Building Insulated Concrete Form custom homes

The evolution of ICF, building custom homes with ICF for over 20 years.

We have been building custom homes for over 30 years and in those thirty years we have strived to separate ourselves from the competition by building better quality and more efficient homes. One of the earliest things that we came to realize is that the easiest way to give our clientele a better home would be to start building a home with a modern foundation.

The drive to give clients a modern foundation led us past cement block or plain poured concrete, it led us to ICF. ICF stands for Insulated Concrete Forms. ICF’s are basically two pieces of polystyrene that are held together with plastic webs creating a cavity in the middle ranging from 4” to 12” depending on the application needed.   The form when installed creates a wall with polystyrene on the inside of the building and the outside of the building. The cavity in the middle is filled with concrete creating a concrete wall with insulation already installed on it.

Once we started installing ICF foundations and saw the benefit to our clientele we started steering more clients to do every floor out of it. This gave them ICF from the foundation all the way to the rafters of the roof.

Even though ICF homes cost more money to build the cost savings that they offered in energy efficiency were well worth it. The feedback that we received over the years helped galvanized the idea of helping people get a better home then just the typical wood walled one.

Over twenty years later we are still building ICF homes. It’s amazing to me how in twenty years the questions are still the same about ICF technology. In the early days people were unsure of the product because it was new, today more than two decades after we started using this product, I can safely say that it is the way that all custom homes should be built.

With all building techniques the product is only as good as the installation and with all building techniques there are tricks that experienced ICF installers will know so that the product works like it is suppose too. After more than two decades of installing this product, Village Builders has it down to an art form. We are able to train our new employee’s from the experiences of our existing employee’s. I have witnessed ICF installations that were done poorly and have even been contracted to fix other contractors mistakes, at no small cost to the homeowner.

The most important thing that you need to do when you are looking for a general contractor to build your custom home is to find out what they are comfortable building. A lot of general contractors do not like building houses out of ICF and will tell you all kinds of pitfalls with the product, this just means that they do not have enough experience with the product. If you want an ICF custom home then you should make sure that you hire a general contractor that will build you an ICF home and is excited to do so. You also want a general contractor that has a lot of experience building ICF homes, this will ensure that you get a home that is not just built out of ICF but built out of the right ICF.

Most people don’t realize that there are over 40 different ICF manufactures in North America alone. Like any product there are good ones and bad ones. No matter how good the installation if the product was a poorly manufactured product will leave you disappointed with the end result. This is another reason that I try to tell people to make sure the general contractor has experience in ICF construction. This will ensure that they know what product works the best and what product will give you what you want. Even though ICF’s are all the same basically in theory, there are a wide variety of ways ICF’s are manufactured so that they are easier to install, cheaper to buy, easier to move, easier to transport or even using different materials other then polystyrene. A lot of these companies come out trying to revolutionize the industry and most of them last for a couple of years and then disappear. It’s usually because either their idea’s ended up being extremely flawed or contractors found them hard to work with costing more time and money. If the product is hard to work with as it pertains to keeping walls straight and level then contractors wouldn’t use them. I have seen this happen to ICF manufactures, instead of re-engineering the product they try to sell it directly to the homeowner as a do-it-yourself project. The end result is always a disaster.

ICF is the next step in house evolution and after two or three decades of use in the custom home industry it’s time that this became the norm and not the option. If you are thinking about building an ICF custom home then you should make sure that you get an ICF general contractor that will give you the high quality that you want and deserve.

Give us a call for your ICF house build or checkout our website at www.villagebuilders.ca

Rob Abbott
Operations Manager
Village Builders Inc.

Insulated Concrete Forms the better way to build a wall!

Twenty years ago we started installing what are called ICF homes. ICF stands for Insulated Concrete Forms. The basic premise of these homes are that you assembly polystyrene blocks that fit together like Lego. Then you pour concrete down the middle of them and that forms your outer walls. What you end up with is 2.5 inch’s of foam on the inside and 2.5 inch’s of foam on the outside with a 6 inch concrete core. There are plastic webs that hold the foam block together and become your fastening points for all interior walls, drywall and anything that you want to hang like cabinets or pictures. This creates an ultra air tight house to the point were most people do not require air conditioners depending on how often you use the doors and windows.

If you heavily insulate the ceilings your heating/cooling costs will be miniscule.

Because ICF forms have a concrete core, the concrete does not allow wind chill's outside to affect the inside of the house. Your furnace does not have to work significantly harder to keep the house warm. The concrete core does not fluctuate in temperature as much as wood walls. A concrete wall with insulation on both sides only changes temperature a couple of degrees no matter if is winter or summer. Compare that to a conventional wood wall, when the temperature outside goes down the temperature in the wall drops with it and a windchill cools the wall down even more. The point of fibreglass insulation is to slow the air penetrating through the wall enough so that the furnace can warm it up to the desired temperature. An ICF wall does not allow any air to penetrate it, those the furnace is only warming the air that comes through the HRV.

Let's dispel some of the myths associated with ICF construction

• Myth 1: ICF restricts the design of your house to square boxes.
  Actually ICF can give you some advantages over conventional wood construction like cathedral ceilings with no collar ties.
  They can be installed in any shape or height of wall you require, angled walls to rounded walls.
• Myth 2: ICF is only used for basements.
  ICF makes for a wonderful basement that is dry and warm, but that isn't the limit to the product. You can build your whole house out of it, right up to the roof. You can build a three or four story house if you really want too. A house is more energy efficient if you do every floor.
• Myth 3: ICF limits your exterior finishing to stucco
  You can actually put anything you want on the outside of an ICF form, from wood or vinyl siding to brick or stone.

If you are like me and you are worried about the rapid rise of electricity, the ever rising cost of gas and oil, then an ICF house is for you.

If the extreme weather that seams to be the norm in North America is worrying you, then an ICF house is for you. ICF houses have been known to be the only house still standing in Hurricane zones, also ICF houses have been known to be the only house's left standing after tornadoes rip through the country side.

ICF houses are used to help meet the high standards in earthquake zones.

Insulated Concrete Forms are used in more then just residential construction. Here are some benefits to using ICF for houses and other projects.

• Used in Potato barns to keep the temperature within a fee degrees so that the potato's do not sprout in storage.
• They are used for high rise condo's that are trying to achieve maximum R value and comfort for the condo owners.
• Used on houses in high traffic area's to cut the noise to almost nothing.
• Used in area's with high winds to keep energy costs down because of high wind chill.
• Used in areas where there is a limited building window for the speed in which they can be constructed.
• Used in areas where people are worried about the noise from inside the house affecting people or animals outside the house.
• Used in areas were there are rodent and bug problems. With concrete and polystyrene foam there is no nutritional value for rodents or bugs to eat or live on. Plus with a concrete core no animal or rodent would ever be able to eat or borrow there way inside the house.
• With webs in ICF every 8” there are double the screw points in your interior or exterior walls.
• ICF construction does not require a vapour barrier, reducing costs and speeding up of construction.
• ICF houses have a longer life expectancy then wood walls. Even if a house has a fire or a flood, or loses it's roof in extreme weather the walls do not move and do not grow mold. Simply remove the drywall, clean up the mess and start building without changing the exterior walls.
• ICF are self extinguishing so they do not burn like wood walls, they will extinguish a fire and not feed it.
• ICF walls can be installed even if the house plans are drawn with wood walls, there is almost no change to your house plans.

If an ICF house or addition sounds like what you are looking for then please do not hesitate to call at 877-866-3202 or visit our website at villagebuilders.ca.

You can also email me at robabbott@villagebuilders.ca

Rob Abbott

Operations Manager
Village Builders Inc.