Frank Lloyd Wright nightmare

Ken_8

We have an on-grade FLW home nearby with ~6" first pour of concrete on gravel - with the steel radiant pipe buried there-in. A second pour of ~2" was placed on top, and that pour finish-trowelled to a smooth finish and hexogonal "pattern" embossed thereon.

50 years later, the steel pipe is toast and leak city! We find a FPHX attached to prevent the huge make-up water problem from destroying an almost new Monitor MZ boiler. The radiant system is shot and the owner has found that the fissures that did all the damage not only went through the top 2" pour - but the 6-8" sub-slab as well. No wonder the pipes leaked!

It appears the 2" top pour is not bonded that well with the underslab, and we thought we could "scrape" the top coat off room by room and put down something that would still maintain the original look - as well as redo it in radiant.

The problem is, what will go over already cracked sub-floor concrete that could handle the dynamics of the base - and what materail might be an option? Rebar (or wire) reinforcing is one way. But the 2" thick refloat bodes poorly for long term stability. The owner wants the original hex pattern and cementatious nature to remain.

Attached a few photos.

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leo g_13

ken

i was just at a customers house friday, who had their electrical main pull out of their meter just recently. it turns out that the foundations were never dug down to hard pan. in fact, the builder while clearing the land, some 40 years ago, threw some of the trees into the hole!

they now have to underpin 2 sides of the foundation, (being on a hill, the east and north sides are bearing). could this be the reason for the cracked slab?

leo g



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Ken_8

Leo,

That is possible! I'm sure there are no footings - just the slab. Unbelievably, the pour shows noo evidence of any rebar or wire whatsoever!

Thankfully, the grade is almost dead level.

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jim lockard

Where's

Where's Frank when you need him ? Any luck finding a follower of FLW to step in and help ya Ken? After all FLW is still worshiped amongest the Ivy halls. Just a thought. J.Lockard

[Deleted User]

maybe

FLW had the steel radiant pulling double duty? acting as rebar also..

Ken_8

Funny you should mention

help. The owner of the home was the president of the FLW conservatory and the architect he hangs with and who I have consulted with - is the director!

They are hopig I can "solve" the problem. I have a couple of ideas that would work, but have problems with the floors staying hexes and concrete-like.

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leo g_13

another thought

just came to mind, i know hotrod, has extensive website knowledge for concrete matters, have you done a google for concrete yet?

leo

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jw

Do it just like a tile application!

Ken;

After you scrape the old 2" lift off, have a tile setter install a tile underlayment on the old slab to keep the new overpour from bonding. Same stuff they use over gypcrete when setting tile. This will allow the overpour to have a better chance of remaining intact and allow some isolation for heat loss, but not much. Probably want to use some sort of light wire reinforcing in the overpour.

The other option is to roll out some of the reflective bubble pak type insulation and then roll out some kitek as it does not need as much attaching to keep it from floating. Again, I would probably lay some light reinforcing wire over the tubing and attach a little as possible thru the insulation into the subslab with a powder actuated nailer.Or use fiber reinforced cement? I am sitting on an overpuor done in just the manner I speak in my office. Not one crack in the three years so far.

Boilerpro_3

Ken, you may want to contact

the American Concrete Institute in Chicago. Since FLW had his office here, they may have seen this same problem before or at least offer some additional insight. FLW was notorious for poor enginnering, especially after Griffin left his office, so the scale of problems you are seeing are not at all unusual.

Dave "Boilerpro" Bunnell

BArchitectute, IIT -Chicago

J. Ortquist

FLW Floor Problem

One other, but not probable option is to raise the existing floors 1" to 1-1/2" minimum & use an pre-manufactured radiant panel. The Roth foam panels would offer a great thermal barrier to the existing 6"-8" (I assume) uninsulated concrete. This would however offer a challenge to restore a floor covering keeping with FLW esthetics. Is this possible? Just a thought.

jim lockard

Epoxy

Ken--I have seen where in medical x-ray and cat scan rooms they float a layer of epoxy almost like a casting resin over the entire floor. If you were to combine this product with a number of post hole or "button footers" (Just thinking in print here) could you stablize the existing 6" concrete slab and provide a surface for the hexagon finish look. Best wishes J.Lockard

Paul Bock_2

Excellent oportunity

to think outside the box. Because thats just how FLW approached things. first things first. Assesment by a competent structural engineer. This is not the time to tinker around the edges, unstable substrate will only get worse with time, especially if it has had a lot of water running under it. It would be better to remove ALL the concrete,and grout proper footings under the house now, than to sink (possibly literally) money into new emitters and stamped concrete. Think about it. If you take out all the concrete, stabilize the footings, and start with a properly compacted and insulated base your thermal performance will be much better, than if you just do an over-pour. Poor concrete and rienforcement issues plague all of FLW'S designs. Read up on the restoration efforts at Falling Water in Pa. This could be a really fun project, but I would encourage you to build "from the ground up" Paul.

hr

If the original

slab is rock and rolling, I'd thing any over pour would be a risk. Even with a cleavege membrane.

