ICF BASEMENT WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED HERE?????? 

Ouch. I've helped do a few ICF homes, foundations and basements. Everything needs to be layed out perfectly before you pour. Walls square and level, spray foam to attach to the footings and lock the bottom in place. Brace all the walls, we add extra plywood bracing on lower parts of all the corners to help mitigate blowouts. Cheap insurance against what is otherwise a mess. Screw measuring twice, you better have checked and rechecked things a few times prepping for pour day, and then right after the pour do a final check before things set to fine tune anything that shifted a little. Can't half-ass ICF and have it turn out well.

Teamwork makes the dreamwork, as the saying goes. It's really nice to watch you guys work together, thanks for posting.

Typically, when you lay out your walls, they should be centered on the footing. In residential work, that is about 4"- 8"- 4" on a 16" footing. To stray 8" from parallel, I would bet that the error was in the batter boards( if these guys even used any!) Certainly , the footings were equally bad, or the mistake would have been apparent at the inital layout of the walls. People have managed to get this right for thousands of years. Shows a lack of experience. The framer , in setting his sills, demonstrated how bad the situation really was. Now, everyone has to work harder for a mediocre result. Backfilling unbraced walls ( or without a floor system)is a big no-no. Then , you drive a concrete truck up close?! The foam on the ICF's is probably hiding some serious cracks. The interior piers should have been poured monolithically, below grade....no forms.....or formed at floor level and poured seperately....... no wire , no rebar or anchor bolts in the piers....nice job on the floor gentlemen.... first thing done right.

Lot of respect for you guys . That is some hard work. Looks great.

Framed houses for 25 years. Seen all kinds of out of square foundations (and framing). I would say the person who layed out those walls marked one wall on the wrong side of the line. Double check every dimension. It takes more time, but it could save you a lot of headaches. Make sure your helper is holding the dummy end on the right mark. To double check myself, I would go back the other direction and check my marks. That foundation would be so easy to check for square before you start forming/stacking. Of course I have also seen foundation walls so out of plumb that I really had to fudge the lines to get things to work.

Hey Bondo! Just have to say thanks for the tip on stacking a course or two and then pouring the floor. My wife and I are building our own ICF home and that tip was a game changer for the guys I hired to finish the slab. Also a lot of respect for people pouring these walls.. I just ran the hose on our 13' tall wall pour last week while my wife ran the pencil and my 75 year old dad slapped the walls to let me know when to move on.. Because of people like you on YT, we have been able to do it all ourselves (minus slab finishing) with great results. So thanks again!

It'd be interesting to see the house sitting on that foundation with the sides sticking out of a finished home. It was insane not to check the forms prior to the pour.

I worked in new builds for 20 years and I have never seen anyone pour the basement floor before the rest of the house was built.

If it were my house and I didn’t lay those blocks, they would have been corrected. To pay someone for being 8” off and then let it slide, is crazy.

Diagonals can match perfectly, and the walls can still be out of square. There are two steps to squaring a rectangle. 1.The opposing walls must be exactly the same length. 2. Then, if the diagonals match, It's square.

It's out of square because it is a trapezoid with same diagonals.

I’m a floor guy and it’s pretty cool to see the process before every trade comes in and beats it up before have to come clean it and install the finished product

Bondo…. Surprisingly satisfying to watch you and your team working together. I’m planning a 30 x30 attached garage addition with finished floor above. Planning on ICF for foundation with radiant heated slab. I’m watching as many of your vids I can find to get ready for this fall’s construction. Wish you guys were closer ( northern Vt) Thanks for all the great videos and pointers!

Love the vids and your commentary is always awesome and so helpful!

O my god that foundation is off!!! That's why I need that estimate from you to build my house in Vernon, for next year. You guys do great work.

Equal diagonals does NOT guarantee it is square. The diagonals check only works if you are certain the opposite sides are equal in length. Otherwise you can have a trapezoid which can have equal diagonals but the corners are not 90 degrees. The only way to check is to first measure the opposite sides and make sure they are equal. Only then you can measure the diagonals to ensure squareness. You can get away with this in woodworking because you cut the opposite sides the same length. But in this case you must measure them.

Why can't I stop watching these videos!

you guys are a great team, ya know what you're doing!

I cannot imagine building, especially a simple rectangle, dimensioned 8" off. We have built with ICFs for 17 years and produce walls as plumb, straight and square as any. The dimensions are the easy part.

Measure twice, build once. This house will be screwed from the floor, to the roof, drywall, framers, cabinet guys, trim guys , probably plumber even. Electrician will just laugh to the bank.

I like the time-lapse, you can easily see who is doing the least amount of work.

Great as always...What are your thoughts on ICF basements ?

