Here is a recent article from Green Building Advisor about ICF's and the issues that were experienced. What it boils down to is that ICF is not a DIY building material. All the experts agreed, leave it to the pros. Even then there is a risk, poor building standards, inexperienced crews, all leads to out of plumb walls with voids and headaches.

As stressed in the article; a 12 foot wall needs a 12 foot brace, not 10 feet. Internal vibrating is the best way to not have voids. No internal vibrating = guaranteed voids. The homeowner experienced a lot of problems because the ICF crew on the job had very little to no experience building with ICF. Wall was over 5" out of square and voids of up to 10" were found in areas. I feel sorry for the homeowner because he is going to have a lot of problems with the home.

What is with the ICF crew working without shirts on? I'm sorry but this shows me that the crew is completely unprofessional and made up of hacks that the ICF contractor grabbed for $7 a hour from the street corner. We have crews out in Phoenix that work in 115F heat and they have hard hats on with pants (no shorts) and shirts. This isn't the beach, it's a job site.

As mentioned by a commentator:
"In Europe the job of casting concrete is only allowed to be done by professionals. Due to the risks. A training to become a professional concrete caster takes 1-2 years. Full time training. "

Here in the USA, anyone can stack and pour ICF, which is a scary proposition. Sadly this GBA article tells a tale that is all too common out there with ICF that is done by inexperienced crews. This ICF build will do MORE PUBLIC RELATIONS DAMAGE to ICF that hundreds of thousands of dollars in ICF manufacturer marketing will never repair.

GBA Article

Watch the video that goes along with this article. I almost fell off my chair! They did NOT vibrate the walls. Some shirtless guy with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth went around with a hammer and block and banged on the wall in some spots. I think he should have turned the hammer on himself. UNBELIEVABLE! No wonder there are 10" voids throughout this structure.

They did not install vertical rebar footers until AFTER the stack and the never tied the vertical with the horizontal! The rebar could have easily pulled away/shifted during the pour.

ICF gets another black eye.

YOUTUBE VIDEO

When this homeowner goes to hang drywall and install a window on his out of square and plumb wall, that will be a disaster. I am really appalled by this crew and Logix needs a good kick in the a** for their rep not having a grasp and control of the build. He should have supervised the build and pour much better. This project is being followed by GBA and is receiving national attention and Logix can't find a qualified rep to send to the job site to put on a good game face and for PR? What a joke. Logix needs to get its act together or simply leave the business.

The ICF consultant showed the crew how to stack a row of ICF and then disappeared and did not come back to the job site until the day of the pour. Are you kidding me? I would have fired him on the spot and kicked him in his a**.

The poor homeowner chimed in:

"I am very disappointed with our foundation walls, and I would not use this crew again to assemble and pour an ICF wall. I expected much tighter tolerances in plumb and level of the top course.
..but each window after that had increasingly larger voids, to as much as 10" below the bottom of the window. This is below grade, so I was very concerned that freeze/thaw cycles would simply crush the foam block over time."

Look at how the Logix block pulled up and separated. According to the homeowner as much as 3/8" of separation occurred.

Some pretty scary stuff going on with that project. I guess it is better to learn from other people's mistakes than from your own.

That is what makes ICF (and any kind of concrete work for that matter) difficult. You only get one chance to do it right. With stick built houses you can do it over and over again until it finally is right.

Mine is 'semi-DIY'. I did everything but the actual pouring, and my walls came out within 1/4" or so. That being said, I'm not your average idiot. I'm a toolmaker who obsesses over every detail and is a slave to accuracy. I'll take a dedicated, educated DIY'er over a hack professional who's just trying to turn a buck. I've seen plenty of work done by 'professionals' that I wouldn't allow in my house. I also spent 5 years educating myself on house building, something the average homeowner would never do. Unfortunately, these hacks continue to build houses, and people continue to buy them, and then wonder why there house has problems.

