Can Someone Tell Me About The Wall Covering In This Basement

Discussion in 'Home Improvement' started by Von Jones, Mar 7, 2019.

  1. Don Alaska

    Don Alaska Supreme Member
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    We insulate the crawl spaces and basements here to keep the pipes and such from freezing in the winter. My son the engineer questions the process, since it allows the frost to penetrate under the foundation walls, as it sometimes freezes the ground to eleven feet in the coldest winters.
     
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  2. Von Jones

    Von Jones Supreme Member
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    Well, @Don Alaska I hope that has been working for you. Luckily when this house was built all the plumbing was installed away from the foundation and the heat vents have kept the inside pipes from freezing.
     
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  3. Frank Sanoica

    Frank Sanoica Supreme Member
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    @Don Alaska
    The process known as "frost heave" is of vital concern wherever foundations are laid or poured to support a building. The term "frost line" is universal among installers of foundations, that term denoting the maximum known depth to which the earth has been known to reach freezing temperature (32` F) or lower, for a given location. Frost line varies considerably, here where we live the frost line is "zero", meaning the ground can never freeze. Where I grew up around Chicago, the frost line is typically considered to be 4 feet. That means that load-bearing support must extend at least 4 feet below the ground surface. It explains why in such areas, basements are very common, as a hole is simply dug 4 feet deep the size of the home (for residence), concrete wall is poured bordering the perimeter, which serves to support the building, the bottom of the hole having a concrete slab poured to serve as the basement floor.

    Frost line, or lack of it, explains why there are almost no basements beneath residential buildings here in the Desert Southwest, but are common where freezing of the ground is inevitable. It is actually not the ground or soil which freezes, but rather the moisture contained in it. Upon freezing, the water-containing moisture expands, causing forces to be relieved in the easiest direction: upwards; hence, "frost heave" is the forceful upheaval of material, whether foundation or soil, causing possible damage to the structure being supported.

    When we moved to Missouri Ozarks, learning our county, Reynolds, has no building code requirements for private properties, I inquired locally about the frost line requirement: many answers ranged from none to a foot. Knowing zero degrees to be commonly expected, I chose the place my shop foundation 3 feet deep. The building supported by it is immensely heavy, 12-inch thick rock walls, I built it in 2001.

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    At 60, I had no trouble doing work such as this by myself. The roof rafters, 2X8-sized, I raised and placed using my trusty old engine hoist (cherry-picker) and 12-foot step-ladder. I estimate the weight of rock in the walls to be about 110,000 lbs. Took several months to gather a mountain of river rock from our creek!
    [​IMG]
     
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  4. Don Alaska

    Don Alaska Supreme Member
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    I am familiar with the frost heave situation. In the outlying parts of Alaska, there is a lot of permafrost, and the ground is always frozen, so the isn't frost heave really, but if you plant a heated building on that ground without precautions, it sinks into the ground as it melts the ice underneath it. The frost heave issue was my son's question about the procedure, but we have had no problems so far, but we are built on gravel, so the drainage is very good.

    Did you use forms to build your walls, or did you free-hand lay that wall and manage to get it plumb and true. If you did that without forms, you are truly a master mason! Not many can pull that off any more, although apparently it was done frequently in the past.
     
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  5. Ken Anderson

    Ken Anderson Senior Staff
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    Same here. Most of our pipes are run under the floor, above the crawl space. We even have heating coils in the crawlspace. Now we have a thick moisture barrier and insulation on the inside of all of the foundation walls, which probably helps a lot in reducing our heating costs.
     
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  6. Frank Sanoica

    Frank Sanoica Supreme Member
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    @Don Alaska
    As you can see in the 2nd. pic, I contrived to build "corner-posts" at all four corners, with 8' high vertical 2X4s on which to "catch" string-line hooks. As work progressed following the string-line, I was able to get the walls nice and straight. Included in them is a cross-hatching of 1/2" re-bar in both vertical and horizontal directions on 4-foot centers vertically and 2-foot horizontally. The walls were so strong, I often quieted some nay-sayer by swinging my 10lb. sledge against the wall, with no visible effect. The rock was chosen mainly by size, few were really rounded like river rock typically is. Some were a medium brown color, shiny appearance: those turned out to be almost impossible to drill anchor bolt holes in with my Hilti hammer drill!

    I formed and poured a "bond-beam" atop the finished walls, containing 2 continuous rebars about the perimeter, anchored in place to the vertical rebar stubs protruding from the rock. The walls were of such enormous strength that I could not detect any "spread" with a measuring tape after setting several rafters in place against the 2X10 Stringer, with those rafters carrying a load of several hundred pounds, with NO CROSS JOIST in place! Nonetheless, I did install 4 joists of 2X8 clear across, but at a height to floor distance of 10 feet; walls were 8' high.

    Frank
     
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  7. Frank Sanoica

    Frank Sanoica Supreme Member
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    @Don Alaska As an afterthought, I recalled the permafrost being a problem during design of the Alaska Pipeline. Contrivances called "Heat Pipes" were installed to circumvent it, but I never really understood their use.

    My nephew was fresh out of the Marine Corps. back then, employed by TRW in CA, where his training allowed him to weld heat pipes for the Pipeline. As I recall, they were of some exotic metal type. Perhaps you know something of this?
    Frank
     
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  8. Don Alaska

    Don Alaska Supreme Member
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    There are two types that I know something about, but I don't know what the metal is of which they are constructed. There are passive pipes that have radiating fins on the top which conduct heat up and out of the ground, and active pipes that are actually refrigeration units in which the pipes are actively cooled. My son may know more about them than I do, so I will ask him the next time I see him. As far as I know, the active pipes are only used as insurance on large structures, such as schools, and such. The most common system for smaller buildings is a large, insulated gravel pad that keeps the heat from entering the ground, and usually the building is elevated above it to allow airflow between the building and the pad. There is usually airspace beneath the buildings that use the passive system, too, to allow the radiators to function properly.
     
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  9. Hal Pollner

    Hal Pollner Veteran Member
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    I can't tell you either.

    Harold
     
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