Ive seen this once before. One ft out of square on the end of a rectangle foundation. The framer built the house longer. Cantilevered 6” and 18”. I guess nobody is perfect but this is something that should be checked multiple times

Great job, as expected...thx Gary

We do basements not with icf but still the same principle it's right or it's wrong. We do alot of very big customs that people expect to be correct. We have a great system to make sure measurements and square are correct. First plans are manually put into our total station. This will tell us if the plans are incorrect, happens way more than you would think. Then we do a form list off those plans which are painted on the footings. Finally when we get to the end of the wall we measure to make sure we have the right fillers. Really there is no excuse for the wrong measurements and out of square should be minimal. Nice job on showing the problems and even better on the floor. Stay safe and have a great day.

This is the best looking pour I’ve seen.

After 25 years and lot of block I am so tired of The sales guys. “It’s like Lego”. Good work that is level and square takes experience.

Professional job. Nice going. Thank you. "Plumb, square and level are overused terms. LOL

My son put himself threw college as a concert finisher.

I really enjoy watching your channel on You Tube, you do some great concrete projects and I can see that you are not a slacker but one of your guys I notice is often standing around twiddling his thumbs so to speak when his work buddy is the complete opposite. You must have some great relationship to let him get away with being so slack, I know that I wouldn’t but then again I’m a hard bastard! Keep up the amazing work 😊

Great crew, worth a million bucks man.

My parents foundation was poured 3 inches out of square and and 5 1/2" out of level. We had to build a pony wall ontop of the foundation to square up and level the building from there.

well done. gotta be hard to walk in at the end and do good work following something sloppy. very well done sir!

When i was setting out for block work or steel work for farm buildings i always measured the sides at least two or three times before doing the diagonals. For just this very reason.

Hi, nice video. Can you explain what the use is of the 3 boxes that were made in the floor (see 1:44)? Whats the use of that? In this case no rebar, why not?

40 foot one end and 40 foot eight on the other, and can we guess 8" thick icf walls? Maybe someone did not measure "out to out"?

0:54. EIGHT INCH DIFFERENCE IN THE WALL LENGTH!!! Only two possible causes: Gross incompetence or inebriation (maybe both)!

another nice job you have a great team way better then the guys I have we cant find qualified people that will show up for work, I do have a few core guys I would be lost with out

Thats a lot of work! Now I know why people had 'dirt basements' for centuries.

We always put number 4 rebar on two foot centers. I noticed that you didn’t put anything in for reinforcement. I never much cared for fiber mesh either.

I am curious as to why the wire mesh wasn't installed prior to the pour of the flooring? I mean it would add strength to the concrete or not really needed in this case?

Wow! And there's me worrying about being off my plan measurement by just under 1/2" at the top of the first lift over a 40 foot length. I'll probably win some of that back when I plum the walls as we don't have concrete in yet. Great work on the floor though.

In the early 80s I worked on a 7 story building in Brisbane hospital. It was 7 inches out of square . So they added 1 inch to the column in the corner each level to bring it back to square. Good thing I wasn't an impressionable young apprentice... 🤣😂😁😀😎

The power of the sun! I do that stuff all the time. And finish by hand no problem with soft spots.

are you able to mount plate board over the foam in ICF??? I see plate is flush with the edge of the wall that means it must be over the foam and not over the concrete..

Nice work and it’s good to read everyone’s comments. I live in the north shore of Chicago high end neck-of-the-woods and you would be hard pressed to finds guys with all these comments and suggestions/knowledge. The people doing concrete work around here don’t speak English and the ones that do landed at O’hare from Poland and were given directions to the job site when they landed. Terrible workmanship.

Your floor looks great 👍 !

I would of refused to pay for those walls ,plus went after them for tear out and delay expensive.

That's the problem with measuring diagonals. If you don't use A squared + B squared= C squared you are only making sure two corners have the same number. The Pythagorean theorem will tell you what that corner number has to be!

That's what happens when you use your eyes to check square.

So how often do you see the basement completely backfilled without a floor system in place. I’d worry about the wall pushing in. Also, on a simple rectangle, it would be hard to make these walls uneven since the block count and sizes are the same side to side. They actually had to work to screw this up, lol! Good job on the floor though!

You guys do great work, the guys that messed up the walls : / Not so much...

8"? Thats crazy. I just built a log home and hired a concrete guy to form and pour the foundation after we excavated. My foundation was literally less then 1/2" out of square. It was as near perfect as I could've imaged.

What are the three square holes in the middle for? Column support?

48 years experience forming walls here - I always checked on my Construction Master Pro calculator what the diagonals should be - catches any mistakes like this one right away. - Al the concrete guy

I have to say that when I was doing concrete work, I didn't have an ounce of fat on me. These guys are huge. Work them for a month doing concrete work. They will be buff!