I'll cite an example. I have a friend with a nice-looking house, built by a builder. I was looking at his elevated wraparound porch, and noticed it was sagging in one area. The rim joist was one 2X thickness, spliced together at a joist. There was NO continuous beam there! To make it worse, there was a porch roof support column directly over the splice. So there is no support in that area for the roof or porch deck- NONE! Not only was this built by a 'professional', but it was passed by an inspector.

ICF will never gain traction while hacks, professional or not, are building them without knowing (or caring) about how to build one correctly.

I'm thinking this is more about the crew than the brand of insulated form.

Yeah, I'm just not feeling the logic here. Poor performance exists everywhere and single stories of bad this or that do not support sweeping conclusions. We've had people asking questions about ICF right here on GBT who haven't read or heeded the simple guidance put out by the manufacturer before they started.

This is a very scary DIY install.

I disagree that icf's are not DIY products as far as the stacking is concerned. The part that is not for the first time builder is the pouring. I have about 50% of my customers are first time users. In the territory I cover most icf's are sold from lumber yards. I fault the homeowners. If you are going to act as a GC, know the products that are being used and the best practices for thos products. A simple check of plumb. square and dimensions as the build progressed would have save a lot of trouble. Next question to ask the contractor is the type of consolidation to be used. The lifting probably resulted from the mix being "enhanced" shall we say. The bulge wasn't from the use of 10' braces on a 12' wall but the lack of screws in the braces they were using. One product that is on the market that can really help a build, is the web tie that are made of bent wire. They lock the veritcal joint as well as the horizontal joint together I know of at least 4 companies that have these in their product catalogue. I think Logix is one of them. I wouldn't build an icf project without them.

Posted By Lbear on 04 Mar 2013 04:23 AM


Look at how the Logix block pulled up and separated. According to the homeowner as much as 3/8" of separation occurred.

One of the things my ICF supplier had me do was buy a whole bunch of 3' long cable ties. We tied blocks together end to end and to the block below. I don't remember how often we did this but it might have been about every 3 or 4 blocks around the wall and at every corner. Kept the blocks tight end to end and course to course.

This is actually a great advertisement for using very large ICFs with steel ties. The steel ties have far less surface area than plastic and that prevents them from floating the ICFs. Also, a very large ICF makes it easier to get at least one and possibly two braces on each block/form. Finally steel ties make for a much stronger ICF that allows you to use a standard vibrator with no fear of blow out. I'd recommend a 16 sqft ICF. I'd also recommend a DIY-er hire an experienced pro to work alongside. These sort of installation abominations give our entire industry a black eye.

The issues here was 95% installer error. As this build progresses, the ICF portion will have nothing but a black cloud around it. It will be known for having out of square walls, voids, out of plumb, all with a very hefty price tag.

What really is mind numbing is that you would figure for such a high profile project, Logix would step up and make sure that their ICF block got a good presentation, it was "free" advertising for them. Instead, they put a goofball on the job site who completely botched the whole thing. Anytime someone sees this build they will note how messed up everything is because of ICF.

Looking through some of the other blogs about this house project it sounds like the whole project was/is fraught with problems. I don't think this is really a DIY project from what I read in those other blogs. Sounds like there have been a whole bunch of stumble footed participants involved.

Posted By dmaceld on 05 Mar 2013 12:44 AM
Looking through some of the other blogs about this house project it sounds like the whole project was/is fraught with problems. I don't think this is really a DIY project from what I read in those other blogs. Sounds like there have been a whole bunch of stumble footed participants involved.

I called it "DIY" because the crew that installed ICF never installed it before. This was their first ICF install. The homeowner is also the GC, from what I can tell. So nobody had experience with ICF.

The biggest mistake was not having a professional and well-seasoned ICF crew on the job. It would have turned out a lot different had they had a seasoned and professional ICF crew on the job. Even the Logix rep who showed after the pour was a clown. Where was this guy during the stack, bracing and pour? What a complete joke.

I still can't believe people bang on the wall with a hammer and block to consolidate concrete. When they removed the foam they found voids of over 10". That's reassuring knowing that wall is holding back tons of earth and is holding up the structure above it.

