[BrerHair]

OHSA have a field day on that job

Well, at some point you just have to go and build it, right? Obviously you are referring to one of OSHA's Big Four, Cave-in. We had one minor injury on the job during 16 months' construction: a suspended ceiling subcontractor's scaffolding collapsed in 19' ceiling gym, he had overloaded it with ceiling tiles. He hurt his ankle but was OK.

 

[BrerHair]

Speaking of cave-in, you just take the necessary precautions. We benched the overdig where the dirt appeared more loose, but there were parts of the dig in stable dirt where it looked like what it was: decayed rock, you could see the rock geometry in the dirt. Had no cave-ins.

Waterproofing:

Getting the #57 stone down into the hole to cover the perforated schedule-40 PVC drainage pipe at footing level:

Another backfill pic:

Closing up the hole in the wall:

 

[BrerHair]

You can see how far framing had progressed before backfilling was complete:

 

[dutchgray]

I can see why the 110k cost --- that's a lot of work


That earth wall in the back. I I don't think I could have gotten away w/o some support --- even in 09

It all depends on the ground conditions and a local ground works contractor is always the person to ask who will really know what you can get away with.
Where I am we have mostly clay, but some areas of sand with boulders in it, neither you would trust to stay up for long, sheet piling would be necessary if you couldn't dig it to a low enough slope.

 

[BrerHair]

Didn't have cell phone cameras back then, so I didn't take that many photos, not like today. Guess I'll wrap this up with a few pics of the house, for overall context. Don't even have any pics of the completed home, not sure where those are. The guy I built it for still lives there, so I could always get some from him, or go back and get some myself. Anyway, here goes:

Right side of house:

Left rear corner:

Grand Room ceiling was 30 ft. high, here it is being framed:

And here it is drywalled:

Foyer ceiling was 30 ft. high also:

Dome ceiling in MBR that we plastered:

These look like O/T pics but just thought it would be interesting for a little context, what these poured walls are underpinning. And you would never know there is a half-court basketball court in the basement.

Exterior veneer was 6" thick dry-stacked stone:

 

[yeldogt]

I like the roof ... although after my fire I have not used. I do like them ..

 

[BrerHair]

Of course, we used fire-retardant shakes.

 

[jaworker]

How about for a 14,000 SF luxury home?
1999, the turn-key bids were coming in around $110,000 for the poured concrete foundation walls and my boss says to me: You can do this, can't you?
I knew that I could, if I had enough labor. What if we use our eight man framing crew for labor?
But would we save money? I thought probably yes, the boss just knew we would save a ton.

So, I set out to do it. We had, of course, a structural engineer design the foundation walls, specifying wall thickness, some 14" thick, mostly 10" thick, and steel rebar reinforcement specs.

I designed a simple panel form built with 2x4's and 3/4" CDX plywood. Can't remember how many form panels we built, but it was a lot, something around 100, probably more. Have my original notes in a box in the attic somewhere with answers to questions like this.

The huge (approx. 5,000 SF) basement was a split level basement. Half had 12 ft. high poured walls and the other half had 19 ft. high walls, for an indoor half-court basketball court.

Here's an overview look at it:

Left half of pic above is 12 ft. high walls. right half are 19 ft. high walls in process - you can make out the 19 ft. high rebar but not all of the form panels are in place.

So, each form panel was 4' x 8', a 3/4" cdx plywood sheet backed-up by a 2x4 frame.

Here is a pic of the footing pour and you can see the many pre-made form panels stacked flat on the ground, covered with plastic:

Here is a close-up shot of a panel. We red-head bolted the bottom of the bottom-most panel to the footing and we nailed the panels to adjoining panels. Note also the "wall ties", the small diameter steel rods connecting panels on one side of the wall to the panels on the other side of the wall. These wall ties were held in place with the metal plates that you see in the pic, the ties were manufactured for a certain wall thickness (10", 14", etc.) and we had to add 2x4 blocks to give the metal plates something to grab ahold of:

Here you can see the wall ties, called "snap ties" by the manufacturer because after the walls are poured and the forms are stripped, you take a hammer and snap off the part of the tie sticking out of the poured concrete wall:

Note in pic above that the vertical rebar looks awful close to one side of the forms. Engineer specs called for 2" cover, meaning the vertical rebar had to be 2" from a specified wall side. Doesn't look like 2" in this pic, but we made sure we had them spaced properly before we poured. This pic is looking down on a 10" thick wall section.

Here is another pic of footing pour. Note all the pre-made form panels under plastic. The group of hombres are standing in the 12 ft. high basement half. Note the makeshift ladder going down to the 19 ft. high basement half in foreground. Note also the footing bulkheads where footing jumps down the 7 feet from 12' half to 19' half:

Here is a progress pic showing some of the forms already erected in place and some of the forms still stacked on the ground:

Another footing pour pic:

As you can see, we tied an assload of steel rebar.

Here are a few more progress pics:

This was one ******* job site!

We had to leave out a 12' high wall section so that we could get machinery down into the basement for backfill and slab plumbing purposes. Here you can see the missing wall section:

We used hand sprayers to spray some oil on concrete side of plywood forms to prevent the concrete from sticking to the plywood. Can't remember exactly what we used but it was whatever our Charlotte concrete supplier Tucker-Kirby Co. recommended.
We also tried to vibrate the wet concrete with hand vibrators to prevent honeycombing, but honestly it was like ******* in the ocean, the ******** wand did not go far enough down and it was difficult what with all the rebar etc. Better than nothing I guess, but we also knew that all of the walls would end up covered with finished material, the entire basement was finished.
Here is one of the vibrators being moved to another spot during the pour:

Here you can see the J-bolts sticking out at top of poured wall:

And here you can see rebar loops sticking out of the top of poured walls for either adjacent garages or porches:

People ask all the time, in this business, "Can you do this or that?" "Can we add a [fireplace; built-in grill; double door; interior golf putting room; home theater with rows of seats that slope down to the screen like a real theater; etc.]?" There is no limit to what could be added (or deleted). The answer is always the same: we can do anything, the real questions are a) how much will it cost and b) how long will it take?
I like to tell folks "We could build a scale model of the Golden Gate Bridge out of 2x4." It would take boatloads of 2x4 and countless thousands of man hours, but it could be done.

This poured wall project was a minor lesson in " . . . give us enough 2x4's".
We braced the wall forms simply by gut feel, there was certainly nothing scientific about it. We had seen our share of collapses over the years to know that we better brace the Bejesus out of it.

Here's one I like, looking at part of the 19' high walls:

There's more to the story but this is all I can do for now.
Enjoy, you DIY-ers.

I can't see the pictures. I am building walls just as you have described, but would like to see how you built them and what type of snap ties you used. Thanks.

 

[BORING HOP YARD]

Heads up, the last post before years was April 5th 2020 and BrerHair hasn't posted since Sep 1st 2021.
I think we all have done this in the past. Good luck on your project.

 

[NUTTSGT]

OP has been gone for 2 years and pics don't work.