Tilt up concrete wall shed building.

For many years I have tried to follow and keep up with all types of materials and techniques of building sheds etc. but  I have a new ide that I have never heard of anyone trying.  That is poor concrete into a mold on the ground and when hardened , use a tractor  to tilt up what would be a concrete wall that I think would be easier and cheaper than stacking bricks with mortar or blowing  concrete onto a form to make a dome etc.    I dont have enough knowledge about concrete to design the wall such as the mix to use or if and how reinforcement should be added to the the structure when pouring into the mold etc.    I have seen contractors build large warehouses using tilt up concrete wall components but I dont have a good handle on how  to adjust the placement of the concrete tilt up wall components.   I think if you located your molds carefully the walls will tilt up right into place.
Just imagine pouring a patio slab and then grabbing one end with a tractor, or bob cat with ropes and pulleys etc
and tilting it up vertically.   What could be better ?

I suspect with the right reinforcement it could be done.  My big question is how the walls would be securely fastened to the foundation and each other?

John F Dean wrote:My big question is how the walls would be securely fastened to the foundation and each other?

You could cast them with box-joint crenelations along all four edges and then pull them up into mates on the foundation. I'm not quite envisioning how to get the vertical corners together, but you might could do it with a crane and a crew.

For a thin panel like a tilt-up shed wall, I would use a few #3 rebar (3/8" diameter) at important locations (certainly along edges, and probably every few feet running vertically) with welded steel mesh across the whole panel. Keep the reinforcing in the middle of the panel thickness for maximum bending strength in both directions. The exact amount of rebar to use would depend on panel size and loading. I would cast in some steel loops to hook to for raising.

For anchoring to the floor slab, rebar stubs up from the slab which mate with pockets in the panel bottom edge would work. Maybe configure the pockets so that grout can be poured in to rigidize the joint after raising.

A show I watch called `100 Day Dream Home` uses this concept to build some of their homes.  Most are concrete block though they have done some with precast concrete walls.

These folks build mostly in Florida where hurricane proof homes are common.

I am working so can't dig it up, but you might try youtube for a search on aircrete from (i believe) the Honeydo carpenter.  He has done an aircrete tilt up shed with forms made from metal stud material and mesh.

You mentioned that you don't have enough knowledge about concrete and reinforcing but this is the area where this knowledge is needed more than in a normally poured/reinforced wall, which does not have to endure more dynamic forces of tilting and lifting. It works in economy of scale - heavy formwork, overhead cranes, trucks and lifts just to save on labor of erecting a building in smaller increments.

I did quick calculation and used the lowest prices of materials and came up with:
$220 for 100 sq feet m2 of 4" thin tilt up wall with 0.5" rebar on skimped 16", concrete mixed at home.
$300 for equivalent concrete block wall, 8" thick with 0.5" rebar on 2" center grouted, mortared joints.

To mix 1 m3 of concrete in a standard mixer it needs around 10 batches and it would make the slab not uniform and maybe not uniform enough to survive rough lifting with a tractor (by pulling it against a threshold). Ready mix concrete or more rebars would increase the price to over $300. Home mixing has the advantage that you could use for example white cement and aggregate of your choice to create a wall that would look great without finish. To make block wall looks good it has to be plastered.
The tilt-up needs anchoring, bond beam and grouted vertical gaps. For block wall only bond beam would be needed, but without that it would be still standing.
So potentially the prices of materials are similar. Tilting heavy slabs is quite dangerous, especially if improvised equipment is used - tractor pulling it instead a lift truck gently lifting. You would also need to pour the wall just by the location where it has to be positioned, because with a tractor you would not be able to move it around. So your work platform would have to be repositioned for each pour and it would add a lot of labor.
With block/brick you can work in increments as a one person crew day by day, with tilt-up you would need help and many things can go wrong.

Jack Edmondson wrote:I am working so can't dig it up, but you might try youtube for a search on aircrete from (i believe) the Honeydo carpenter.  He has done an aircrete tilt up shed with forms made from metal stud material and mesh.

This.



Among others from Darwin's YT channel.  He was using a foaming mix based on Suave Clarifying shampoo and a veterinary obstetric lubricant (as I recall, it was starch-based, and improved the persistence of the small bubbles in the foam until the Portland set up), with a homemade foamer gun.  The aerated concrete will use less OPC, because a lot of the volume of the wall is air.