Posted By Lbear on 05 Mar 2013 01:12 AM

I still can't believe people bang on the wall with a hammer and block to consolidate concrete. When they removed the foam they found voids of over 10". That's reassuring knowing that wall is holding back tons of earth and is holding up the structure above it.

That is a black eye on whoever was ordering the concrete and directing the pour. A good concrete man, even with little or no ICF experience, would know better than order concrete that won't flow properly. As I've stated in previous discussions about consolidating there were no problems with my pour, and no discernible voids. The concrete guy, who had done only 1 or 2 ICF pours previously as I understood it, knew to order concrete with pea aggregate (1/2" & under IIRC), extra cement, and slump just enough to go through the pump easily. It flowed beautifully and the only consolidation was vibrating to get it under the windows.

My ICF supplier was on hand for the first pour into the ICF blocks.

As an aside, there may be a problem with Logix relationship with their dealers. My supplier had been a Logix dealer and switched to BuildBlock. I think he some sort of issues with Logix company, not the blocks.

Pushing that flyash content up helps make a really nice ICF mix, too.

I have to clear up one thing that I keep seeing on this forum. It is a HUGE no-no to use a vibrator to move concrete. You do not use the vibrator to get the concrete to flow under a window. The buck under the sill should be made from 2X's set on edge with an opening sufficient to allow you to place the concrete directly into the wall under the window. More evidence that many ICF installers don't know the basics of concrete construction. This is basic ACI stuff.

The biggest mistake when working with concrete is to say that "we pour concrete".  When concrete is thought of in those terms, then it is common to add plenty of water to the mix at the job site to make it pour.  If it is not a mix like Agilia, then it should be placed and not moved.  If it is a wall then it should be internally vibrated, but with skill.   Many times I have seen concrete bosses on residential jobs tell the ready-mix driver to add water to the mix without giving much thought to final strength.  I have been called out to jobs to help them determine why their concrete cracks.  The most obvious answer is usually too much water added at the job site.  The second reason in flat work is not enough joints or joints in the wrong place.  No hijacking intended.

Posted By Alton on 05 Mar 2013 02:34 PM
The biggest mistake when working with concrete is to say that "we pour concrete".

Yeah, I know. The proper term is "place". There is a subtle difference.  I just decided to use the more common, though incorrect, "pour".

The concrete guy I used did a great job, at least with all the work that is visible. No cracks at all in the flat work except in the troweled joints and control cuts, and it's all smooth and even. In the garage where the concrete slopes up about 1" to match the level of the outside and kitchen doors he sloped it up so nicely it's not noticeable. The only concrete problems so far after 4+ years is some spalling of the outside door sills from slab movement, I think. I planned to have a gap between the slabs and the walls and door sills, but he said it wasn't necessary. I wish I would have put them in though. In some places there is a little bit of buckling in the parging caused by the slab moving up. Another expert concrete guy I talked to before I did my house said that all slabs will move up and down, at least here in SW Idaho, so make provision to accommodate it. He did not like the common practice of tying, say, a porch slab to the foundation. You often end up with concrete breaking from the stress of moving against the rebar ties, or sloping up or down toward the outside edge.

Posted By Ray Gladstone on 05 Mar 2013 09:55 AM
I have to clear up one thing that I keep seeing on this forum. It is a HUGE no-no to use a vibrator to move concrete. You do not use the vibrator to get the concrete to flow under a window. The buck under the sill should be made from 2X's set on edge with an opening sufficient to allow you to place the concrete directly into the wall under the window. More evidence that many ICF installers don't know the basics of concrete construction. This is basic ACI stuff.

This may be another case where the theoretical problems exceed the real problems. I saw no evidence of any separation in the concrete that flowed up from the vent holes in the bottom buck, and the amount of vibration required was very little. Hardly got the vibrator dropped in before the concrete was flowing all the way. The guy who did my concrete placement had only about 35 yrs experience at that point. Keep in mind he ordered concrete with good flowability, and final strength, in mind.

So the conclusion would have to be that experience showed him there was no problem doing so, or it shows that even experienced contractors can get it wrong. The former flies in the face of relying on theory and lab tests, and the latter calls into question the need to use only experienced contractors. Which is it?