I'm looking for a builder in the Richmond,VA that could be a custom precast concrete home. Thanks

Speed328,

I could easily help you out with an ICF house (or at least give you a quote based on plans) if you have an interest. I don't see a down side for you really. We've been involved with ICF houses in Virginia for many years will around 200 home completed in that time. If you like give me a call 434-825-5226.

renangle

Speed,

I urge you to explore some alternative building methods to "precast concrete", after all this forum is called "Green Building talk." Although concrete has been used for hundreds of years, there is nothing green about it.

Just a thought

Concrete is Green if you consider the amount used in the project. ICFs use an silly amount an still leave the surfaces unfinished, that is not Green EPS with a high quality GFRC skin 1/4" - 1/2" thick that could possibly last almost forever, is Green.

Re: use of concrete in "green" homes: pretty strong comments from the last two posters in response to the instigator of this thread, Speed328 who's obviously interested in building a concrete home, for his own reasons, in which case ICFs might be an option for him to consider.

"Although concrete has been around for hundreds of years, there is NOTHING green about it" and "ICFs use a SILLY amount of it an still leave the surfaces unfinished, etc etc" Sounds like blatant "bashing" of competitive systems, an approach which, it seems to me, has been less prevelant on this site's forums than in the past. Most of the regular participants have, at some point, supported the concept that there is not a "perfect" green building product, or system, that satisfies every client's needs and desires.

By the way, Speed328, good luck with your search for the "best" building system, and products, for your custom home building project. If you do decide to consider ICFs then maybe you'll want to look at the "vertical" system, as well as "blocks".

We are used to presuming that concrete is a superior material for constructing our infrastructure and buildings with a long design life. This is correct, but also misleading. Reality is obfuscated by language. If we peel away the layers of meaning solutions to our concrete problems become visible and possible. We say “concrete” as though it were all the same, when in actuality “concrete” encompasses a huge range of products. Concrete is mostly filler material, usually rock, gravel and sand, bound into a solid mass by cement. As is frequently true, our first assumption is our first mistake. We assume that all concrete is bound together by Portland cement because the overwhelming majority is and has been for generations. Portland cement is the core of our infrastructure’s sustainability problems, not concrete. Concrete can and should be made using other, superior 21st century chemically bonded ceramic cement binders such as geopolymers and phosphate cements. We have invested colossal resources and created vast industries to overcome inherent weaknesses of Portland cement as a binder in an effort to improve it sufficiently to meet our construction needs. The range of chemical admixtures and additives available that effectively alter every performance characteristic of the Portland cement based concrete end products is a tribute to human ingenuity and perseverance. All of the research and product development has substantially improved all aspects of concrete and enabled us to build our modern civilization on a concrete foundation. We base our design requirements upon what we can economically achieve using modified Portland cement based concretes. We have caught ourselves in an unsustainable Portland cement loop that is beginning to crack and crumble around us. We have become so thoroughly dependent upon Portland cement based concrete that the herculean efforts to shift the course of the behemoth concrete industry ship toward resource conservation, improved production efficiencies and infrastructure preservation is overall both laudable and necessary. However, laudable and necessary are not sufficient. The glaciers are melting, icebergs calving and our concrete ship can not change course swiftly enough to avoid collision. Even if it dodges some icebergs, it will run aground burning too much energy and spewing greenhouse gasses. We need a new fleet of concrete ships for the 21st Century. Our concrete industry needs fundamental transformation. We have to outgrow our adolescent infatuation with Portland cement. Change. Move on. Get over it. Fortunately, some folks have understood this for many years and have been researching and developing alternative cement binders that are proving to make better concretes. Some of the alternatives appear to embody substantially less energy, require more environmentally benign resources and processes and produce concretes with superior performance and longevity characteristics. We need to develop and commercialize these new cements, but once again we are confounded by language. How do we learn about the new cements? What are they called? Well, that depends upon what research community you are in, what company you work for and what your intellectual property interests are. We know that competition breeds efficiency and personal gratification spurs competition. Hopefully we will survive the greed that too often accompanies this gratification. Too much of what needs to be widely known and used regarding new cement technology is presently held secretly as intellectual property. Some of the new cements that are, or soon becoming, commercially available are only known by their brand names and published specifications (e.g. CeraTech’s products). For others, the basic type of cement is public, though patented, knowledge with only the details kept secret (e.g. Grancrete). We can learn enough from published literature to be getting on with. We can learn about the brave new world of what some call chemically bonded ceramic cements. This includes phosphate cements (aka inorganic phosphate cements and chemically bonded phosphate ceramics) such as magnesium phosphate cements. Some, like Grancrete, are licensed forms of Argonne National Lab’s Ceramicrete. Modified magnesium oxychloride cements are being used for many products coming out of China. That cement is not new and has performance problems which may or may not have been resolved by particular manufacturers. Still, some of those products are improvements over plasterboard and OSB. Then we have alkali-activated alumina-silicates which many know as geopolymers and some as hydroceramics. These cements show tremendous promise for eventual replacement of Portland cement in concrete. The common broadening of the definition of geopolymers, from that preferred by Dr. Davidovits who coined the term to correspond with his patents, means that these cements can be made from many alumina-silicate source materials. Some require calcining, but not nearly to the 2,600􀈗 F temperature or extent necessary for making Portland cement. We can also make geopolymers from fly ash and from some mine tailings. Good folks in Australia, like Zeobond, are putting their money where their mouths are and walking the talk by making concrete with geopolymers made from fly ash. We can too. One important characteristic of some of these cements is their relative imperviousness and stability in a broad range of environmental conditions. Taking a waste material from coal-fired power plants, mines or other industrial processes that may be loaded with toxins like mercury and chemically transforming it into strong and durable cement can simultaneously solve multiple problems economically. This becomes feasible if the toxins can not leach from the cement. Taking this to the extreme, some ceramic cements are proving effective for encapsulating nuclear wastes and replacing lead as a barrier to radiation. Capturing the value of the work that went into processing industrial wastes by using them to create a necessary product beats the heck out of landfilling or daming them up as perpetual liabilities. However, the present practice of incorporating fly ash into the manufacturing of Portland cement solves nothing. Pouring more energy into fly ash and dealing with toxic emissions all over again just so we can keep using Portland cement is like covering a critical wound with an infected bandage. We know that concrete is not our problem – Portland cement is. We can get over it. We can move on. We can change. We can start now. We must.

