Nine Things You Need To Know About Building With Insulated Concrete Forms BEFORE You Start...

Before selecting and reviewing your plans you should know the following:

1. Insulated Concrete Form Walls (in most cases) are wider than your wood framed walls. Because of this most of the outside dimensions on your plans will change by 4 to 6 inches. (Occasionally dimension changes are needed for the front entry door in order to allow it to fit properly between the thicker walls when building with ICFs).

2. How does the second floor relate to the first? – If they are not directly on top of each other, special reinforcing of the structure may be required. The most ICF friendly house plans are the ones where floors are on top of each other exactly, due to load bearing points.

3. Dimensions of length of the concrete walls should be multiples of 8 inches (in most cases). This is due to webs being 8 inches apart from each other and therefore there is less waste when cutting.

4. Windows heights should correspond to the height of the blocks. For example if the ICF block is 16 inches high, window heights should be in multiples of 16 to fit in between the blocks.

5. Look at window sizes. Family rooms often have most of their outside walls covered with windows and small pillars in between the windows. You may have to look at some options that allow for wider columns of concrete between openings.

6. Locations of windows and doors – Are the lintel depths and spans O.K.?

7. Check the tubs. Again, because of the thicker ICF walls, adjustments are required where the tub is meant to fit between the two exterior 2 x 4 or 2x6 stud walls.

8. Are there any bay windows? - The thicker ICF walls may make downsizing of the windows necessary.

9. The location of the dryer vent, electrical service, meter locations and any other openings to the outside walls have to be marked on the plans. The location should be decided ahead of time because once the concrete is poured, it is very difficult to construct the required openings. The location of the Heat Recovery Ventilator also has to be decided ahead of time. Making 8” holes through rebar reinforced concrete is a tough task after the fact.

Building with ICFs:

When building with Insulated Concrete Forms, experienced ICF builders, can offer his client options - to build the entire home from beginning to end, or to only build the shell from ICFs.

Often clients come to us with plans that they have pre-selected. They are concerned whether their plans are suitable for building with ICFs. Can it be built with ICF’s? This is where only an experienced ICF builder can offer solid advice for all aspects of building ICF homes.

Every home can be built with Insulated concrete forms, but some styles of homes are suited better, and allow ICFs to perform at their optimum.

Before making the decision to build with ICFs the homeowner should take the time to review the entire plan of the home with an experienced ICF builder in order to match the benefits of ICFs with the plan and the rest of the construction process and materials. A professional can take a quick look at your plans to see if there are any design issues that would result in building with Insulating Concrete Forms to be too expensive or difficult. He can then suggest appropriate changes, if required.

It is a fact that most potential ICF customers do quite a bit of research prior to deciding to build with ICF. We all know the numerous benefits of this type of building – energy efficiency, strength, sound proof, water proof, fire resistant, mold resistant, cleaner air, etc. However, if your builder is not experienced, the potential problems and expenses can also be numerous.

Once you know what you are doing, building the walls is the easy part – the hard part is making sure all the “pre-work” and decision making has been done in order not to cause major delays and expenses for the homeowner, and frustration for both the builder and the homeowner!

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