The green marriage of Styrofoam and concrete

Green building foundation technique put to the test in Lumberland

By NICHOLAS TROIANO

LUMBERLAND, NY — As climate change awareness grows, the average person may be wondering what role he or she can play in helping the environment. Carrie Thomas and Dave Farrington, of SolutionPro based in Shohola, PA, have one solution for prospective new homeowners that can also help save them a few bucks. After researching the market for nearly a decade, the husband and wife team entered the local construction industry with a revolutionary new product known as insulated concrete forms (ICF).

Thomas and Farrington are currently working on a home in Lumberland using ICF construction.

Essentially, ICFs are Legos for adults. The standard ICF consists of two pieces of Styrofoam measuring four feet long and one foot high that are bridged by high-impact polystyrene. These molds are stacked together using friction joints and are situated to form the hollow walls of a foundation and sometimes the first floor of a new home or commercial building. The complex engineering of these rather simplistic forms provide pre-studding, and allow the width of the walls to be adjusted to meet building needs. Once everything is in place, it is just a matter of filling the molds with concrete before the project is complete.

The new home is more energy efficient because of the thermal envelope created by the concrete walls with the permanent Styrofoam insulation. According to the Portland Cement Association, homes constructed with ICF walls will consume an estimated 44 percent less energy to heat and 32 percent less energy to cool, which translates to up to $400 in annual energy savings in a 2,000 square foot home. ICF homes can achieve three to four times the R value, or insulation value, of a stick-built home. Building supplies are made from recyclable materials and can also be recycled, adding to the environmental benefit. The concrete walls have extra benefits, which include noise reduction and protection against natural disasters and fires.

According to the Insulating Concrete Form Association, the typical cost of a new home in the United States is $60 to $100 per square foot. Building with ICF adds $1 to $4 per square foot. But since ICF houses are more energy efficient, the heating and cooling equipment can be smaller than in a frame house, which reduces the additional cost to about $.25 to $3.25.

Farrington, however, said homeowners actually save on labor costs since ICF construction combines four jobs in one: the actual foundation, exterior and interior insulation and interior framing. Farrington said that contractors may also benefit from using ICF to build spec homes because the federal government will reward contractors with a tax credit if they create homes that achieve a sufficiently low level of energy consumption.

Ease of construction and the fact that these jobs do not need to be subcontracted are major factors that appeal to contractors. “All you really need is a handsaw,” Farrington said about the simplicity of construction.

Hector Baras, a Montague, NJ-based architect, said that he tries to use ICF as often as possible in new home construction. Baras designed the Lumberland summer home, which is Farrington’s eighth local project, for a client who was looking for a residence as energy efficient as possible. “We looked at the ICFs immediately.” Baras said the public interest in building green homes is on the rise. He described it as a “simple economic scenario” in that people are looking to lessen their energy bills as fuel prices rise by building more energy-efficient homes. In fact, within a year he plans on building a local home completely off the energy grid by means of solar panels.

Farrington said the largest obstacle in the green market for home construction is that many contractors are “risk-adverse” and therefore tend to remain committed to traditional building techniques. However, he expects that to change with time. A 30 percent growth figure in ICF building nationally is a strong indicator of that.

The Lumberland home is being built by Lust Woodworks of Glen Spey and will feature other green building innovations, including the use of Structural Insulated Panels (SIPs) instead of traditional framing.