Hi there!
My name is Kye, I'm from Lake Macquarie in Australia (~2hrs drive north of Sydney).

Stumbled accross this forum while looking for reviews on ICF's & thought it a good resource for a newby such as myself. I have absolutely no experience with construction outside of playing with lego as a kid... however I'm very teachable & willing to learn.

I'm in the very early stages of building myself a home, which I find quite exciting! To cut a long story short, designing my own house is quite important to me for many reasons. I must admit that I'm not a tree-hugger by any means, however I love the idea of a minimal impact home that wastes little energy.
The annual climate here is not extreme by world standards but we do get a fair share of heatwaves (44c 111f) & it's been known to hit 0c sometimes.
The problem is, my body thermostat is stuffed. I broke my neck 11yrs ago & pretty much severed my spinal cord (C5/6 Complete). Without going into boring details, the result of the nerve damage is that my body's temperature regalution systems don't work; essentially I'm cold blooded. My body won't heat up or cool down itself in any way so I rely heavily on external heating/cooling. Having a home with a fairly constant & controlable climate is therefore not just a comfort thing for me, it's a necessity...
Enter ICF :)

As I said, I'm still in the early planning stages at the moment but I figure now is the best time to learn what I can from the people in the know. So here's a little starter list of questions:

ICF in Australia:
I found the company ThermaCell via this resource. I've not contacted the company but they advertise that they have a list of preferred builders. Are there any Aussies here who've used this product? Is it a viable alternative to brick here? Is there expertise around?

Glazing/Doors:
I've read a lot of info here about how well ICF's can (in some cases not) synergise with proper glazing & framing. What about large area folding doors? Has anyone used these? Are there any particular design flags to take note of? My main concern here is the gap between panels & the gap from the floor. I need a totally stepless design for accessibility, so a runner along the floor is out of the question unless it's small & sunken. Any thoughts?

Vaulted Ceilings:
The design I'm working on has a large open-plan area for kitchen/dining/longue & I would like to use vaulted ceilings in this part of the house. I realise it's hard to give an answer without knowing details, but is there any general info about this beeing a good/bad idea? Does it create too much overhead space to heat/cool? Can it be used to advantage?

How good are EE/Green homes?
Rhetorical question :P

Apologies if I'm covering questions already answered.
Have a nice day :)

G'day Newbie,

Steve from Sydney here. Been on this forum for over 2 years now and it is one of the best in the world so you've come to the right place.

I applaud you doing your own research rather than waiting for it or someone to bring it to you. I was a builder south of Sydney two years ago when i started researching alternative building technologies not for the green aspect but because my business partner at the time wanted square set ceilings instead of cornices and I pretty much told him to bugger off and go find another partner. Thankfully he was good enough to understand my frustration and work with me to search for a solution. We started to get excited about ICF construction after seeing different systems pop up at various exhibitions (darling harbour and homebush) and thought we'd trial it on our next development which was 12 townhouses in Wollongong.

After trying a couple ICF systems over a 5 month period with some success but major frustrations we almost went back to bricks (apologies for swearing on the forum) but stumbled across a product manufactured in Western Australia which blew the rest of them away in terms of structural integrity, thermal ratings, fire ratings, acoustic ratings, zero blowouts and speed of installation.

Not sure if i can name the product but at 4 foot long and 2 foot high and 2.5 inches thick she's a winner in our books and we are now the NSW / ACT distributors of this system.

Our crews can erect the external walls of a standard 3 bedroom double garage home in two days and pour on the third.

I'd be happy to share more of our experiences with all the ICF's we have used and help you further along the way of self-education. By the way, this includes information on a whole heap of other components that need to be integrated into a building design before you start building.

Regards,

Steve.

Kyle, Well insulated homes with low air infiltration combined with a well designed and installed Ground Source Heat Pump (also referred to as geothermal) will provide the comfortable, steady state environment you desire. Dave in Kansas

Hi Steve,
Thanks for your info! Just knowing there's a relative local using the stuff makes me more confident about using it.
Good to hear someone say they've had problems with ICF too, I'm always dubious of too-good-to-be-true products, it's much better to have a range of experiences in my opinion.

I realise you might not be able to advertise the product name, but is there any chance you could PM me the details (website if they have one)? I'd be very keen to check it out, especially given the smaller wall thickness.

I've no doubt I'll be visiting here more & more as the project progresses, so I'll likely take you up on the offer of info on the other aspects & components in the future... No point re-inventing the wheel when people like yourself already know some tricks!