Last month JLC had an article on polymer mixes that could be finished, colored and stamped.

Think I would sub out the concrete and liability

hot rod

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Ken_8

Thank you all for

the insights and ideas offerred up.

You guys are truly amazing.



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Robert O'Connor_7

FLW House?

Exactly where is this house?? Robert O'Connor

alternety

Piping issue

I will stay away from the slab repair issue but I had a thought about the heating pipes. If you could get that fixed you would not have to dig up and refinish all of the slab just for that. Then maybe you could minimize actual structural repairs.

Is the pipe size such that you can run some PEX through the existing pipes? If you can figure out the original piping scheme it may be amenable to cutting in at the edges and stuffing PEX through them. Iron pipe does not make curves real well so they probably ran parallel pipes either with a common source and return header at the ends of the run or two 90 degree elbows and a straight piece between. In either case you should be able to expose the ends of the long pipes. Assuming you would not want to thread a couple of hundred feet of tubing in and out, you would wind up with lots of joints. Maybe you could keep the joints out of the floor and hide them in an adjacent wall.

If you can get tubing in and leave a bit of space you should probably try to force some very fluid and small particle size grout or other material down the pipes after the tubing to give good heat transfer. That may even help a bit with the cracks. If you can get in from the outside of the slab you might even be able to ream the rusted pipes out of the slab. If the slab has shifted verticaly at cracks it may block some holes. Obviously, even if it is possible, it may cost more than ripping it all up. How important is keeping the original finish for historical reasons?

I have been to Falling Water a couple of times before the repairs were made. His houses are interesting, if you are 5' 4" tall, but he really did not get materials/engineering, clients were rich, and energy was cheap. Of course some of the materials that would have helped were not around then. As I recollect, Falling Water's concrete would not have lasted even as long as it did if the builder had not defied FLW and beefed up the structure.

Ken_8

The FLW house is in Glen Ridge,

NJ. Why do you ask?



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Ken_8

We have gone over the

possible lining of existing tubing prospects - and see no help on that front. The pipe is all 1" steel, schedule 40 and welded - not screwed. It is also comprised of perhaps five radiant panels, with the typical manifold for one end - and all the other side conncections buried randomly in the concrete return tees - somewhere in the floor.

It's a shame because the house is really cool.

The real issue is the condition of the floor where large fissures are evident and the shear factor(s) that are also at play here. Rust and corrosion is only one facet of the radaint tube demise. The slab's "shear factor" is equally formidable.

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Ken_8

This all sounds good

But my client does not have "unlimited funds" and the prospect of repouring the entire slab while the house still stands, is outside the scope of reasonable repairs at a reasonable cost.

A target budget has been established as having a ceiling price of ~ 25K. Picking the house up and installing footings and a new slab ain't happenin' for 25K. Not in this neck of the woods anyhow. The skyline of NYC is only 8 miles away.

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Glen

warmboard?

If you are seriously thinking about toasting the two inch pour - what about installing Warmboard with thin set over top to reestablish the pattern in the original floor? While it needs to be glued down (PL400) - it might have enough flexibility to handle the movement of the main concrete slab.

tim smith_2

FLW house probs

What about discussing with an engineer the possibility of taking up overpour and coring numerous holes in old sub concrete, ? 8" or so. Dig down a ways and put some steel in and pour a somewhat pin pile in different areas throughout. Then do mesh and overpour. This might very likely resole unstability and give you a good base that wont move. Just a thought.

Earthfire

try tis link

http://www.nationaltrust.org/ I believe that they have been involved with trying to preserve some of FLW architectural beauties. If I remember correctly some of the ones that they did that didn't involve replacing the concrete ,they had to abandon the radiant systems.

Earthfire

ThenThey Know

that a 25K budget is unreasonable! Many people have tried to repair FLW mechanical and structural deficiency's, and to do provide permanent resolution has always been expensive and a major project.As much as we would like to find a cost contained way to do a project, some times the preexisting conditions preclude that. If the structural deficencies can't be corrected, I would consider abandoning the radiantsystem and installing some panel radiation and concealing the piping within or under the existing structure as best as astetically possible.

