Attaching Wood Floor Truss to ICF Insulated Concrete Form Walls

by Jim Patrick
(Homebuilding Questions Author)

Update on my ICF or Insulated Concrete Form home project we have been working on this winter. As a reminder this home is completely formed with ICF walls in both the walk out basement and main living area.

Everything is progressing well, at this stage the home is enclosed and heating contractor is installing heating duct work in the vaulted ceiling areas for the geothermal heating and cooling system. They are doing final preparation for the spray foam insulators to move in and seal up all the final surfaces.

In this update I want to talk a little bit about how we brought together the ICF (Insulated Concrete Form) walls with the engineered wood floor truss system. There are a few ways to accomplish this task. In this installation we began with the Simpson ICFVL Ledger Connector System to create an anchoring system that penetrated the foam block directly into the concrete. This anchor is then attached to an ICFVL-W support connector to hold up the LVL (Laminated Veneer Lumber) ledgers we used to hold the 3-1/2 inch wide floor truss support hangers.

You might call this a bullet proof installation but the home owners concern was “Do it right!” I am going to do a more in depth page on the web site to cover this installation as well as a couple of other options.

You will also notice in one photo that the home owner elected to have the concrete garage floor poured suspended over a full sized work shop below. If you look close you will see where they stripped off the forms leaving the suspended concrete ceiling above.

I will keep you posted on our progress with this great ICF project.

If you have had experience with this type of installation or would like more information please leave us a comment.