Just spent two days in humid Savannah, GA at a well-presented ICF seminar. No BS, just 15 hours of great info and hands-on demonstrations run by the southeastern distributor.
Two jobs were currently underway a couple miles from the conference center, so we were taken over, and allowed to crawl all over them, meet the builder, and learn from his frankly admitted newby mis-steps, and see how the second house, a few weeks behind, had incorporated his learning.
Can’t say enough about the program – good support documentation, an actually difficult test for certification, and on and on. Literally billions of photos and details of jobs in progress were available. Polysteel is well past 2MM sq. ft. of installed wall in the SE now.
Builders and motivated owner-builders attended.
Forrest – PolySteel fan
Replies
Forrest,
I think I received a flyer about something like that not long ago? Is that how you heard about it?
I had tried to price out a couple of small jobs here with them but couldn't get competitive pricing vs. good old CMUs especially with concrete here being $150+ per yard.
Did they discuss any cost aspects or was it all just techincal?
Thanks
Mike
Mike,
I've found that if you build with ICF's you should be able to bring it in around what a stick built house will cost.. obviously there is a big learning curve and some quickly get to speed and some lag way behind. In this market (Minnesota) they are sold as a premium product and a 2% surcharge is added on some homes.. but due to the absolute lack of new home construction in the Twin City market many builders are using that premium as a give away simply to get the deal..
To do ICF's profitably you need to understand them.. You need to figure out how to speed the assembly process, how to properly brace them without wasting too much time, and quick methods on buck building (something most stick framers have an advantage over other newbies)
I've seen extremely clever approaches towards ICF construction.. where it goes together faster than stick building by a bunch..
I've also heard about blowouts. (never actually seen one) some brands of forms seem more prone to blowouts and the cost savings with them is more than offset by the additional bracing they need.. Bracing seems to be the defining issue with regard to profit.. it takes material and time to do well and if it's destroyed after use as some usually is then you need to add that to the cost as well. however some brands include free rental of quick bracing and scaffolding.
Architects really don't have a good grasp at all the possibilities yet of ICF's. For example turning the brick ledge blocks inside and using them to set the floor on and at the same time build a coffered ceiling.. doing so allows the floor joists (or ceiling joists) to act as inside bracing thus dramatically decreasing the need for that. In addition instead of scaffolding you stand on that floor to pour the walls, very stable and secure..
Your guy who sprays the foam at the joint is a make or break guy.. if he can do it quickly and properly the wall goes up almost as fast as you can think. That is a real area to worry about, it's a messy, back breaking, fussy kind of job. A good guy makes it look easy and a bad guy will hold things up.. While some site bending of rebar is possible it's better to buy all rebar prebent and only site bend what is shorted or not thought of.. A lot of time can be lost with rebar install. Some brands make rebar easy while others make it a major wrestling area.
Good info! Thanks Frenchy.
I am still contemplating them for a house we may be building as a specrentalinvestment but still trying to make the numbers work. Everyone around here seems to be scared of them due to the low price guys will lay block and of course the cost of concrete to fill.
Or most likely its just the unknown? I have only seen a handful of homes built around here with them. OK, maybe a large handful 20 or so.
I like your info as its good hands-on experience "stuff". Thanks again!
Mike
Mike,
There is a tremendous lag in common usage between the point where something is proven and the point where it becomes common usage.. think of the hundreds of thousands of builders with experiance building stick buildings compared to the about 2% who have used alternative methods such as SIP's or ICF's
98 or 99 out of 100 won't have had any real experiance with it and anything new most people are frightened of.
Here's my take on the advantages of ICF's versis stick building for a building where the energy efficency of ICF's doesn't make a major differance.. (down south & out west).. for one thing the 200 mph wind strength won't mean anything in places where tornados or hurricanes aren't common.. Nor wiill the durability of an ICF wall. (except in earthquake country).. the fire rating of an ICF wall is attractive especially compared to traditonal stick built walls..
The quietness of an ICF home would be a major attraction where there are outside sounds you might wish to eliminate.. near airports, freeways, or railyards etc.. as would the ability to endure insect infestations such as termits or ants..
Fundamentally there is no reason that ICF's are as expensive as they are.. it's basically foam and cement.. you can use 6 inch block for walls above ground and minimise the amount of cement. ( by the way your prices are about $30. a yard higher there then here) does that price include a pump truck? I have to hire a seperate pump truck at about $500.00 per pour.. I'd set it up that to pour a floor at a time rather than attempt it all at once. The extra thousand dollars is good peace of mind money spent in my opinion. but I have seen it pumped all in one time..
