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TILT UP Concrete Construction

 
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Could not find a more appropriate forum so I chose "Tiny House".  Sorry
I have   poured concrete slabs many times in my life for driveways, foundations, floors
etc.   and have also seen how some commercial buildings and warehouses are built by
using cranes or other heavy equipment to lift up portions of concrete walls and set them together
to create a building.    I would like to do it on a smaller scale to build a completely indestructable
smallish shed like building for minimal living etc.   If I was very clever perhaps I could design walls
that when tilted together would eliminate a separate need for a roof such as a vault  or a pyramid
etc.   The main point being that such a structure would be imune to tornados,  and earthquakes
and bugs  deteriation.  Or perhaps it would be better to start out conventional and just build
four walls as in traditional shed and add the wood framed roof..... or perhaps a poured roof with
the forms made with temporary structures below holding up the form while pouring.   I suspect
building wood forms to pour a roof would cost more than a completely woodframed framed roof.
Anyway, just imagine using a skidsteer BobCat type lifing up one side of a flat driveway slab and using it
as a wall.  That is the basis concept I am starting with.    I would love to figure out a way  to do curved
slab structures then you could build a dome with orange slice segments or an igloo type structure.
I believe that to do curved concrete components you would have to have two sided molds.   Back to the flat
wall components,  What I need is to design some shape into the mold that would allow connections
of two side by side wall components or connections at the corners etc.    Has anyone here ever done
poured wall concrete foundations ?   Those are essentially two sided molds with connections but I have never seen any curved poured wall concrete foundations ? ? ?
 
pollinator
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This person had a similar idea. He might give you some thoughts to ponder.

 
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There was a guy that was doing quick, low cost concrete construction using inflatable forms. He poured concrete on a flat surface, then while wet inflated it to make done houses. After the concrete set he deflated the bladder and cut out the windows and doors.

I don’t have a link but you might dig around the internet and see what you can find.
 
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Place your round (or any shape) concrete footer, with rebar stubs protruding. Tie a rebar cage to the shape and size of your building, including the roof. Wire stucco lath to the inside of the rebar cage, and get a concrete pump, air compressor, and shotcrete nozzle to cover your structure in concrete. Simple as. Or if you’re real adventurous, and have some friends to help, you could hand mix concrete, and stack it like cob. No forms necessary.

Also.. look into ferrocement.
 
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There's a fellow on the web who chops up Styrofoam with a modified lawnmower and  mixes that powder in with cement (possibly plus other materials - I can't remember). He gets insulated panels but you'd have to go searching for the fellow as I just can't remember enough of the details.

I've seen a number of references where the spray concrete of some version on top of an air-filled dome. Cob bread ovens use wet sand in the correct shape and then cob or brick over it. You'd need something more stable than sand and a lot of it to do the same for a house sized structure, but domes are very safe in large storms.

Concrete is strong in compression, but requires rebar or some other mesh material to provide strength in tension.

One has to be sure about how panels can be safely and permanently attached together. A local recent building had a partial collapse during building with the concrete panels the OP describes, but again I don't know the details.

What are the weather/natural disaster risk factors you face, Scott? I tend to get high winds and some day, a major earthquake to design for, but with weather weirding, Atmospheric River risk is increasing, as are heat waves and forest fires have already increased, but not in my immediate area.
 
pollinator
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There is so much to add to this it isn't even funny.

1.  Customer up country from me built a farm shop by standing concrete slabs up. The shop is about 30 to 35 feet deep and 25 wide with about 15 foot high walls.  They started out by cutting a wide trench say (28 to 30 feet) in a hill side.  They then formed 2 slabs for each side pouring them one at a time and moving the forms.  They poured over plastic sheeting so other than the wrinkles the inside of the wall was super smooth when the stood the slab up.  Used a big loader and some sort of winch riggings to stand the 15 by say 15 slab up.  Poured the piece of the end wall and stood it up out of the same area.  bolted together temporarily while the poured each side wall and end wall combo.  Once they had them all standing they formed around the gaps and poured H and L shape pilings to tie them together.  Then put a standard big steel truss roof over the top.  The pour the floor and backfill outside of the side walls. They build it as drive thru so the up hill side is a ramp that leads down into the shop.  This part is a mistake because in big rain it washes mud under that door and fills the floor full of mud.  But the rest works great.

2.  The high priced answer to your thinking.   just for fun.

   


3.  Next suggest looking up aircrete structures and ferrocrete structures.  Some starters.  Look for both older simpler information on both tactics and stuff like the following.

 


 


4.  You might also want to take a look at the rammed earth and cob building info if domes and organic curves is your goal.

There is a group that I can't find the web page for that was doing domes with basalt roving and ropes over tyvec air forms and shotcrete.  Then spraying the concrete with a lithium densifier and then spraying with the dome with a closed cell foam for insulation and waterproofing, add a thin concrete skin to protect the dome from rodent damage and burying the dome for cheap safe housing.  They had a lot on doing various dome stuff and a bunch on ferrocrete stuff too.

 
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