Personally I love cement. I've heard that change thing alot recently.

I love it too and spent 3 1/2 decades building with it. The changes that are coming are good ones. Those who prefer portland will be allowed to keep thier old system. 1 to 1.5 lbs. Co2 per pound of portland produced will be the market force--not whether we love it or not.

Remember, only Cement and Concrete Producers want you to use LOTS of their Product, but you want only to use what is absolutely necessary. I love Concrete and EPS Foam in the proper combination.

Concrete is an incredible, ever evolving, building product. The Romans used a pozzolona, a special volcanic dust found in central Italy. Fly ash and slag (from smelting) have similar cementious properties as pozzolona. When mixed with Portland cement it can actually give you a stronger final stength. Our ICF mix is 50% cement, 40% slag and 10% fly ash. It yields lower strength early in the curing proccess but at 7 days has pretty much caught up with a 100% cement mix of the same design. At 28 days it exceeds the 100% cement mix in strength by 15% to 20%. All of our data ends at 28 days.

Jusaxeme, you seem to be educated on your "cements" but I think you miss the point of durability. Pozzolan types of cement have a great track record for durability. Take the Pantheon in Rome, it is 2000 years old and still being used today. It is in a seismically active area, has endured countless earthquakes, storms, wars, and millennias of use. Please if you could show me some other building material besides stone that has a similar track record.

I am not against improving on what we have, but lets not throw the baby out with the bath water.

Polycore, Concrete is one of if not the best readily available building products out there. It is green due to its durability, and the fact that the foot print of gravel and limestone mines are no where near the size of the deforested mountains through out the world needed to build out of wood. So yes it is green. Please if you could show me an example of a 2000 year old styrofoam building or even a 100 year old one that would be great. 50? 25?

ICF Contractor

Typical Concrete Home:

no mold
no rot
no mildew
it has the thermal mass effect
awesome agianst earthquakes
awesome agianst tornados
awesome agianst hurricanes
awesome agianst termites
awesome agianst fire
lasts forever...
awesome STC ratings
awesome for people with astma




Typical Wood Home:

- mold problems
- rot problems
- mildew problems
- dont do so well against tornados
- dont do so well against fire
- dont do so well against hurricanes
- dont do so well against temites
- poor STC ratings
- no thermal mass effect
- lats 50 years maybe 70...
- not so good for people with astma

As a relatively new person on this forum, I have been through a great deal of different threads to see what value can be offered here for business and consumer users. I am still looking to answer that question - iIt seems that there are a great deal of strong opinions that are not always backed up by facts, and a great deal of facts that are presented in ways that force validate only a specific oipinion. Often however there sems to be little wide open unbiased discussion that would be of great value. Keep an open mind people - think outside of the box you are writing in. Let me suggest we just start with the comparison above to get a snapshot of where this discussion is and offer a new direction to take it in.

