Has anybody here built or lived in an ICF house in Saskatchewan or Manitoba?  Just wondering if you are happy with the overall winter energy efficiency compared to stick built with spray foam or fiberglass.  Is it worth it to build with ICF compared to stickbuilt in the canadian prairies when when comparing to mostly cold winter efficiency or will it take many years to pay for itself?

Surprisingly, Saskatchewan is one of the most Energy Efficient home builder rated cities in Canada. Regina leads the province, and with leaders like myself, stick built will soon become "old technology".  Change in this province is difficult.  I started the first home inspection business in 1983 and I had people asking me "Why on earth should I get my home inspected?  They saw no value in knowing the condition of the largest purchase of their life.  Literally, stats showed that people spent more time buying a pair of shoes than their homes .... 20 minutes on site.  Blind faith in realtors is the only reason as being the ultimate professionals, with all of the technical answers. Many of them have ever actually operated a hammer, and far fewer of them have any construction experience.  Would you go to your hair stylist to ask about brain surgery??  Both involve the head, but there is a lot of intellectual difference between a barber and a surgeon.

Yes, yes, and yes.  The owner of one of the concrete companies in Regina has a full ICF home and pool in the "ritsy" area of the city and would never build anything other than another full ICF home.  Second to the R value of straw bale construction (about R80 walls), ICF is a no-brainer in Canada.  [u][b]After all ... a Canadian invented it in 1966![/b][/u]

Like government, builders don't [b]ACT [/b]... they [b]RE-ACT[/b] to public response.  It is up to the public to use Google liberally and demand ICF construction, not only for foundations, but right to the soffits! 

(OK, I've taken my Valium and I'm off my soap box now ...   In true Canadian style ... "Sorry" ... (tongue in cheek)

How does the thermal mass of concrete help in Saskatchewan or any cold climate that is cold for an extended period of time(such as here in MN)? Aren't the two eps foam layers doing the work? Understand wanting to have a strong home but what is concrete's role in energy efficiency in this scenario? It seems that thermal mass works best in areas with temp swings above and below the comfort zone by buffering them out.

I had that thermal mass comment given to me by a technical rep for the Energy Star system but I cannot tell you the technical reasons for the benefit.  Hopefully some of the energy technical people on here can give you (and me) that explanation.  What I can say is that I built a CMU block basement addition on a home and used foam insulation on the outside only.  I was told that R12 on the outside was equivalent to R20 applied on the inside, due to the thermal mass being inside the insulation.  I do know that the addition is very warm and the walls aren't cold in very cold temps.  There is a brief comment on the Hercuwall thread that may be posting the answer one day soon.

Building my personal residence right now, all w/ Nudura ICF, and would never do anything else. FYI, I come from a family who has made a living stick-framing buildings, myself included. I have designed a handful of complete ICF homes and truly believe that there is no better way to establish a tight building envelope and heat/cool for less, especially in our climate where temp. swings can be pretty drastic. For example, when I woke up this morning it was -7, and by noon today it should be +13. An ICF home is affected significantly less by these types of temp. swings. If there is a perfect place to build with ICF, I believe that we are in it. Looking forward to many more ICF houses and buildings in Regina and throughout the province.

I thought it was a province?

Regarding R-80 strawbale walls....
Concrete has an R-value of .08 per inch. That means you would have to build an 83 foot thick concrete wall for it to be R-80....

Point being - R-80 is not always R-80.

Nuff said.

Either I phrased it poorly, or you misunderstood but (as I am told), flax bales that are compressed to a certain density have an R 80 value.  I wasn't referring to obtaining an R-80 wall using concrete .. . and you can get flax bales for free.

And yes, Sask is a province, I should have said province instead of cities.  My bad.

no problem.... its just that in my mind the walls should be thin and as efficient as possible.... cause all that heat is just stored in the walls... cause when you come home from hlidays - it takes 7 gazzilion BTUs before your warm...

What size forms (thickness) are icf contractors using in cold climates?

The generic answer should be "as thick as possible" but availability of product and qualified installers is usually the determining factor.

What size is typically used?