A Finished Durisol block foundation
The Endeavour class has completed the foundation for Canada’s Greenest Home. The crawlspace foundation is made with Durisol blocks. Durisol is an insulated concrete form (ICF) that uses waste wood chips in a cement slurry to form large blocks (in this case, 14 inches wide by 12 inches high by 24 inches long) with an integral Roxul insulation insert. These blocks create a wall with an R-28 insulation value.
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- Level and plumb are checked frequently as the Durisol walls are dry stacked
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- The Durisol blocks cut easily using a regular circular saw and blade
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- As with other masonry units, Durisol walls are built from the corners inwards
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- There are numerous gaps in a Durisol wall. We chose to insulate the gaps using hempcrete.
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- The Durisol wall is ready for the concrete pour.
The blocks are dry stacked in running bond, and are easily cut with a regular circular saw and blade where required. A grid of rebar is placed in the blocks both horizontally and vertically, and the open channels inside the blocks are poured with concrete (in our case, with the highest slag content possible).
The Durisol system uses waste wood chips, slag content in the cement binder and the Roxul insulation is made with recycled steel slag to create the mineral wool insulation. It’s a higher impact foundation than we would typically use, but because we’re providing a conditioned crawlspace for this building, it was the best solution for this application.