CJDave, Thanks for the kind words. I'm glad you could leverage off of some of my ramblings. I think I can appreciate some of what you are faced with and are trying to achieve. My previous house was buillt in 1928 as an "in fill" in an older neighborhood with an eclectic mix of architectural styles that included Frank Lloyd Right "Praire Homes", Tudor, post WW II "modern", and about 50% Spanish Mediterranean (Style of ours).
When we reroofed we reused the original red clay tile wherever it could be seen from the street or from the ground but entire sections were done in new tile where it didn't show. The sizes were different and they couldn't be mixed anyway. The old tile was hand made and had the palm and fingerprints of the artisans embedded in each piece. We had bug and rot damage in many of the windows and some of the French doors. I restored them and only had to replace one window, the center section of a bay window in an add on room from the 60's. I dowled the corners of the weakened windows and used a couple products that might be of interest to you. One was, if I recall, a Minwax brand of wood hardener. The other was some stuff I learned about when restoring rotted wood in a sailboat, "GIT ROT." GitRot probably has work-alike competitors (West et al). It is useful in more than just rot situations. It is a thin viscosity 2 part epoxy. You saturate the area in question and when the epoxy hardens you essentially have something resembling a fiberglass board. Rotted wood that could have been removed is prevented from rotting further. Areas with any integrity left at all become pretty solid, fairly strong, and sure won't deteriorate further. I filled voids with Bondo (like for car bodies). Some trim would have been a real pain to replace and hard to duplicate but was saved by these materials.
Regarding the baement walls: If you have any DIY inclination, go ICF. Otherwise cast is OK BUT... If you are going to finish off the interior walls of the basement ICF might be worth thinking about. My contractors assumed they would follow their standard procedure: 1. pour the foundation, 2. pour the floor, 3. pour the walls, 4. stick build stud walls inside the cast walls with F/G batts in the cavities. I changed that to insulaltion/drainage mat on the outside and will likely use various finishing methods on the inside of the walls. In the basement bedroom/saferoom I will probably go with wainscoting to the chair rail then carpet to the ceiling. Carpet on the floor and sheetrock ceiling with texture paint. Ceiling is radiant heat (hydronic). Need acoustic treatment for a 6 sided concrete box.
In the largest basement room (for pool table, fireplace viewing, window gazing) I will probably do something similar but with less plush carpet... more toward indoor-outdoor carpet. If it weren't for the issue of reverberation I wold use taping and joint compound on the cement walls and paint them. I intend to have a firred down sofit around the edges of the rooms to handle ducting, wiring, hydronic piping, etc. These sofits wouldl house the can lights that wold be difficult to embed in the concrete ceiling. I may drop decorative false columns down from that to the floor. These columns would have the outlets for electric, phone, intercom, TV, computer, etc. If I want/need more lighting I can run a decorative beam across the ceiling to accept track lighting, mount ceiling fans, hold the lighting for the pool table, etc. The rough ceiling height is 9 ft 1 1/8 inches from floor slab to the bottom of the decking system's insulation. Subtract from that for carpet and pad and about an inch for radiant heat and drywall in the ceiling.
Thre are 2 each 4.75 inch dia air ducts molded into the EPS ceiling forming system. The ducts are easy to parallel, especially in pairs so distributing A/C and fresh air is easy. I intend to blow the chilled air down from the ceiling (concentrating on the south end of the spaces) and collect the return air at ceiling level toward the north end of the spaces. I don't think my supply scheme will homogenize the air volume so stale warm moist air should be concentrated toward the ceiling at the north end of the spaces where it can be drawn off.
Oh, why ICF versus cast walls if you are finishing them with drywall and want conventional electrical outlets? Insulation instalation "does itself" and their are "nailers" in the ICF to accept the same drywall screws you'd use with steel studs which makes drywalling a snap. (ICF is flat and the nailers are much closer together than studs in a wall.)
There are products like Cactus Board which give a 25 year dry floor guarantee for your basement. It costs about $200 for a fair sized basement but I couldn't use it because I didn't have a "floating" slab. There are dimpled plastic drain products to use on the outside of a basement wall that are cheap and really work to prevent water from standing on the wall. No hydrostatic pressure (head) equals no leaks through the wall even if you have cracks or drilled a hole in the wall.
Had there been a contractor available to do my basement in ICF I would have gone that way. Now I have to use stuff like the Owens Corning Insul-Drain to get about the same results at greater expense, especially after considering the increase in number of steps requiring labor. With ICF (expensive initial cost) lots of additional steps are avoided and good uniform results are achieved. I am (try to be) a big picture kind of guy. I want to know the installed lifecycle cost not just the initial purchase price. Cheapest initial cost approaches often are not cheapest over a 10 or 20 year period.
One of my favorite examples is the cost of a 75-90 Watt lightbulb. If it were free it would be a bad bargain if you use it more than about 3 hrs a day. Over the installed life of a CFL (compact fluorescent lamp) you save enough in electricity to pay the purchase cost of the CFL and save an additiional $20 (more or less depending on your electric rate). That means that for every appropriate installation of a CFL you make $20 net profit, over a 100% return on your investment. Not bad these days! Still, the overwhelming majority of light bulb purchasers buy the cheapest bulb. Are they innumerate? (Like illiterate but with numbers) OR WHAT? If most folks don't make the smart decision in buying something simple as a light bulb, what hope is there that they will make the right decisions with heating, ventilating, and air conditioning their homes or insulation or windows, or...
The concept of NPV (Net Present Value) and lifecycle costing are really not overly complicated and should/could be taught in gradeschool but most college grads haven't been properly exposed to the concepts. OH WELL!!!
//soapbox mode off//
Although I think I have found successful work-arounds for not having used ICF, using ICF would have make life far easier in the long run. Engineered floor trusses would have worked for me and was our original approach until I researced the alternatives (my builder seized the idea as a good one) but all things considered (number of different operations and tasks to do and materials to install) I think that the PanelDeck is a good choice. The floor will not be as resilient as a wood floor but most of it will be carpeted so will still be comfortable walking. Small deflections in a fair sized (37X34 suspended slab) are to be expected under a live load and contribute to comfort, this is unlike the solid unyielding slab-on-grade feel.
Best of luck to you in your coming endeavors.
Pat
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