Can I add livable space to my home without adding an addition?

Q:

Can I add livable space to my home without adding an addition?

A:

Yes there is. If you have already taken advantage of the basement of your home for livable square footage then you should think about building a secondary building on the property. Secondary buildings cannot be a second home on the property; most municipalities have rules against multiple residents in an area zoned for single residential areas.

There are ways to work around that, most places will allow you to build a detached garage. You can put livable space above the garage as a loft that is if your local municipality will allow you to build a secondary building that high. A lot of municipalities have height restrictions when it comes to secondary buildings, one of the reasons they do is to stop people from putting livable space above their garage.

There is another way to get livable space, you can put it below the garage, and you build the garage with a walkout basement. It might sound crazy but we have built a garage with a walkout basement.

http://www.villagebuilders.ca/secluded-office/

This is a garage with a walkout basement that we built in the trees; across the driveway is the main house. The homeowners didn’t want to add an addition to the house as it had historical value but they needed more space and they also needed a garage.

The garage was built with ICF (insulated Concrete Forms), this allows the basement to stay warm and dry in the winter and cool and dry in the summer. The cars that park above it park on top of core slap that is placed on the ICF walls. There is a stairwell that leads down to the living space below that is completely separate from the garage area insuring that no sounds or smells drift downstairs.

The livable space is complete with a living/bedroom, an office and a fully appointed bathroom. The basement has two sets of double doors that look out onto a pristine maple forest and allow a lot of natural light into the space.

The upstairs garage has a cathedral ceiling with Fir exposed beams and ceilings.

The exterior of the home is also finished in Fir, the Fir is stained a dark greyish green to help it blend with its surroundings.

Remember that the only limitation is your imagination when you want something like more livable space.

Rob Abbott
Village Builders Inc.

The main types of foundation walls

The different materials you can build with to make the foundation walls of your custom home.

Block Walls:

Block walls have been around for a long time. They are made of cement and are hollow on the inside. Block walls are constructed by placing one block on top of the other, staggering the block ½ a width every row as they are laid. You mortar between each block as you lay them and then pour concrete down the holes to stabilize it. The blocks are hollow making them lighter to lift and place, it also makes them cheaper to buy. Block walls can be cheaper depending on your labour rate, but with today’s labour rate ever climbing block walls have become the same price as other types of foundation walls.

Some drawbacks of block walls are that they are only stabile when they have pressure from above straight down. If you have a large amount of pressure on one side of it like water soaked ground without support on the other side of the foundation the wall will fail and collapse. Insulation has to be added to the inside of the wall to keep heat in the basement. If the waterproofing fails on the outside of the foundation, water will penetrate the block and fill the cavity in the block. Overtime the water will make its way up to the wood rim joist where it will eventually rot it out.

Block walls that are above grade have to be parged to ensure water does not penetrate the block and cause damage; also it is to give it that finished look. If water is allowed to penetrate the block and then it freezes it will cause major damage with cracking and shifting in the wall.

Concrete Poured Walls:

Concrete poured walls are poured concrete into wood forms that are placed on top of the footings. Usually forms are made of plywood with 2x4’s as backers and reinforcement. Once the forms are assembled to the desired height and width then the concrete is poured into the forms and allowed to set. Once the concrete is dry, the wood forms are stripped away and what you have left is smooth concrete walls. Concrete can be more expensive then block walls but it is less labour intensive so it can end up being the same cost as a block walls. The difference with a poured concrete wall is that it has strength to take pressure from all sides. Concrete walls are good at withstanding large loads vertically and horizontally. Unlike block walls, concrete walls do not need to be parged when they are above grade, they are already finished.

Poured concrete walls need to have insulation placed on the inside of the walls.

Concrete walls can be easily engineered to act as retaining walls, take extremely large loads and can be shaped into curves or rounds.
Concrete walls when properly engineered can withstand shifting, cracking and poor soil conditions.

Insulated Concrete Forms:

Insulated Concrete Forms or ICF are two pieces of polystyrene that vary in length and height. They are held together with plastic webs making them into blocks that have a hollow core that is filled with concrete varying in sizes from 4” to 12”. They are installed like block walls but do not require mortar to hold stay together. Once the walls are constructed, with rebar as reinforcement inside the forms and the braces in place, then concrete is poured down from the top of the wall. A vibrator is used to make sure that the concrete makes it around all the webs that hold the wall together. Once the concrete is dry you simply remove the bracing that was put in place to keep the walls straight. The insulation stays in place.

ICF blocks are light and easy to manipulate while building the foundation. The labour is cheaper then block walls but slightly more the concrete walls. The ICF blocks are the expensive part; ICF foundations are the most expensive way to construct a foundation. ICF walls are as strong as a poured concrete wall vertically and horizontally.

What you get when you build an ICF wall is a pre-insulated foundation wall that has an average insulation value of R-22, but since there is no air transfer the wall performs like an insulated R-40. Even if you insulated other foundation walls (when building with concrete or block) you would never be able to achieve this level of performance. ICF walls give your basement that feeling of being above grade with the basement being warm and damp free.

