I'll give you my 2 cents. These are your two options.

Below grade precast comes as solid 4" concrete with no insulation, R15 insulation with 1 3/4" concrete and attached steel studs. In addition to the R15 insulation there is also an R21 option both with only 1 3/4" of concrete.

Your poured concrete walls will be 8" of concrete and insulation needs to be installed after the walls are poured.

Think about it, 1 3/4" thick concrete and steel studs holding up your massive investment or 8" of solid concrete. Me, I'd go with solid 8" concrete. You're paying for the shipping (trucking costs) for one thing and a big price tag I'd rather put into the house.

On the other hand I would use the Precast products above grade. (AG wall). First you need to find out which option of precast is involved in the upgrade price before you say NO.

We've been installing Superior Walls for our basement foundations for the past 20 years. We are currently installing their Xi product. The 5,000 psi concrete is inherently waterproof, the walls are insulated to meet code, and the steel studs on the interior make it ready for finishing. They guarantee plumb, level and square and they deliver on that. We are currently building a home with a Superior Walls basement foundation; it may only be our 30th Superior Wall basement).

The last time I ran the numbers, the cost of a Superior Walls foundation was comparable to a CMU (block) foundation with rebar and fully grouted cells, equivalent insulation, and waterproofing.

We have never had a basement moisture issue with a Superior Walls foundation--even in a home where we diverted a number of underground streams around the foundation and one that flows under the basement slab. I've built more than a hundred new foundations and I think Superior Walls is the well, superior way to go for a basement foundation.

Matt Risinger just did a video on these. They have been around for awhile now. Kinda surprised it is extra money. Maybe your builder hasn't actually quoted it from superior. It is dependent on the job, but the builder in the video said it is a cost savings and a number of builders in comments say it is even or less.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HsBcgkzWKs

Matt Risinger's a little late to the game. Superior Walls foundations have been manufactured and installed since the early 1980's. I had the opportunity to see one of their very first installations in 1982 or 1983 and was favorably impressed.

We have a ton of new homes being built in our town and this is the new system that seems to be the choice for most of the builders it apparently is better than a regular pored concrete since it also gives insulation. I live in Canada in BC so we need to have foundations that are deeper than a slab so and these seem to be the perfect answer .

The "new" system is insulated concrete forms (ICFs.) They've been around since the 1980's.

"Service under the warranty is solely the responsibility of the licensee." and "(Licensees) provides a limited warranty on their Superior Walls products". In these situations where the buck gets passed from superior to the Licensees which then can be blamed on improper transportation, storage or faulty field workmanship and it becomes an up hill battle as the licensees hunts for scapegoats IMO.

There are other causes of failure which could pass the buck back to you, such as a soil test in 15 years showing substandard soil characteristics, bad slab installation causing racking of the walls, excessive hydrostatic pressure, failed drain tile system, or anything else they can pass the blame on. In perfect conditions I'm sure the 1 3/4" concrete will hold up but what about not so perfect conditions, I wouldn't do it. Get 8" of solid poured concrete with a properly sized concrete footing, they can take the excessive hydrostatic pressure from complete saturation of the soil during a freak weak long rainstorm.

These are engineered like a house of cards, one failure could be catastrophic to the entire wall system, and you see it every week with a $2 bolt causing a bridge to fall. And if the contractor is cheap and dumb enough to use crushed stone footings under these precast walls dirty stone can void the warranty, so save yourself a potential problem and don't even think about tightrope walking over a volcano.



The performance of a Superior Walls foundation--like the performance of a cast-in-place concrete foundation-- is a function of the design, the quality of materials, and the quality of the installation.

Superior Walls is responsible for the design of their panels, but the local franchise operator is responsible for manufacturing quality control in their local manufacturing facility as well as the proper transportation and on-site installation of the panels. The requirements for footings, drain tiles, and backfill materials for pre-cast concrete foundations are listed in the prescriptive code (2018 IRC) and can be verified by visual inspection and/or testing. In the municipalities in which we build, codes and compliance inspectors verify the drainage tile installation, dimensions of footing excavation, and thickness of gravel prior to placement of Superior Wall panels. Our local Superior Walls installer also verifies and approves everything before they'll send the panels and installation crew to the site. They don't want a call back and neither do we.