Thanks again,
Kye

Steve:
Great post, it's wonderful to see that down under its become apparent that "all them foam blocks" aren't really all the same after all....

But during a year exchange program in narembeen WA, the locals told me you easterners were smart.....lol
Next step, the kiwis. They need your help too!

ta,
Kevin
www.icfinstall.com

Steve, were the problems you had with your early ICF builds related more to climbing the ICF learning curve or were they engineering defects in the forms? As your crews gained more experience, have they been able to adapt and overcome what earlier were obstacles? Kind of like practicing medicine, there may be a few casualties along the way until you get it right. Dave

Not all foam blocks are equal and not all contractors are equal!!!!!!

We were copping a lot of flack for 'taking jobs away from bricklayers!' can you believe it  !!!!! So we started advertising through our networks for bricklayers who wanted to SEE THE LIGHT of the future of building?!?!?

Perhaps our marketing angle shouldn't have been so religious sounding but we've gone through a few of them now and are no longer interested in working with bricklayers who seem to think they are God's gift to building ... granted there's is an old and established profession but I'm over the attitude, the pallets of bricks, sand, cement, breakages, bad backs, mud ... did say attitude ?

We enjoy working with carpenters as head of a crew... they are more precise people and have a much better care factor. Has this been your experience as well ?

Next stop KIWIS ? Absolutely. Our range of ICF's has conquered the west coast and growing strong on the eastern seaboard but has nowhere near the market penetration that you have in America and Canada and the whole New Zealand market, on paper, looks like virgin territory waiting to be conquered.

How did you like your time in Western Australia ? Our products inventor comes from Kewdale if you know the area.

Regards,

Steve.

P.S. - how do you do this PM thing ?

I believe the first two systems' defects were product related. We paid for 'professionals' to show us how it was done ... they started with 80m (260feet) of retaining wall which went reasonably well but they fell over on the next section of works at both speed and quality (hollow pockets in the wall in four places approx 3 feet in diameter).  Got rid of them after the promised 3-4 days turned into 11 !!!!!

We tried building it ourselves (1 humble builder, a concretor and an apprentice) for four months to build the ground floor of the next 6 townhouses which included what we call dwarf walls to underside of ground floor concrete slabs, as well as party walls (fire rated walls between townhouses) and some privacy walls. We would have had at least 15 blowouts, 5 serious bulges and don't ask how many hollow pockets where concrete never made it in.

The biggest problem was that this system was all styrene (face and webs). The inherent problem with this system was that the concrete slump had to be high enough to ensure self consolidation and ensure it poured into every cavity (they didn't line up either!) but too high a slump and you were pretty much asking styrene to act as a dam holding in water.

The other drama came when trying to attach brackets or angles to support steel beams or anything for that matter. It was near impossible to determine where the concrete cores where located so that dyna bolts or other fixing systems would actually hold.

As the project continued we needed a stronger system to take a party wall up 8m into the air. Another exhibition and we met a reasonably clever chap who'd invented a PVC form 1 foot wide and cut to any height (bit like your TF only PVC) - quite strong - we were able to pour 6 feet of concrete at a time with only minor bulging but the problem is practically zero thermal rating.

Then we came across the third system which is twice the height of every other system on the market which meant faster install - thicker faces of styrene meant less warping and solid concrete walls meant we could drill anywhere and fix anything at any point in the wall knowing there was concrete everywhere.

I just scrolled back and saw how much I'd written ... if only I could have written this much in high school !!!

Regards,

Steve Krsticevic

steve@formcraftnsw.com.au

Steve, Can you give us a web site for the system you are now using.  If you do not want to post it on the forum, then e-mail me.  See my address below.  If you e-mail me, be sure to use the regular format for e-mail. 

Steve:
Actually worked 7 months in WA and then bought a car and drove it counterclockwise for a couple months till ended up in Cairns, flew to Alice Springs, then back to WA.
Promised my wife I would take her some day, would love to make a working ICF holiday of it!

No problem posting your favourite forms name publicly on the site, but be advised, if you go too far with your praise and adoration, there may be some competetive whinging start!

PM is reference to Private Messaging. Click on a users name and send them a message, Click on "private messaging" on top of page to see if you have any. Just like Christmas.
Which reminds me the Christmas I spent in AU 33 Celsius with an Emu bitter or two....How nice of my host family to give me a half day off...