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Our service area is Pinellas County Florida with focus on building FEMA compliant & hurricane resistant custom homes. Helping you find your dream home, Gast Homes can select the best matches or create a completely new design that incorporates your tastes and preferences. Offering 30+ ICF plans, including hard-to-find coastal elevated homes, ranches, two-stories, and condos, our team will help you determine what features in a home plan are important to you. Incredibly, the cost of living in an ICF home is no higher—and may be cheaper—than living in a regular house.
Nontoxic and Healthier Air Quality
Built to last, they have greater efficiency than a conventional stick built home, more peace and quiet, a healthier living environment, low-maintenance cost, and typically are faster to build. Building with ICFs is also cost effective since it can be compared equally to a home built with 2" x 6" exterior walls, but with added benefits of more comfort and efficiency. If you have access to specialty contractors or are indifferent to installation costs, insulated concrete forms are the ideal choice for any concrete wall or foundation.
Fireproof home? ICF construction offers solution to California's destructive wildfires - KABC-TV
Fireproof home? ICF construction offers solution to California's destructive wildfires.
Posted: Wed, 21 Apr 2021 07:00:00 GMT [source]
ICF Durability
Thankfully, both California homeowners and the California government are known for demanding innovation and advancement in the residential construction industry. Because of this, it is possible for California homeowners to find builders with ICF construction experience. As one of California’s premier design-build firms, Element is one such resource. Speaking with Rene Latosa -- a Santa Rosa resident who lost his home in the Tubbs Fire --, Turner and Gould explain why California homeowners have adopted ICF. Quoting Latosa, they write that “‘the fire safety [of ICF homes] is almost 100%, the durability is 1,000 years.’” Because of this, homeowners have turned to ICF in the rebuilding process. If a fire is started within the home, the fire-resistant concrete and foam of exterior walls will not prevent the spread of flames or smoke indoors.
Get Durable Windows & Sills
The key is the hollow space in between the foam walls of the forms. As the forms are placed in the appropriate configuration to create the walls of the home, concrete is poured inside and left to set. This bonds the forms together and creates contiguous walls throughout the structure. Insulated Concrete Forms (ICF) are becoming a more common way to build homes. This innovative building material is typically made of blocks of polystyrene foam with space in between to pour a concrete wall.
Concrete block home designs use CMUs (concrete masonry units) as the primary material for construction. As mentioned previously, ICF forms cost an average of $3.50 to $4.00 per square foot. Once you factor in additional costs like concrete, rebar, hardware, labor, and more, the average total cost using ICF forms is around 15-20% more than traditional stud framing.
This helps keep communication clear and consistent right from the start. Here at Jenkins, we strive for open and honest communication between ourselves and our clients…. To determine if there is a need for the type of facility you want to open, contact the Regional Center Resource Developer in your catchment area. You may need to adjust your plans and services to meet the needs identified by the regional center. ICFs have a 4-hour fire rating, withstand winds in excess of 150mph, and eliminate outside noise keeping you safe and comfortable.
These “reversible” forms save time during placement and prevent improper alignment. Special units for corners, floors, and roof assemblies round out the product lines and improve the engineering of the system and energy efficiency of the final construction. Insulating concrete forms provide benefits to builders and building owners alike. When comparing the impact resistance of concrete walls to conventionally framed walls, concrete walls are more effective at stopping debris. Demonstrating their strength, ICF walls easily resist wind-driven debris. In simple terms, ICF construction generally cuts energy bills in half.
Steps for Building a Home with Insulated Concrete Form Blocks
Once built, ICF homes are indistinguishable from their traditionally-framed counterparts. ICF assembly is easy if you know what you’re doing—In practice, it’s relatively simple to stack ICFs into walls, although bracing and leveling before the pour are critical. Each system goes together a little differently, so the manufacturer’s instructions are a must-read before you start. Just like bricks or concrete masonry units, the first course sets the tone for the rest of the installation, so extra attention at the beginning will pay off. Cuts in the forms can make the concrete pour more shaky; avoid cutting corner blocks, use plenty of bracing, and secure large joints with scabs of plywood. ICFs have a relatively low R-value—Concrete has virtually no insulating value — just R-0.08 per inch.
Energy Efficiency
Some units, particularly those that form a “waffle” or post–and–beam concrete wall profile must be glued together or taped at the joints during assembly. Most systems today feature uniform cavities that improve flowability of the concrete, reduce the need for adhesives during stacking, resulting in flat concrete walls of consistent thickness. "Flat" systems yield a continuous thickness of concrete, like a conventionally poured wall. The wall produced by "grid" systems has a waffle pattern where the concrete is thicker at some points than others.
So, the time savings can be significant, depending on the design of the home. If you are interested in upgrading the walls of a particular building or space and are considering insulated concrete forms, here are a few pros and cons that you should consider before constructing. A cost-effective option, insulated concrete form houses are engineered to handle significantly greater loads than concrete masonry unit (CMU) houses. Able to span distances and support weights that would otherwise require big steel or concrete columns, ICF walls speed up construction time, create a safer work environment, and require fewer workers. A single ICF form is equal in size to 6 CMU blocks, as well as lighter, quicker to stack, and already insulated. ICF buildings are constructed using a running bond interlocking manner with the most common size of 4 foot long and 16 inch high blocks.
One of the most appealing aspects of using insulated concrete forms is that it has the potential to significantly reduce the heating and cooling costs of a particular building. That’s also the most impressive feature of ICF walls; they can release heat in the summer and store heat in the winter. In some instances, ICFs are estimated to save about 20% of total energy costs.
This 2 bedroom, 3 bathroom home plan is 50″ x 30″ and features an ICF (Insulated Concrete Form) foundation. The home includes a kitchen, living room, office, and garage along with 2 bedrooms and 3 baths. This home plan is perfect for those who are looking for an energy-efficient home that is also stylish and modern. This 60″ x 60″ Modern ICF House Plan is the perfect choice for those who are looking for a home that offers plenty of space and all the modern amenities. The home features 4 bedrooms, 4 baths, a kitchen, a dining room, a living room, a shop, a covered porch, a garage, and a multi-purpose room. With all of these features, this home is sure to meet the needs of any family.
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