Framed wall vs block/concrete wall for walkout basement?
Mixed_Beans
| Posted in Construction Techniques on
We’re building a two story home with a walkout basement. Up until this point we planned on doing all of the walls with block (Faswall ICCF). We were present with the idea of framing the walkout side of the basement. I believe this ends up being a cheaper option buy I suspect that maybe I am missing something. Is a framed wall a better option?
FYI. First and second story walls will be 2×6 25 OC > ZIP > Exterior Wood Fiberboard insulation. The Faswall block will be between 21 – 25.5 R value depending on whether we use poly or mineral wool inserts
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I went round and round with my (excellent) engineer on this in my current addition build (with a walk out). The bottom line was he said the concrete/block wall isn't shrinking and the wood will, and then your floor will be out of level.
That is interesting. The floor we are targeting is an ICF system with poured concrete and rebar. I am thinking that even if that wall shrinks the other 3 connection points are going to keep that floor pretty rigid. I can see how a wood floor could possibly sag some.
It wasn't the floor, per se. It was that the concrete walls would stay exactly the same elevation, but the wood framing members on the exposed wall would shrink, and that wall would become "shorter." I have an interior load-bearing wall in the basement, and there are two steel columns going up to support I-beams in the floors above, and he spec'd LVLs running across the top of that interior basement wall, attached to the foundation and to the steel columns. So the stud framing of the interior wall is not actually bearing the load, the LVLs are.