The fires raging in San Diego, California will come again. Fireproof housing will need to be built to prevent future losses. The concrete home or ICF built home provides a solution that goes beyond fire protection.
So, how do you build a fireproof house? Well, you use ICFs (Insulated Concrete Forms). ICFs are polystyrene forms that are assembled like Legos to frame the house. Then the forms are filled with concrete. They are reinforced with steel. The result– a concrete house. An ICF home only costs 1-4% more to construct than a traditional wood framed house.
In fire-wall tests, ICF and concrete walls withstood continuous exposure to intense flames and temperatures of up to 2,000 degrees F for as long as 4 hours without structural failure, compared with wood-frame walls that collapsed in an hour or less.
Besides being extremely fire resistant, concrete home provide added benefits. According to ICFA (Insulating Concrete Form Association) and PCA (Portland Cement Association) here are the added benefits:
- Lower energy bills. Homes built with ICF are 44% less expensive to heat and 32% cheaper to cool. The energy savings come from the higher insulating values for ICF walls (up to R-40, compared to wood frame’s R-9 to R-15 ) and tighter concrete-foam sandwich construction. A house in Minnesota, built with ICFs, was the first North American home to be certified by Germany’s Passivhaus Institute, the world’s toughest energy standard.
- Pest proof. Termites, carpenter ants and other natural home demolitian teams prefer a wood diet. Rodents don’t like eating through concrete that thick.
- Quieter. The tighter concrete construction allows less noise into the home — 80% less sound penetration than wood framed homes!
- More comfortable. According to the Concrete Network “The high thermal mass of the concrete also buffers the home’s interior from extreme outdoor temperatures, while the continuous layer of foam insulation minimizes temperature fluctuations inside the home by eliminating the cold spots that can occur in frame walls along the studs or at gaps in the insulation.”
- Healthier. ICF homes are less likely to provide an environment for mold and mildew because they do not contain organic material. In areas with radon, the gas is less likely to infiltrate the house.
- Storm and wind resistant. A concrete home will withstand much higher winds than wood framed construction. Tests have shown that ICF walls can hold up against flying debris from tornadoes and hurricanes with wind speeds up to 250 mph.
- Less deterioration. This is due to using non-biodegradeable materials that do not rot or corrode.
- Lower home insurance cost. A reinforced concrete shell is one of the factors insurance companies consider when underwriting a house.(NYT). While stick homes are left with a slab after a fire, hurricane or tornado, an ICF home will retain at least 50%, meaning less to pay out– insurers hate to pay claims.
Every year the number of ICF built homes doubles. Despite its use in other countries for over 40 years (it was patented in the 1960s), it only became popular in the United States during the 1990s. It is standard in Canada, where it was originally developed.
Sources: ICFA, BuildersWebsource; ICF Builder; PCA;
Further Reading:
Concrete Homes are Energy Efficient (The San Diego Union Tribune)
How to Build a Fireproof House (This Old House)
Enlisting a Fortress to Battle the Elements (The New York Times)
More ICF news here.
Top Image: New American Home 2004 in Las Vegas. (from PCA)
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