That must of been a stress filled day because I noticed a lot more bracing and backfilling then I see normally.. personally I wouldn't like to be three stories up trying to ensure that the cement gets all the way into the foundation.. I'll bet those forms shook like crazy as the cement thundered in..
Frankly it's a whole lot easier to do electrical in an ICF house than in a stick built house. Wiring can go in with a simple battery drill because while you still need to use a spade bit, drilling thru foam isn't really hard ;-) same with plumbing.. just remember to get everything into the walls before the pour then go back and foam the boxes etc. in place rather than nail them.. if you forget just rent the correct size rotary drill and it's like drilling thru wood if you remember in the first few days after the pour, after that it gets a little slower.. , still doable but slower.
Around here laying block is a dying skill. Oh a few remodelers still lay block to match the old part of the house, but new homes are either poured walls or ICF's and many homes are now going all the way with ICF's to the roofline where they cap it with SIP's and then toss roof trusses on..
That is those who aren't welded to the old stick built mentality..
Edited 9/16/2007 6:45 pm ET by frenchy
Frenchy,
Yep, I agree on the lag to accept new things. I've seen alot of things like that...Concrete backboard vs. green board DW being one of them...
I guess the big hold up in our area is that so many folks will lay block CHEAP. And I don't want to get into a sidebar discussion on it but they are "illegal workers" if you catch my drift. Guys will pay them to lay up the block regardless of the quality and then just fill the cells required by code and move on.
90% of new homes are block and 10% stick frame.
So the ICF way is definitely a "High end" upsell in our area. But I like the way you identified the benefits so thats what it would take to sell an ICF home in our region.
And its funny you mentioned the concrete and pump pricing. I suppose our mix is more per yard but I can get a guy with a tow-behind pump for $250 an hour. So maybe it all works out in the end?
And yes, I agree I would not want to pour it all at once! Thats seems like an inviation for trouble. I guess it avoids a cold joint between floors but that much at once seems to be too stressful...
Mike
Mike,
Not to mention the difficulty of getting a vibrater all the way to the bottom and how awkward it must be to set things up that way.. I mean when you work off a floor once you get over your head you set up a couple of sawhorses with planks on them and it's easy to finish the rest.. but to keep going as much as three floors? scaffold time!
The arguement about concrete block is easily dismissed.. simply take a sledge hammer to a concrete block wall it will easily shatter because the only real strength they have is the morter joint strength. Now try that with a ICF wall. good luck! I hope you have a good sledge hammer.. <G>
Wow, that's pretty steep as well. $250 an hour,!! I spend $500 for a full pour and that's about 4 hours.. The pump guy has been really great to me. I'm in an extremely upscale neighborhood and there simply isn't anyplace to clean out. He finds someplace before he comes and doesn't charge me the extra charge that would apply. In addition before the pump he checks everything and will wait if something doesn't look good enough to him..
The first time I used him he came over on his lunch hour before the pump and talked me through the process.. as we started out we just trickled it into the forms at first and he patiently pumped it that slow.. as we developed confidence he went as fast as we wanted, except when we started to pump too long in one area he stopped us explained why it wasn't smart and got us to get the hose moving again..
The cold joint between floors is bridged in part because of the rebar connection and don't forget that the joint will be within a form, and should also be not a smooth one thus there will be considerable strength even at the joint line.
Forms , schorms...how was the T-Bird Inn? LOL
No, really..glad it was done well. Never too old to learn something new.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
"If you want something you've never had, do something you've never done"
They pitched it as a premium product; helping you sell the advantages to your customers. Having said that, the two houses we actually went to see were tiny 2-story in-fill replacements in a scary part of town. The builder was confident he could build for less this way.
CMUs to ICFs is apples to oranges; all they do in common is provide vertical load-bearing and block light. Otherwise, they're completely different.
Thunderbird was - on the edge. Friendly and clean except for the toilet bowl ring; walking to the seminar and cool bars. The decrepit shopping center across the street, however, had barricaded windows, and had a greasy CMU wing shack adjoining and a guy selling shoes on a table in the parking lot at midnight on a Thursday night.
To fit in, I just got some wings (darn good) and a "fawty", and sat on the curb and ate and talked to some guys "dat looked like dey jus killed dey parents"
Worth the experience 'cuz I survived.
Forrest - doing as the Romans do
LOL
At least ya didn't buy shoes from him.
Or didja?
Glad it went well, Homie.Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
"If you want something you've never had, do something you've never done"