Baldwin2012 above compares a "typical concrete home" to a "typical wood home" - perhaps the whole reason for this forum is that "typical" is what we are all trying to change? Breaking it down a bit event that comparison has faults. Wood will not mildew if it is kept from moisture, and concrete wicks moisture from the soil bringing it closer to the wood. Plastic, a product whose lifespan no one can decide or agree on, works well to provide a barrier between the wood and concrete to create a three component solution that offers more than each component seperately. We can all tear the comparison apart further, like why would concrete's thermal mass be a good point if we dont need a thermal mass? Is wood better than concrete if termites are not in the environment? Why would concrete be used for its tornado resisting properties if there are no tornadoes where the house is built? Will concrete last forever in a moist environment that has significant thermal shifts (like oceanfront in alaska?) or will it crack and crumble from freeze thaw cycles that may not affect a styrofoam SIP? Maybe there are times when Concrete is better than wood AND times when wood is better than concrete AND times when something else trumps them both?

This whole thread was started by a request to find a contractor in Richmond VA to build a precast concrete house. No one answered the question and all the other replies move quickly to this is better than that, presented in the context of the repliers, and not one asked "why do you want to build a precast concrete house?" before pushing alternatives and slagging different systems. Spped328, the original poster, wants a contractor for a concrete precast house and there are obviously others who have posted here that think precast concrete is good and some who think concrete is not.

So, Speed328 - if you have not given up on this thread - I would like to ask you why you want a concrete precast house, and then ask for informed replies from the other participants (that specifically take your reasons into account) as to why or why not such a house would be suitable for your situation and to perhaps suggest better options, if any, that may be available. I doubt you will be able to get just a contractor name as you had initially asked for, but the value of a discussion based on your needs would be excellent.

I really hope there can be some good correspondance here on this and other issues, the combined knowledge of the participants is a valuable resource if we can get things on track to open constructive dialogue. Have a Great Weekend all!

The tilt up concrete association has some members in va http://www.tilt-up.org/tca/directoryindex.htm
Whether any of them have done residential projects vs commercial is a different question. You also might call the Va precast concrete assoc http://www.gopcav.com/contactus.htm (recognizing that their members are make culverts and septic tanks and perhaps an occasional house.)

You need to hurry. States that took federal stimulus money must adopt IECC 2009 without amendments. This latest version of the energy code makes it much tougher to do passive solar high thermal mass buildings, which typically beef up R values in the attic and the basement to compensate for extra glass and low R value walls. IECC 2009 raises the bar for basements to the point that the trade offs may not be there any more. It also bars trade offs between the envelope and high efficiency equipment. The log home guys are about to split a rail http://www.buildingsystems.com/profiles/blogs/energy-code-threat-to-log-home

Polyman;

if you are looking to benefit as a business, then you should advertise

If you are looking for unbiased opinion, I don't know where you will ever find that.

I think its up to consumers to identify their own needs and concerns and then choose, this forum provides a wealth of information they can sift thru to arrive at an intelligent decision

Speed, I think would find the article "Concrete dream" In the july 24 or 29 charlotte observer newspaper online. Its a precast res. home with lots of green features. The walls were built by International precast in Siler City.. The owners name is David Dupuy. I walked in this house while it was under construction and it is way cool. If this is not enough info to find the article let me know. Best of luck.http://www.charlotteobserver.com/222/story/850619.html?q=concrete%2Chouse

Hello.. Today, home buyers expect to get more from their new home. They want beauty that’s more than skin deep. A home that fits their lifestyle – of course. Well I could recommend you the ICF's. ICFs give you all the benefits that have made concrete the material of choice for home building worldwide: Solid, lasting construction that resists the ravages of fire, wind, and Father Time. But ICFs do plain concrete one better – or rather, two better – by giving you two built-in layers of foam insulation. Goodluck!

ChristineOne;

I doubt that ICFs foam shell could withstand the ravages of fire, especially with a wood roof?

Hi
here are some of the precast builders that I know should be able to help in Richmond.

www.precastbuilders.com  or www.hollowcoreslabs.com. These two companies are indian syster companies of a richmond based company chesdin homes www.chesdinhomes.com

I checked out some precast builders, but many seem to have negative reviews. It makes me nervous. What do you think?

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"wanderlust is all"
asphalt and concrete