Which ICF to use

[jtcweb]

I'm going to start building a house in the spring and want to use ICF's for at least the basement. Any one that has used them like to share how they picked the system you went with?

[GaryM]

We built with the Arxx Blocks, used to be Blue Max. Why those? Because that's what Stitt Energy Systems uses and they did the design and supplied the shell materials. The above grade wall are Enercept SIPs.

[jamieac]

Hello we used the owens corning fold form icf's and had great results. I only did my basment with them and am very pleased with the results. good luck with your project

[Pat]

You might want to compare the cost/function of the ICF approach to cast concrete basement walls with rigid foam insulation (with drain chanels and filter cloth on the outside. This is what I chose. I did use ICF for the master suite including bedroom, bathroom, sitting room and walk-in closets. The entire master suite. less the sitting room, is a safe room thanks to internal storm shutters.

If your basement is not a walkout basement then you could consider ICF with waffle grid design or post and beam to conserve concrete. If you don't want any safe room attributes to your basment then the concrete conserving designs should be fine. I chose plain walls with full thickness throughout in my ICF since I was interested in penetration resistance from windborn debris.

You didn't say what your critera are so we can only guess at a solution.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[jtcweb]

This will be a walk-out basement and I don't really know what I want. It is hard to find any comparitave information on the different systems

[Pat]

If your walkout basement is to be a safe room (Michigan has tornados the way I remember it.) You will want what walls aren't glass on the walkout side to have decent penetration resistance so might not want the post and beam or other concrete conservative styles that don't have the greatest penetration resistance.

I suggest you take a look at http://www.concrete-home.com and their forum where you can get questions answered and whatever else you can turn up via Google. I subscribe to a trade journal "concrete Home."

The PCA (Portland Cement Association?) has a lot of publications and information on ICF construction. PCA is a well respected organization with many members who are at the leading edge of the application of new technology. go here: http://www.cement.org/

Don't expect a Consumer's Reports style comparison of products from any industry organization and don't trust any comparison matrix offered by a specific manufacturer as they are "loaded/biased."

Let us know if you find anything useful or interesting.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[jonrjen]

We used Eco-Block. The Styrofoam blocks are assembled on site, this makes shipping cost very reasonable. Once assembled they are then stacked with rebar being placed both horizontal and vertically before being filled with the concrete.
The entire house was built using Eco-Block, then did the outside walls using Long Star stack stone (a man made material) then topped off with a metal roof, windows are of course a good grade Low-E.
The floors in the house are all suspension, including the garages. Floors make no earth/ground contact, this keeps the thermal temps of the ground from being transferred directly to the house. Also buy use of this method, we were able to install all of the HACV vents under the house along with the heating units. This created the entire area under the house as an air return and the space then is all a control temp area. The thought behind this is in the summer, the AC air is being delivered through vents housed in an area under the house that is the same temp as the air in the house. There is less loss of cooling due as would take place had the vents were run through an attic where the temps could be reaching 130 to 140 degrees. The heating unit being enclosed under the house this provides the same benefits during the winter months.
Our AC unit is mounted outside the house, this unit does however have a water tower over the unit, this flow of water drops the ambient air temp ahead of the unit aprox 30 degrees, thus the AC is not having to cool extreme hot Texas air. Our heat source is from water lines run in a circle under the house. Basically as the water gets to a point where the blower is located the water then runs through a series of pipe in a weave pattern where the heat of the copper from the pipe dissipates as the blower turns on. This also adds humidity to the heat, by adding the humidity we have found we can set the thermostat lower than what we were used to and feel much warmer. Another benefit of the constant loop of water is that by cunning the loop through out the hot water line in the house, we have instant hot water anywhere in the house. No having to wait for hot water in the shower, or kitchen.
Should you be wondering if the house is more efficient than a normal stick and brick house well this last summer we cut our electric bills by 65%. Both houses are/were aprox 5,000 square feet.

[RaT]

I have checked into many ICF systems. I have gone to the many sites where they are building the homes out of ICF. Blue Maxx or Arrxx, Eco Bloc and Nudura. I have gone to classes on their use and benefits. If you look into Nudura, you will see that product to be clearly superior. I suggest you sign up for a class. It is superb and you will not only learn the basics of how to do it yourself, you will learn many other interesting reasons why ICF in general and why Nudura us the best. Murray the owner teaches the class. Very sharp young guy who was a carpernter for most of his life, then got into ICF using Blue Maxx, saw the short comings of the product so he and 2 others started their own ICF manufacturing company. Truely unique. I'm hooked. RaT...

[jtcweb]

Checked their web site and they had a class 3 days ago 20 miles from where I lived. Guess I missed that one.

[jtcweb]

I'm a bit confused on your floors. Are you saying you have in effect a crawl space under your basement floor?