He eventually built an off-grid bolt hole retreat with this method.

If you prowl around his channel, you'll also find some experiments with some version of "rocket" stove made with aerated concrete.  Definitely not according to Wisniarski Winiarski (maybe what I first typed - a hybrid of Wisner and Winiarski - is a Freudian slip, though an apt turn of phrase), but he did aim for clean, hot combustion and thermal mass storage in at least some of the several iterations.

Please note I am not recommending that you do what Darwin did, just that this is a potential source of information/inspiration if you have already decided to try the tilt-up method.

I have also seen a tilt-up house build which was faced with stone (in the flat).  I may be able to track that down, too.

Kevin

As Christo has mentioned, tilt slabs are dangerous during construction.
I would suggest a steel pole building with posts concreted into the ground and using beams and cladding of choice, I use steel, the job would be faster and easier.
I have evn seen cool room panels used as the external walls

A couple issues to think about:

Prefab panels need PERFECT slab/foundation as you have no adjustment to square the building or adjust the size of the wall by a half inch like you can with studs or block.

Concrete prefabs are HEAVY. Even a shed wall is heavier than homeowner rental equipment can safely handle.

We have a firm in our area that does this, but we're talking big bucks. They make a form and have concrete with a core of insulation and either rebar or a lighter weight, fiber based alternative. I've been told how they join the slabs together but only remember that it's a continuous seam so there's no air leakage.

Yes, concrete is heavy. That's why some sort of aircrete, or there's a guy who mashes up styrofoam to mix in with concrete, are appealing to do it yourselfers. Figuring out attachments in advance are key.

In my area, comparing it to a concrete block wall may not be completely fair. The commercial version engineered tilt up wall is supposed to be both fire and earthquake proof. I've been told that concrete block walls are not earthquake proof without a lot of rebar in the right places.  It's a case of knowing your environmental risks and choosing a building approach with that in mind. Japan traditionally built houses from wood and the construction was designed to "shake and settle" in a earthquake. The problem was that the earthquake usually started a fire, and the wooden houses couldn't resist that part of the problem!

An all metal building which is common in Australia will not have the issue of fire damage, nor earthquake problems.
They are easy to screw together with ladders, brackets and help.

Jay Angler wrote:Yes, concrete is heavy. That's why some sort of aircrete, or there's a guy who mashes up styrofoam to mix in with concrete, are appealing to do it yourselfers. Figuring out attachments in advance are key.

I think this is the guy Jay is remembering:


I ran across his channel when my brother and I were tracking down info on building Gothic arc style sheds.  This fella built a styro-crete arch shed (which he's now apparently badged as "Abundacrete").  My brother built a sawmill shed, then later a Gothic arch greenhouse for my nephew.  But not styro-crete!

Re DIY tilt-up, it may have Thomas Elpel that I'm remembering.  C. Letellier also reports on a successful build (give or take some siting/grading issues not directly related to the method of construction), in this thread:
https://permies.com/t/206122/TILT-Concrete-Construction

For what it's worth, I have contemplated whether a skin of aerated concrete (say, 4-6 inches) on the exterior of massive stone walls, exposed chimney stacks, etc. might not markedly improve the thermal performance of said structures in seriously wintry weather.  Not that exposed chimney stacks are a desirable design goal from a heating standpoint (I went back and forth with Noah Bradley of Handmade Houses on this point - he favors them in Southern Appalachia on historical aesthetic grounds, which is not to be ignored), but sometimes that's just the way it has to be until the next bay/wing is added during a subsequent building season - needs must, and all.  Anyway, lots of thermal mass within the heated envelope, and an effective insulator which is reasonably weather resistant and tolerant of mechanical impact (or, at least, repairable).  Coat with lime wash, perhaps, to improve aesthetics.

This is just one of those ideas that drifts through my mind in the wee hours after the cat pounces on me to make sure I'm not dead yet.  There are so many of these harebrained ideas.  So many cat pounces, too!

Another approach might be geopolymers, some formulations of which are also highly insulative, even refractory, and durable.  But, geopolymers seem to be an entire chemistry experiment, since locally available mineral inputs can vary so widely.  The aerated concrete is pretty much baking a cake - follow the recipe.

But, none of this is tilt-up, so I'll leave it there, rather than further derail this otherwise perfectly good thread!

