Thanks guy's

        
That's all fine and dandy, but thge picture itself doesn't add up... True the picture is small but from  I can
see the entire house was spared and that doesn't make sense. The Foam shell looks untouched and from the
proximity of the other fires should have at least damage the roof.

Francis

Hate to burst your bubble but the AAC crowd uses this same photo to promote their stuff.

Even if it was AAC the picture does not tell the whole story.

Where to start? I am not in the ICF business but have built and been involved in the construction of well over a thousand ICF structures of both commercial and residential for over the past decade.

What has been stated about ICF's being hype and a fad is just plane nonsense. 

The R50 claims have been taken out of context and misused. I can make a statement right now saying it would take take an R200 stick frame wall to compare to an icf wall and be factually correct. Again, you must know the context.

Resistance values (R rating)are 100% meaningless and hold no value to making a building energy efficient! They are completely useless and should be thrown out of use.


Grzeakc, you have other problems you need to find. Probably need to start with a blower test. You may want to consult with Richard Rue of Energy wise structures I am confident he can help you. He is a proponent of building energy efficiently no matter the method. www.energywisestructures.com

FIRE. I have seen and studied first had the effects of fire on a ICF structure just outside of Andover Kansas approximately three years ago on a 7200 sf residence.

New years party at rural 7200sf residence constructed of ICF. Main structure was combination of a ground floor building with basement in addition to partial slab on grade in bedroom areas. At the other end of the house was a stick constructed four car garage unit all connected.

A cigarette found it's way into a trash can in the garage where the fire started it then spread up into the roof truss system and made it's way to the main structure.(there was a double-walled drywall firebreak in the roof between the garage and main structure) The foam began to melt and roof finally gave in and fell on the wood floor system which then burned and collapsed. The fire was extinguished before it made it to the bedroom areas.

The fire response was terrible because of two other fires that night in the rural area. After investigation the fire department concluded the damage would have been a total loss had it been traditional wood frame construction.

Structural engineers investigated the concrete walls and integrity was sound to rebuild on. The fix included steel studs fastened to concrete and polyurethane foam filled between. The exterior was not damaged and the bedroom areas only received smoke and water damage. An ICF firewall replaced the double walled drywall firewall at the area the garage roof met the living quarters.

The insurance provider and owners could not have been happier.

R-Value is a term given to the property of any material to "resist" the conduction of heat. R-Value as a property is legitimate. The functional design of the laboratory determination of this property, relative to commercial insulation materials, is flawed at a fundamental level - yielding what can be called the R-Value myth. This flaw forces the engineering community, bound to adhere to the scientific formulas dictated by their governing body (ASHRAE), to calculate heat loads using the "myth" that this R-Value property of various insulation materials derived by flawed test methods can accurately predict the performance of the insulation material in real life. Not true.

Let's look at two of the "test criteria" used in the laboratories to determine R-value. The first criteria relates to "standard temperature". This stipulates that the test be conducted at a constant temperature of 75-degrees fahrenheit. Does it seem odd that a test to determine the performance values for insulation material for HVAC equipment would be designed around a 75-degree temperature? Who uses heat or cooling when it's 75 degrees? It is odd that fiberglass tests out best at this temperature and decreases in efficiency at hotter and cooler temperatures while cellulose and foam both improve at hotter and cooler temperatures.

Secondly, the "test criteria" requires that R-value testing not start until the materials reach "steady state". Steady state occurs when a material is exposed to a heat source on one side and allowed to become thermally saturated so that for every single unit of heat entering on one side of the material a single unit of heat exits the opposite side. This seems very scientific. It appears logical, but it misses a single important issue relevant to predicting real world performance. Namely, how long does it take to reach steady state? Why is that important? Because fiberglass reaches steady-state within a few hours, cellulose takes about a day and EPS foam takes about a couple of days to get to steady state. Cellulose and foam do not experience steady-state conditions in the real world.