I came across this from ICF Builder Magazine online and thought others on here might find it of interest.  More information about this can be found at the magazine's website http://www.icfmag.com/current_issue.html

ICFs Named Most Sustainable Building System The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality recently named ICFs as the best building material for sustainable construction. The study, titled A Life-cycle Assessment-Based Approach Preventing Waste from Residential Building, was completed in conjunction with the Oregon Home Builders Association, Quantis, and Earth Advantage Institute. The goal of the project was to identify building techniques and materials that offer the greatest environmental benefit. The report examined energy use and waste generation across a residential structure’s entire lifecycle: construction, occupancy, maintenance, and end-of-life disposal. Of the 25 building practices evaluated, ICFs ranked third, behind “multifamily housing” and “building a smaller home.” That makes ICFs the top-ranked building material in the study. Straw-bale construction placed fourth, followed by “design using salvaged materials” and SIPs. One reason ICFs placed so highly in the study is that the use and occupancy of a structure accounts for 80% of its total environmental impact. Reducing energy use over the anticipated 70-year life of the home has a far greater impact than any other single factor.

That said, I feel there will be some debate from others!

We chose ICF for the efficiencies, but when the contractor errs, the product can be completely unusable. Very difficult or sometimes impossible to repair properly. I am trying to find more info regarding modifications to existing ICF walls.

Renangle, no debate on my part. I recently conducted an "unscientific" survey that examined ALL utiility costs in various homes. I found that the 12 ICF homes I surveyed in my local area are running about .43 per square foot per year vs. my own wood house that is .88 per year and I burn mostly wood for heat, and my house isn't nearly as exposed or at the altitudes of the ICF homes I studied. I also found that when combined with other disciplines in building science, such as solar orientation, spray insulation in the roof, top quality windows, high efficiency HVAC systems and advanced controls, etc. some ICF homes are twice as efficient, costing less than twenty Cents per square foot per year for all combined utilities.

My conclusions were pretty basic. ICF is a FAR superior envelope, that will perform at a high level, but for WOW! results regarding energy savings, ICF combined with other better building technologies is a winner. If you just change the envelope to ICF, along with superior energy savings you will still gain the fire rating, quiet, safety, etc. benefits that everybody loves. It will be good, but an ICF envelope does allow you to go for great!

Another note from my customer survey was that these people LOVE their ICF homes and are all glad they went that route. As a supplier of concrete, that type of customer satifaction is very gratifying.

Oh let's see. 18-wheeler gets about 8mpg. 1000 miles average distance between manufacturing facility and construction location. That would be about 125 gallons of diesel emissions. Real green!

Posted By jacktca on 05 Apr 2011 08:50 PM
Oh let's see. 18-wheeler gets about 8mpg. 1000 miles average distance between manufacturing facility and construction location. That would be about 125 gallons of diesel emissions. Real green!

How did the hundreds of the other building/consruction items get to your building site?

John

Is it possible for the administrator of the forum to ban this troll Jacktca$$? He is angry with his architect and taking it out on the ICF industry. His ignorant and tasteless rants are really degrading the quality of the discussion on the forum.

Posted By BrucePolycrete on 06 Apr 2011 08:29 AM
Is it possible for the administrator of the forum to ban this troll Jacktca$$? He is angry with his architect and taking it out on the ICF industry. His ignorant and tasteless rants are really degrading the quality of the discussion on the forum.

On behalf of the sane or even partially sane people trying to inject some intelligence into this web site, and for the good of all concerned, here is my decree. 

Regarding Jacktca:

Everyone is hereby ordered to completely ignore his comments and do not respond to him at all.  Do not be goaded into a reply as this is what he feeds on.  Responding to him is the equivalent to buying the outrageous tabloid magazines.  If nobody bought them, they would not stay in business, and would DISAPPEAR. 

The gable has dropped Jacktca .... GUILTY .. and abolished!

Posted By Boycott Arbitrator on 06 Apr 2011 10:00 AM

Posted By BrucePolycrete on 06 Apr 2011 08:29 AM
Is it possible for the administrator of the forum to ban this troll Jacktca$$? He is angry with his architect and taking it out on the ICF industry. His ignorant and tasteless rants are really degrading the quality of the discussion on the forum.

On behalf of the sane or even partially sane people trying to inject some intelligence into this web site, and for the good of all concerned, here is my decree. 

Regarding Jacktca:

Everyone is hereby ordered to completely ignore his comments and do not respond to him at all.  Do not be goaded into a reply as this is what he feeds on.  Responding to him is the equivalent to buying the outrageous tabloid magazines.  If nobody bought them, they would not stay in business, and would DISAPPEAR. 

The gable has dropped Jacktca .... GUILTY .. and abolished!

I'm sorry I read his response last night and did not respond only because I felt the same as the two above statements, but I succumbed this morning. Again sorry I  won't respond EVER again to his ridiculous comments!

John

Roughly half of the people on this forum I've noticed are salesmen or representatives of some ICF manufacturer. Many of the threads and topics end up being plugs for their product. Free advertising! I bother some of them because I am the voice of common sense. Logic and reason can make someone a gadfly when surrounded by deceit.

The truth is that styrofoam, that is readily available locally, is being transported across country in large trucks for the sake of marketing and making people like Polycrete's owner rich. If that's not an environmental issue, I don't know what is.

Regarding the "hundreds of other building/consruction items getting to the building site". The bigger bulkier items are usually sourced locally because they can be. There's no cartel which sets their price and ensures that one manufacturer's product is incompatible with another, thereby assuring that product needs to be transported from thousands of miles away. This creates competition and allows for local sourcing. Take concrete blocks for example. Several companies in my area sell it. I can take a pallet from Company A, and a pallet from Company B, and a pallet from company C and they all fit one to another. With ICF's you can't do that. To top it all off, with styrofoam we're talking about mostly air. Lightweight foam that can be and usually is produced anywhere locally.

Regarding my beef with ICF's. As a building material I think it's great and ecological. Furthermore, I think it would take over the world of building and really pan out if it were not artificially stunted by the way that the industry is set up.

Renangle, in hindsight I should have mentioned that we have three ICF moulding facililites very close, the vast majority of ICF used in our area is produced within 50 to 100 miles. Most of these moulding plants make various brands of ICF blocks, so the majority of the brands are local. In my market, I am not aware of any block that people order that is manufactured outside of the 500 mile radius that the USGBC would consider as the limit under LEED. If they do, that would be their choice, because this is America, and it is still a free country, and if you want to get block from several states away and supply a job for a driver, go for it.

True sustainability in terms of structures are the ones that last the longest (durability), require the least maintenance, and are most efficient in the use cycle, which is far more important than the initial build. We did a six story ICF in Portland and the owner told me he wanted the long term energy savings and durability. He said their family owned the building next door since 1929 and they were not going anywhere. The blocks for that building were made about 15 miles from the site. We used a small truck to haul them from the plant because of site constraints downtown, so no semi drivers were harmed in the transport of that block.