Noah Bradley of Handmade Houses

do you have a link please?

John C Daley wrote:

Noah Bradley of Handmade Houses

do you have a link please?

Handmadwe Houses YT channel

If you check the channel description, there is a link to his commercial website, offering a set of online classes to teach Appalachian cabin/house construction.  He reminds me a bit of Christopher Alexander, writ small (in that he isn't concerned with urban planning or agricultural land use schemes, just houses, and with a narrower architectural vocabulary than Alexander, as well - but I intend that analogy with the deepest of respect).  The houses Noah designs and has built are difficult to place in time; they look like something from the past, in the best way possible.  Timeless like a good suit - if I still fit into it in 30 years, it will still look good.  Same with his houses and cabins, at least in my opinion.

But his reduced architectural vernacular leads directly to the exterior chimneys - common in old Appalachian cabins, for various reasons, including (but not limited to): cattied chimneys (built of mud and sticks), due to a lack of suitable rock, brick or mortar - or skill; fire safety (some chimneys were constructed leaning against prop sticks, which could be yanked out to collapse the chimney away from the structure in case of a chimney fire); no need for roof penetrations and/or flashing (which would have been in short supply on the frontier), and the potential for leaks that would entail.  At this time, I have no interest in an exterior stack, but it's probably worth keeping in mind why they were used historically, in case similar conditions obtain at some time in the future.  However, I'm more interested in arrangements offering greater thermal efficiency, at the moment.

I haven't signed up for his classes - I don't think his broad chinked gap style translates particularly well to my climate; Scandi full scribe or the Finnish flat joints caulked with moss or oakum are better, here - but I did watch a lot of his videos during the bad old days of the COVID lock downs.  The broad chinked style probably really shined brightest for "plank" log houses, built from riven or sawn flitches, often from very large diameter chestnuts, before the blight killed nearly all of them.  There is some info on this style of log construction in the Foxfire books, if I am not mistaken.

On edit: The original Foxfire Book (number one) does have some info on this style of cabin.  I really do like this aesthetic, but it just isn't all that practical for my local conditions, due to the combo of maintenance and thermal performance issues - and lack of large enough trees commonly available - at least as I assess.  And, I have successfully derailed from the original topic once again, so I'll clam up, now.

I'm pretty sure this is the stone faced tilt up article I was remembering, indeed from Thomas Elpel on the Dirt Cheap Builder website:
http://www.dirtcheapbuilder.com/Articles/Tiltup_Stone_Masonry.htm

Elpel does refer the reader to the Dayton Superior Tilt-Up Handbook for technical details:
https://www.daytonsuperior.com/docs/default-source/handbooks/tilt-up-handbook.pdf?sfvrsn=45f1d560_282

I've only given this Handbook a cursory glance, before deciding it was something to save to the big 'ol electronic stash of stuff.  Will I ever build a tilt up?  Probably not, but you should never say never, and it's always possible that some acquaintance or other will do so, and I'll be asked to help.  It's kind of like reading rigging manuals from petroleum services companies - may not be immediately useful, but still falls into the good to know (or know about) category.

A not-quite-aircrete is dustcrete, made with sawdust as the "aggregate".  Radical Gastronomy has a brief series on this method of construction, though he used it as infill for a wood frame structure:


But, it might be possible to do this as a tilt-up, also, with proper reinforcement, edge framing, etc.

An old TMEN article on dustcrete can be read here:
https://www.motherearthnews.com/sustainable-living/green-homes/building-a-sawdust-concrete-home-zmaz78jfzgoe/

The possibility of tilt-up using dustcrete isn't entirely speculative, since Walt Friberg mentions pre-casting blocks and slabs.  There are some photos in the University of Idaho Extension Service publication he authored.  He specifically mentions pouring roof slabs for steep roofs in flat forms, then lifting the panels into place - not too far from tilt-up.

https://objects.lib.uidaho.edu/uiext/uiext15397.pdf

I have been sort of toying with the idea of using dustcrete as solid insulation, rather than leichtlehm (clay/straw).  Dunno if it will go anywhere.  An advantage is that it would cure (AKA "dry") comparatively quickly.  Downside is a fair bit of embodied energy, in comparison to the clay/straw, and it's non-local materials, and...

In selected locations, it might have its place.