Insulated Concrete Forms

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Build an Energy Wise House with Insulated Concrete Forms Insulating Concrete Forms (ICF's) provide a lasting building envelope, giving you all the benefits that have made concrete the material of choice for home building worldwide: Solid, lasting construction that resists the ravages of fire, wind, and Father Time. But ICF's do plain concrete one better – or rather, two better – by giving you two built-in layers of foam insulation.
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Highlights:

Energy Efficient
Strength
Noise Reduction
Cost Effective

How the system works:

Pour the footing. When concrete sets lay the first course of ICF block by setting and bracing the corner block first. Work your way to the center of the wall while adhering the block to the wall
Stack your forms to the desired height of your wall while building your window, door bucks and placing your rebar, rod ties, and zip ties as desired
Plum off your walls by bracing every six feet on the inside or outside walls depending on where there is room to brace. Then put your corner bracing on every corner. Now you are ready to pour your wall.
Fill the walls starting at the corners and work your way to the center only filling four foot lifts at a time. When pouring is complete finish the top of the wall and set your anchor bolts.
When concrete has set, remove your bracing and continue on with the rest of the house with more forms or wood frame.

Roll over image for detailed process description

Save energy, money, environment by building with ICF's

Sometimes the bottom line sells itself. That’s sure to be the case as more people looking to build a home or a commercial structure learn about the financial benefits of Insulated Concrete Forms (ICF's) available from County Materials.

ICF's fit together like building blocks and hold poured concrete to form walls both below and above grade. This ties the three-step building process – of framing, insulating and wrapping a home or other structure – into one.

While this assures strength to withstand any conditions, proper installation also can cut energy bills by as much as 80 percent. That’s $400 a year on a 3,000-square-foot structure.

Call County Materials at 1-800-289-2569 to see how ICF's can fit your vision … and your budget.

Save energy, money, environment by building with ICF's

Sometimes, the bottom line sells itself. That was the case when one area homeowner decided Insulated Concrete Form (ICF) construction was right for his new home. ICF construction takes the three-step process of framing, insulating and wrapping a home, and ties it all into one. ICF's are high-density polystyrene forms that interlock and stack dry – without mortar – like 48-inch by 16-inch building blocks. The open-core units are reinforced with steel, filled with concrete and then left in place permanently even after the concrete hardens. This gives an ICF home some sizable advantages over an ordinary “stick-built” home. ICF homeowners are assured a solid, lasting structure that resists fire, wind and Father Time; and they enjoy greater energy efficiency in a comfortable, quiet living environment. According to the Insulating Concrete Form Association, about two-thirds of ICF's in use nationally are for residential applications. read the complete article

Why Builders use it:

There is no stronger insulated concrete form on the market.
Unlimited design possibilities.
4-hour fire rating in accordance with ASTM-E119-00a and CAN/ULC S101.
Tornado & hurricane resistant.
Made of regrind polypropylene, our brackets and ties are the heaviest and toughest on the market. This eliminates the thermal bridging and corrosion concerns.
Brackets are molded 1/2” below the surface of the block-not exposed, which can cause shadowing if you stucco or use EIFS products on the exterior. Many ICF’s require tin or metal for attachment of building materials.


8 Inch Flat Wall Dimensions 48" Length x 16" Height x 13" Width Concrete Capacity 1 Yard Fills 7.6 Blocks Insulation Value R-28 to R-32 by Thermographic Test	8 Inch 90 Degree Dimensions 25" x 17" Insulation Value R-28 to R-32 by Thermographic Test	8 Inch Bracket Dimensions 2.5" Wide x 16" High Additional Information Six tough brackets run the full height of the block and are made of tough, regrind polypropylene plastic

This gives an ICF home some sizable advantages over an ordinary stick-built home. Greater energy efficiency. More peace & quiet. More sheer day-to-day living comfort. All wrapped up in a solid, high-quality building package that gives an ICF home an utterly remarkable feel that really has to be experienced to be believed. As soon as you step inside, you can tell that an ICF home is not an ordinary house. It’s not just beautiful, comfortable and quiet. You can feel that it’s solid, built to last.

So just how expensive is it to get all these extraordinary benefits? The truth is you can get superior ICF technology for a lot less than you’d think. ICF's are so efficient to build with and easy to use, that the cost of building an ICF house is comparable to that of an ordinary 2x6 wood-framed house. But you get so much more home for your money.

ICF's are not new—they've been around for the past 30 years. ICF construction takes the three-step process of framing, insulating, and wrapping a home, and ties it all into one. Constructed from expanded polystyrene and stacked like building blocks to form the exterior walls of a home, the forms are reinforced with steel and filled with concrete. The forms interlock and fasten one to the other to provide seamless "foundation to rafter" fully insulated, reinforced concrete walls. ICF's stay in place as a permanent part of the wall assembly.

A-One Insulated Concrete Forms, from County Materials, are a "Flat" wall system that yields a continuous thickness of concrete, like a conventionally poured wall. The ICF walls are engineer-designed, code-accepted and field-proven.

