Posted By Donaldson on 11/17/2007 1:46 PM
Jelly,
I know that ICF's would have been more expensive to do because when I was getting bids to do my house, just for the ICF walls, with no roof, it was going to be $20,000 more than the cost of the entire sip shell. Again, it becomes fairly easy to get a good estimate. Find a floor plan, any floor plan and send it to several contractors for an initial bid with them doing the labor. Ask for a break down of materials cost and labor cost and then compare.
Steel sips for the DYier is far easier than ICF's with less chances of mistakes. You don't have to be sure that the vibrations and cement pumping is done correctly to get the cement to fill in and set up properly. Nor do you have to worry about being out of plumb. As stated before our 64 X 30 duplex was only out of plumb by less than a quarter inch from going all the way around the outer wall. One small push in and everything was as square as can be measured by building tools.
Speed in finishing the house is still important even as a DYIer, you still have loan interest to consider, unless you are paying cash for everything and not borrowing any money. Also, no mater what type of construction you do, you will have to have some people helping you. If you are paying these people then the faster something is done the cheeper it cost. The tighter money is, the more importance speed plays into the equation. You will also have to lath the outside of ICF's for stucco so that is a wash. You will have to ferr out the inside of the Icf unless you are going to attach drywall to the foam block. Again I am going by what is done in this area so maybe there are cheeper ways to do things.
Donaldson, yes they do things different ways in different places. Stucco can go straight on the foam with no lath with ICF, and the interior doesn't need to be furred out. There are plastic webs embedded in the foam every 6 to 8 inches for drywall screws on the interior and for siding on the exterior. But of course I'm sure there are costs with both methods that I haven't even considered yet.
And you're right, I'll just have to submit for bids to get a realistic picture. I'm keeping an open mind and continuing my research. Thanks for the input.
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