You have to parge the ICF block that shows above grade for finishing purposes and to protect the ICF block against UV rays that will erode the foam on the outside overtime.

All three of these main options have to be waterproofed below grade; the waterproofing for all three of them is pretty much the same. The only thing you can’t do with an ICF foundation is use tar to coat the walls for waterproofing. If you are having a house built, you should never allow a builder to use tar to waterproof your foundation.

                These are the main three options you have when you are building a custom home, there are other options but these are the most popular and the most widely used by architects and contractors. All these foundations must be placed on top of footings and inspected by the building inspector before they are filled with concrete.

If you are looking for a price on a foundation, or a whole custom home feel free to email me at robabbott@villagebuilders.ca or visit our website at villagebuilders.ca

Rob Abbott

Operations Manager

Village Builders Inc. 

Insulated Concrete Forms the better way to build a wall!

Twenty years ago we started installing what are called ICF homes. ICF stands for Insulated Concrete Forms. The basic premise of these homes are that you assembly polystyrene blocks that fit together like Lego. Then you pour concrete down the middle of them and that forms your outer walls. What you end up with is 2.5 inch’s of foam on the inside and 2.5 inch’s of foam on the outside with a 6 inch concrete core. There are plastic webs that hold the foam block together and become your fastening points for all interior walls, drywall and anything that you want to hang like cabinets or pictures. This creates an ultra air tight house to the point were most people do not require air conditioners depending on how often you use the doors and windows.

If you heavily insulate the ceilings your heating/cooling costs will be miniscule.

Because ICF forms have a concrete core, the concrete does not allow wind chill's outside to affect the inside of the house. Your furnace does not have to work significantly harder to keep the house warm. The concrete core does not fluctuate in temperature as much as wood walls. A concrete wall with insulation on both sides only changes temperature a couple of degrees no matter if is winter or summer. Compare that to a conventional wood wall, when the temperature outside goes down the temperature in the wall drops with it and a windchill cools the wall down even more. The point of fibreglass insulation is to slow the air penetrating through the wall enough so that the furnace can warm it up to the desired temperature. An ICF wall does not allow any air to penetrate it, those the furnace is only warming the air that comes through the HRV.

Let's dispel some of the myths associated with ICF construction

• Myth 1: ICF restricts the design of your house to square boxes.
  Actually ICF can give you some advantages over conventional wood construction like cathedral ceilings with no collar ties.
  They can be installed in any shape or height of wall you require, angled walls to rounded walls.
• Myth 2: ICF is only used for basements.
  ICF makes for a wonderful basement that is dry and warm, but that isn't the limit to the product. You can build your whole house out of it, right up to the roof. You can build a three or four story house if you really want too. A house is more energy efficient if you do every floor.
• Myth 3: ICF limits your exterior finishing to stucco
  You can actually put anything you want on the outside of an ICF form, from wood or vinyl siding to brick or stone.

If you are like me and you are worried about the rapid rise of electricity, the ever rising cost of gas and oil, then an ICF house is for you.

If the extreme weather that seams to be the norm in North America is worrying you, then an ICF house is for you. ICF houses have been known to be the only house still standing in Hurricane zones, also ICF houses have been known to be the only house's left standing after tornadoes rip through the country side.

ICF houses are used to help meet the high standards in earthquake zones.

Insulated Concrete Forms are used in more then just residential construction. Here are some benefits to using ICF for houses and other projects.

• Used in Potato barns to keep the temperature within a fee degrees so that the potato's do not sprout in storage.
• They are used for high rise condo's that are trying to achieve maximum R value and comfort for the condo owners.
• Used on houses in high traffic area's to cut the noise to almost nothing.
• Used in area's with high winds to keep energy costs down because of high wind chill.
• Used in areas where there is a limited building window for the speed in which they can be constructed.
• Used in areas where people are worried about the noise from inside the house affecting people or animals outside the house.
• Used in areas were there are rodent and bug problems. With concrete and polystyrene foam there is no nutritional value for rodents or bugs to eat or live on. Plus with a concrete core no animal or rodent would ever be able to eat or borrow there way inside the house.
• With webs in ICF every 8” there are double the screw points in your interior or exterior walls.
• ICF construction does not require a vapour barrier, reducing costs and speeding up of construction.
• ICF houses have a longer life expectancy then wood walls. Even if a house has a fire or a flood, or loses it's roof in extreme weather the walls do not move and do not grow mold. Simply remove the drywall, clean up the mess and start building without changing the exterior walls.
• ICF are self extinguishing so they do not burn like wood walls, they will extinguish a fire and not feed it.
• ICF walls can be installed even if the house plans are drawn with wood walls, there is almost no change to your house plans.

If an ICF house or addition sounds like what you are looking for then please do not hesitate to call at 877-866-3202 or visit our website at villagebuilders.ca.

You can also email me at robabbott@villagebuilders.ca

Rob Abbott

Operations Manager
Village Builders Inc.