Tilt-up concrete house

low cost luxury

rchitects and contractors are often confronted
with a client who wants a large home with
many luxury features, but whose budget
doesnt stretch to cover all these desirable
things. Tilt-up concrete construction proved the answer
for a house in Ventura, California. The architect was
Fred Hummel and the contractor was Dean L. Weeks.
The house has 3,600 square feet of living space which
includes 4 bedrooms, 212 baths, family room and recreation room. The cost per square foot was $11.09. In the
Ventura area standard architect-designed homes usually cost about $15 per square foot. Without radiant heating, wall-hung toilets, custom cabinets throughout and
many other luxury features Mr. Hummel and Mr. Weeks
believe the cost could have been reduced to $9.00 per
square foot, or less.
An outstanding design feature is the use of native
rocks set into the panels. Mr. Hummel selected the rocks
which were placed by hand in pre-arranged patterns in
the slabs. The careful planning which went into this
phase of the construction is apparent in the beautiful
walls which demonstrate again what can be achieved
with the imaginative use of concrete.
A 4-foot module was used as the basic element, extending to glass panels in bedrooms and facade, two 4foot modules for the beams, and even for the decorative

Ready mixed concrete is placed in form for one of the

panels. The project required 200 cubic yards of concrete.

Wall panel is lifted up by crane. One crane tilted all the walls into position in 6 hours.

Exposed aggregate concrete in entrance hall, stairs and

landing complements the decorative wall panels.
screen along the bedroom wing. The 13 tilt-up walls
ranged in size from the 20- by 23-foot living room wall
(weighing 23 tons) to three 4- by 11-foot walls for the
bedroom wing.
The frames used as forms for the concrete panels were
steel channels. The channels were the thickness of the
wall and were used only on the vertical edges. The form

on the top edge of the wall remained in place as a top

plate for anchorage of the roof diaphragm. The concrete
was tied to the channels by spot welding #3 bars to the
inside of the channels.
The load bearing walls support the roof. Most of the
interior walls also are of concrete. Approximately 200 cubic yards of ready mixed concrete went into the project.
Walls were 8 inches thick with about 2 inches of penetration for smaller exposed rock and 4 inches for the
largest stones. The builder used a sand setting bed for
imbedding the stones. The sand contributed a rough
texture to the surface and therefore required no separating membrane. The panels were cast in a mirror image and were designed in that manner. All of the panels
featured exposed rock with some exposing the rock to
the interior, providing an interesting wall finish.
One truck crane tilted the walls in 6 hours and the
panels were then joined at corners with a continuous
weld. Welds were ground smooth and the channels
painted.
Expansion and contraction have not been problems,
because of the design methods used. There are no sections where either expansion or contraction could cause
failure. No sweating has occurred, since the walls are
well insulated, the climate mild, and the radiant heating
helps to prevent creation of moisture.

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