...you all seem to pour a dwarf wall in concrete first, and then frame up on top of that ? What's the thinking, there ? Water ingress, or snow build up ??
My experience is from northern Virginia area building production homes with poured concrete foundations, so take the following with a grain of salt.
We use aluminum panels for concrete forms. They come in 1', 2', 4', and 8' high sections. These enable various net wall heights.
In a production home with a concrete foundation, there are 3 pours : footings, walls (stem walls in this case), and lastly the slab. Alternately, the stem wall could be eliminated and monolithic pour done although none of the production builders in my area do this. With a monolithic pour, you frame or block of the slab. Backfilling against block walls is a poor solution in my opinion.
From my experience, the concrete stem wall does a couple of things: elevates the framing a minimum of 8 inches above grade (rot and termite protection), provides ability to improve grade away from foundation in the event the lot is not level (backfill against solid wall), can support a structural slab with proper keyways (bad subgrade), and allows the structure to be framed without the slab (weather issues).
I have built entire homes, fully under roof, shingled and sided, with no slabs - strange sight having to remove windows to insert the concrete pump and then chute thru a cutout in the floor. However, when you are under the gun, you do what you have to do.
Houses here a built in 90 to 120 days from footing to completion. This technique allows fast builds.
what was he thinking
