Hello! I’ve consistently received great info on this site and want to thank all of the experienced people who post. I want to preface this by stating that I realize that costs differ through the country and even amongst different communities. While I know that I am not an expert, I am a technical person. I have been collecting information for over 7 years with the goal of building an ICF home. As you can see all over this and other website it’s tough to get ranges of costs. Most ICF shops and bits of info have led me to believe that building an ICF home would cost “about 20% more than a regular home.” We are finally ready to build and what I’m being told by the architects we interviewed is that a 2,000 sq ft home will cost at least $600k if I want high efficiency ICF. I live in Upstate NY where the average home price is $180k. When I speak with ICF contractors they tell me that the envelope should cost only about 5% more than a stick built home. 4 years ago another architect (who has since moved out of the country) was willing to work with me to build on a tighter budget (around the $300k range). I realize that it’s not a comfortable topic or that there is some rule about not talking about costs, however I need a sanity check. Can anyone speak to the cost of building a home, perhaps giving a range? I want to be clear that what I’m talking about does not include the cost of land, earthwork, septic or well, I’m trying to keep it clear, just asking about the cost of the build.

The total cost of a home depends on many factors and the wall construction method is only one very small factor. Finishing costs are typically larger than rough construction costs. If you have questions specific to ICF construction methods and cost, you should consider posting in the ICF section. I will restate what I recently wrote to another OP who questioned his ICF cost quote:

Our total material cost for ICF is about $5 per net square foot of wall. Net is the gross wall area minus the area of openings (e.g., doors/windows). ICF walls can be constructed much faster than 2x walls so there is less total hours of labor involved. There is arguably more risk with ICF given that you are pouring concrete. However, this risk approaches zero for knowledgeable and experienced ICF contractors. So I don’t think ICF would be any higher than 2x construction if supply and demand were fully in play. Currently, ICF contractor cost varies widely by region largely driven by the number of available ICF contractors in the area. ICF can be accomplished DIY if you take the training available and provided by ICF manufactures. You would also need to rent or purchase/resell ICF bracing and get some help for the actual pour.

http://www.greenbuildingtalk.com/Forums/tabid/53/aff/4/aft/85818/afv/topic/Default.aspx

I will also add that there is nothing "high efficiency" about ICF that can't be achieved via other well done 2x construction methods. It is true that ICF may provide an R-value thermal mass effect boost over its conventional R-value, but this is highly dependent on the daily local climate temperature variation. We have free DIY software on our website to allow determination of this effective R-value if you want to quantify that for your location:

https://www.borstengineeringconstruction.com/ICF_Performance_Calculator.html

I'm in Upstate NY . Where are you considering building?

Thank you for the response with numbers sailaway.... much appreciated and confirms my research. I guess it’s the “other stuff” that is coming into play. I’ve already told the architects that the envelope is the most important thing and I’ll install an ikea kitchen and other cost cutting measures. Let’s see where we land on this. It’s difficult for a regular person who is not entrenched in home building to understand all the components.

Smartwall - our property is just outside of Albany... East Greenbush.

I'm about 45 miles away in Johnstown. If you like PM me and I might be able to give you some ideas.

Hello. We are a small, family owned and operated ICF patent holder. We sell directly to homeowners at a fraction of the cost. Please give me a call for a quick quote.

Kristina
Belco ICF
ICF4Less.com
(260) 367-2121