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Greater Comfort & Lower Energy Bills

Energy savings and comfort are built into every ICF system. Because of the triple insulative nature of these forms, ICF's are extremely energy efficient. The R-value of the insulation, coupled with the thermal mass of the concrete, and the elimination of air leakage, typically makes for an R-30 energy rating or higher. Exterior walls on wood framed homes typically have an R-value of 20 or so.

But that’s not all! On the comfort side, an ICF home provides temperature stability, without the highs and lows of traditional stick-framed housing. Air infiltration in an ICF Home is minimal due to the continuous air barriers provided by the foam insulation and the concrete. Likewise, there are no convection currents within wall cavities.

The concrete walls of an ICF home have high thermal mass, which buffers the interior of a home from the extremes of outdoor temperature during every 24-hour cycle. This reduces both peak and total heating and cooling loads.

This combination of high R-values, low air infiltration, and high thermal mass is believed to account for the amazing 25% to 50% energy savings of ICF versus wood or steel-framed homes.

Peace & Quiet

New ICF homeowners almost always remark on how unbelievably quiet their new house is, compared with their old stick-build home. They expect the new-found comfort and energy efficiency, but the peace and quiet – the protection from outside noise – never fails to surprise and delight them.

In sound transmission tests, ICF walls allowed less than one-third as much sound to pass through as do ordinary frame walls filled with fiberglass. With double-glazed windows in ICF walls and beefed-up roof insulation, you will rarely hear street noises or airport traffic.

Solid & Lasting Security

The high-mass walls of an ICF home not only give it a remarkably solid feel, but they also make it safer for the family. And this makes it a remarkably solid and secure investment, too. Concrete homes have a proven track record of withstanding the ravages of hurricanes, tornadoes and fires, when all the stick-build houses around them are in ruins. In Tornado Alley, homes built with a continuous structure, tied down through the foundation, are favored for high wind resistance. Insulated concrete forms are often used for the construction of safe rooms in these high-wind areas because of their resistance to strong wind and wind-borne debris.

In firewall tests, ICF's stood exposure to intense flame without structural failure longer than did common frame walls. The polystyrene foam used in most ICF forms is treated so it will not support combustion. Also, tests show that its tendency to transmit an outside flame source is less than that of most wood products. Many insurance carriers are offering a premium reduction on a homeowner’s policy for an ICF home.

Less Repair & Maintenance

With ICF homes, the equation is simple. No Rot = Less Repair and Maintenance. Neither polystyrene nor concrete will ever rot or rust. Concrete can even be exposed to the elements for centuries with few ill effects. Reinforcing steel, buried deep inside and protected by concrete’s alkalinity, does not corrode.

A Healthier Home & Environment

Building with ICF's is healthier for the environment in a number of ways: by minimizing the number of different building products involved in construction, by reducing the amount of waste generated on the construction site, and by lowering energy requirements for heating and cooling.

ICF homes provide a healthy indoor environment, too. Nothing held within or ordinarily emitted by an ICF wall is toxic. The measurement of the air contents of actual ICF houses shows an almost complete absence of any emissions.

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Versatile System – Flexible Designs

ICF homes can be designed in any style, and will accept any traditional exterior finish including vinyl or wood siding, stucco and brick. Because custom angles and curves are easily created, it’s simple to build in bows, bays and radiuses. And ICF systems accommodate any of today’s most popular design features, such as tall walls, large openings, long floor spans and cathedral ceilings. Window and door openings of any size are possible.

Blocking for Windows and Doors

Cutting block is simple in ICF construction so, unlike the cumbersome concrete constructions of the past, custom window designs and complex angles are commonplace. When considering building with ICF's, be sure to discuss how to accommodate the doors and windows with your contractor. With ICF's, windows and doors must be cut and blocked before the concrete is poured. Blocking the openings accomplishes two things: it holds back the concrete to preserve the opening, and creates the frames for the doors and windows. Once a crew is experienced in ICF construction, scheduling and speed become key benefits. An experienced crew can put up a house faster with ICF's than with traditional framing.

Internationally Proven & Code-Accepted

Originally developed in Europe (where concrete home building is standard) ICF systems have been used successfully around the world for more than 30 years. Thousands of ICF homes have been built in recent years throughout the United States and Canada. They have proven successful in every region and climate, from Orlando to Calgary. ICF systems are accepted by all the major model codes in the U.S., and by the R-2000 program in Canada.

Fast To Learn & Easy To Use

Although it looks new and different, anyone with construction experience can quickly get up to speed with ICF's. An ideal crew has a mix of concrete placement and carpentry experience. Once the crew has some practice, each ICF-build home requires less skilled labor and less total labor than a wood-framed home. And ICF's are very lightweight, so crews stay fresh through the day.

Likewise, ICF's present no problem for the sub-contractors who come after the walls are poured. Since holes, chases and rectangles are easily cut into ICF's with a knife or saw, installation of mechanical systems is a snap. The fastening of drywall and lap siding is just as fast and easy. And mid-course corrections, such as moving an opening, are no big deal – just saw it out and re-form. It’s not more difficult to make changes to an ICF wall – it’s just different.

Cost Competitive

Over the last ten years, concrete prices have been remarkably stable. Recent price increases in other materials have generated interest in concrete building systems as never before. Labor savings and readily available materials make ICF's, feature for feature, one of the most cost competitive wall systems in the U.S. and Canadian housing markets.

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