Every time I see concrete I just think, here comes a big load of excitement 😀

I know it's not related to the video, but have you made or anybody else on here ever seen any good homemade icf braces for basement walls, or what do you like to use. I'm having a big of trouble finding a place to rent braces. Thank ya kindly Josh

Compare bottom diagonals to the top.. bet my hat they back filled the outside before the cement in walls were cured (a month) , and made it a polygon when ground settled before concrete. We had to re excavate & push out a 3" bow on a 80' wall, back within ¾" .. with my car jack, every glue lam & 6x6 leveraged off opposite wall. All Because the heavy equipment operator pushed sand to the wall, instead of winging it alongside. Seen it a few times now & it always gets blamed on the builders.. but 8" out, is nuts! Also watched the cement crew kick a corner a few inches to get the truck in closer 😅

my house was built in 1920 and they did the same thing. I can tell from the foundation block work that the crew was amateur at best. from one corner of the house to the next corner, the sill plate starts flush with the outside and by the other end it's a good 2 inches overhung. And so is the wall and the studs. They tried to hide it by building the stucco out but it's still way overhung even with that. I never even notice this until I started replacing the sill. What an unwanted surprise. hardly the first one with this place either.

Dude , you're a bad ass ! I have seen the crazy diagonal wall before tho , worst spot , breakfast nook

As a customer i would request a complete tear down of this piss poor job.

dumb question: why pour over the poly? is the poly there in case the water table rises ?

Thank you for sharing!

You guys are very good.

1"thick if you screened level eh! Yikes dude! Sweet time lapse! Great commentary

607?! That's my area code. I'll have to be sure to never use those clowns. I can't believe they were stupid enough to put their name on the wall of that horrific error.

I notice they didn’t counter sink the anchor bolts on the 2x 12 the mason was a couple inches off square or the footing was poured a couple inches off which threw of the block work

You should snap a grade line with chalk on the wall. Using the laser makes sense for the center screed line but not the wall line. Give it a try, it really saves time on the laydown. My method is to spend the time prepping for the pour and getting it out and flat as fast as possible

Imagine no conveyors or pump trucks? We did it that way for decades. Used to be 1 pump truck in the whole state booked for months in advance. Now there is 6 pumps and a dozen conveyors trucks.

I hope the owners are made aware of this. They should get some of their money back or back out all together.

Concrete guys are great ... so long as no other trades are on site when they are

What were those square holes that you filled in.

What area do you work in? I’m looking for someone to do the concrete and block work on my home.

Both end walls are out ? 3-4-5?

very good points, check twice - do once; in this case at least you will not be embarrassed

Did they really put their sign on that foundation? That company is out by me- 4.3 stars on Google. I might end up building with ICF in the near future- Glad they put their sign up, so I know who NOT to call!!!!!

What are the holes that get filled for?

Wow!! Every one in a rush and no one measuring.

out of square.. not good. but at the end of the day it will support a house and that is what the customer needs. we have all seen worse.

As a concete engineer you did not support the top good enough, the pressure from the earth and the concrete made to mutch force in the top when you pour your concrete.

Was this a BuildBlock project? If so, I'd love to chat with you about this project, thanks!

That shadow can’t affect thé curing that much , here in Ontario and Quebec we pour year round and believe me when I say it get really cold here lol

nice job amazing good work greetings from the netherlands

so they filled the sump pump openings that were formed with concrete. that seems a bit odd. wouldn't you want to keep that area open to place the sump pump?

The footers for the walls should be poured with the bottom floor and the rebar (I heard the part about using fiber in mix - Helix is better than fiber and could replace much of the rebar) so that the rebar for the walls is integrated with the footers and floor. Probably should have used SCC. Basically if the house gets any earth movement, it might be in trouble, hopefully it’s Michigan or some place that doesn’t have real earthquakes.

You guys obviously know what you're doing. My son tried pouring a 20 x 30 slab and the mud got away from him and set up rough on top before he could smooth it out. Can this be fixed, or does it need to be jack-hammered out and start over? Thank for any advice that will help

foundation is a trapezoid; diagonal will always be the same. need to check all wall dimensions. once you pour it in concrete it's not easy to fix without a bulldozer. I've seen sills hang off the foundation worse than that, always amazed me why they did it.

Is that the name and number to never call on the wall?

Had a block layer one time who put up full basement that not only was 2.5 inches out square but was also 2 inches low in one corner.lol. The main contracter was also framer and extremely pissed.

Wired a millondollar custom home where builder only poured a 8" thick concrete basement wall instead of the 12" on drawings for 4" thick stone wall being installed. Got away with installing 4" angle iron below grade to partially support guess over 40 tons of stone.

You should put a lifting eye on your power trowel.

So it's wrong because out of square not because of no stem wall on top pf the icf. That allows the concrete to dry out. Masonry loves to wick moisture. Hows the moisture getting out of the icf wall? Did you read directions for the icf blocks?

Military precision. Your squad only needs a uniform (distinctive overalls or insignia). It'll destroy the cowboy-outfit competition. Works a treat in Europe.

Mike Carr! In the building !!!!

“Here comes the muuuud boys and giiiirls!” 😂😂😂

Good catch on the poor grading. That one inch of concrete would have gone bad fast.

“Big Biscuit”, what an epic nickname!

8" out of square?!? Holy crap. No more drinking on the job.

Meanwhile, we dig a foundation by eye that are 100 ft long and are 1/4" off corner to corner and 1/8 after pouring. These MFers were DRUNK as hell.