Robert O'Connor_7

Ken- FLW house

Glen Ridge you say? Is that #63 CH? Is the H.O. on the Historical Commitee?

Ken_8

Yes

He is.

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Ken_8

This too

may be a viable solution. The question then becomes, glued to what? A floor that is moving around?

The wheels - they are a turnin'

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Mike T., Swampeast MO

\"Shear Factor\"

Is such assumed or known? My knowledge of concrete is limited but have always read/been told that cracking of a slab isn't an "if" it's a "when".

Have they done something like epoxy pieces of glass across cracks to see if it breaks. Believe this is one of the most reliable (and inexpensive and non-intrusive) methods to determine if concrete is actively moving.

jerry scharf

ask warmboard if they can float

I like the idea, it's one I would have never come up with.

I would want to see if the warmboard could be attached in a floating fashion. With the slab moving around like it is, I would expect the cracks to appear at the warmboard seams if they were stuck down. If you could figure out how to use a clip like the floating wood floors do, then it would have the best chance of not inducing a crack at the panel seams. Maybe you could figure out a way to put in those little tighten up clips and bolts I see cut into the undersides of some laminate countertops.

cool project

jerry

Gordy

Ken, I don't know how many cracks are in this structure. But they do not always mean structural integrity has been compromised. The crack in the photograph you show is a stress related to the wall itself, as you can see it comes off the corner of the adjacent wall. Are the cracks even elevation wise from one side to the other? If they are you are probably dealing with expasion contraction movement typical of any material. if they are not even, then there is settling.One way to tell if it is settling is whether the cracks continue up into the adjacent wall area especially that masonary wall in the picture.FLW was definetly using the steel pipe for the rebar that was his inovative nature.

Ken_8

Oh contrare...

The crack seen in the pic is not related to the wall. If it is we're in REAL trouble! The wall is non-load bearing.

The floor cracks are structural fissures and it is extremely doubtful FLW had any notion of using parallel piping as a form of reinforcement. Had it been criss crossed - I might buy that premise.

The radiant tubing/pipe was found to be under the slab as much as "in" it. Hardly a structural support member in any event.

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Ken_8

I doubt it.

FLW would have known mild steel parallel pipes would only have a minimal structural affinity. The pipes actually would act as "score" points that would weaken - not strengthen the design. Had the piping been run in two crossing patterns, I might support the notion.

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Gordy

Sorry Ken, I was looking at the brick on the wall Thought it may be load bearing with a footer under it, is the wall stick frame with brick venier? Is the brick layed on top of the over pour? now that I look closer it appears to be. Or is it on top of the 6" pour with the over pour butting up to the brick? If it is the later then the crack is still caused by the acute angle of the wall which acts kind of like a chisle in the edge of the concrete, this is probably the over pour only which is cracked being poured up against the wall or brick.Hard to tell by the picture angle.Also hard to speculate when one is not there to see the whole picture.

Glen

While tongue and grove sheets - I don't think a floating application is recommended. Maybe attach to 5/8 ply with adhesive and let the whole plywood subfloor float. Otherwise attch directly to concrete with adhesive or hilti them down. Quick trac might work too - Warmboard is - well - just warmer.

ALH_3

Structural Problems?

I dont see any mention of the house settling? If it is there may be a geotechnical issue with the subgrade. Cracks arent necessarily indicative of a structural problem. The crack in the photo appears to be mostly cosmetic, but it is difficult to tell. Perhaps the two-layer pour is the problem. The lower slab probably had nothing in the way of crack control so the cracks are occurring randomly. Cracking in concrete is inevitable. All we can do is control the location and extent of the cracks. Even reinforced concrete cracks if the subgrade is not optimum. If the house is sinking I dont see any point in installing new tubing. If not, I'd sleeve the tubes where they cross the cracks since you know this will be a high stress point for the tube.

jw

Another thought to \"float\" by you...

EHT makes a foam and plastic underlayment specifically for laying over existing concrete and then pouring a layer of concrete over it. It has "buttons" on a grid that the tube snaps into in most any pattern you desire. No mechanical fasteners. Also, because of the foam and no glue down required, It may just absorb the movement and bridge the cracks in the slab below. Not my product, but one I think would work after seeing it.

Earthfire

another FLW project

http://www.professionalroofing.net/article.aspx?A_ID=220 interesting reading. Gets into some of the problems that come up when working on FLW buildings. as well as some photos