Featured Project – Private Residence, Louisiana

In August we completed a five month project in Bush, Louisiana.  This was a 12,000 sq. ft. Italian influenced above-grade concrete home.  Instead of 2x6 stud exterior walls, the owner and architect chose a concrete wall system called Thermomass.  LNK E nterprises, LLC was selected a s the general contractor for the project.  Richard Machen was the on-site superintendent for LNK. 

We performed the work as a joint venture with a good friend of ours, Mike Hancock, Owner of Basement Contractors in Oklahoma City, OK.  Mike handled the excavation and concrete slabs.  We constructed the footings, basement walls and above-grade walls.  Barry Herbert managed the entire project for Herbert Construction Company. 

The home consists of two stories with a full Terrace Level (walkout basement).  There are two 2-car garages.  One of the 2-car garages was over a structural concrete slab to allow more space in the Terrace Level.  The rear porch was an elevated structural concrete slab.  The rest of the home had conventional wood flooring. 

There were 85 window and door openings in the exterior concrete walls.  Many of them were arched at the top.  We installed 195 electrical boxes for switches and outlets into the wall forms that were then poured into place in the concrete.  The typical First Floor wall height was 12’-0” tall.  The second story walls up were up to 24’-3 ¼” tall.  There were also many gable ends in the exterior walls that were formed and poured in concrete.

Benefits of a Concrete Home

The owners and architect chose a concrete home for its energy efficiency, indoor air quality, immunity to termites, resistance to hurricane-related winds, and overall security.  The thermal-mass (or storage capacity) of the concrete plays a big factor in the energy efficiency of the building. 

To describe the thermal-mass effect, we use the analogy of a rock in the desert.  It absorbs the warmth of the day and then continues to give off that heat after the temperature drops at night.  The same thing happens with concrete.  Once it is heated up in the winter – or cooled down in the summer – it continues to radiate that constant temperature, reducing the demands on the HVAC system to continually heat (or cool) the air inside the building.

Thermomass® Wall System
Thermomass is an Insulated concrete sandwich wall.  The wall consisted of 2” of rigid insulation between two 4” thick sections of concrete, totaling a 10” wide wall.  Stucco will be applied directly to the exterior face of the concrete wall.  Plaster will be applied to the interior face of the concrete wall.

 

 

Happy Clients 
For the general contractor on this project, the choice of who to use for the concrete work was an easy decision.  On one extreme there were commercial concrete contractors that would have taken too long to complete the project and charge an arm and a leg. 

On the other end of the spectrum there were residential concrete contractors that didn’t have any experience with above-grade concrete construction.  This would have been their on-the-job training.  It was an obvious choice to use a contractor team that had experience with Thermomass and above-grade concrete homes, that could complete the project quickly and within the owner’s budget.  After the concrete portion was completed LNK Enterprises, LLC expressed the fact that they were very happy they chose the team of Basement Contractors and Herbert Construction.  The architect was also impressed with the entire concrete portion of the project.

One of Many Concrete Home Projects
Within the past few years we have completed other above-grade concrete homes right here in Atlanta.  We constructed a two-story home with a basement and two 2-car garages for a former NFL offensive lineman for the Falcons.  We also constructed an executive home that has a structural concrete slab for the Main Level (instead of a wood flooring system).  It has an 85’-0” long concrete indoor shooting range.  In the walkout basement area there is a large 12’-6” tall RV/Boat garage that is under the 3-car garage above.