Jake, I am still going to go with Durisol (Nexcem) but just wanted to hear from some who had already built with the product. Anderson Sargent will be my builder. They have past clients (3 or 4 sisters) who built their own little village in the sticks of Texas using Durisol and absolutely love it. I want to see/tour the homes but do not feel like driving a couple of hours to do it. I am guessing that I will eventually do it. Always better to see and hear 1st hand what a previous customer has to say about a product. Texas is awesome sir. No state income tax is freaking amazing. Available land for sale. I am originally from the east coast and wont be moving back anytime in the foreseeable future. ICF homes have proven time and time again to be better than a stick built home but sometimes it is the cost, competency of the builder and probably ignorance on the customer themselves.

Hi Tony,
Just sent you a private message to comment on TX outside of the message board!
Cheers,

Good luck - I am sure you will be happy with your choice blaggenie. I have yet to see or hear of anyone disappointed with the end performance of their Nexcem home.

Maybe you can come back and post your experience with Nexcem once it is done. It would be great to have some other voices out there supporting something that is greener than styrofoam. Especially on a green building forum.

I wish I had the time to post on these forums all the time.

And when you guy's get to the point of needing to see 3D models or drawings, energy models & HVAC/MEP design/sizing, or WUFI let me know by PM. I'm not licensed in TX or I'd do the FEA. I understand the design intent and can spec it out well working with your trades remotely by GOTOMEETING. If I'm not doing OEM consulting work like now I may have some time. I'll probably take those materials properties off the site, run some WUFI hygrothermal/HVAC simulations for PHIUS certs up by your factory and see how close I can get and calibrate my models. I thought I had seen Durisol in the materials library before the latest release, so I'll take another look. That way all I have to do is change the weather files and geometry for clients. WUFI will export a GBXML BIMs friendly file to your PE's FEM. I may be in touch again. Good job Nexcum.

I did speak with someone at Nexcem who explained that the dead links on their website are because they are moving over from the Durisol website... it is somewhat fishy. Why change to such an odd name? Nevertheless, the contact at Nexcem was happy to email me the Technical Guide, which I now have. The document says the following

Nexcem Wall Forms are designed to ensure that the R-value through the core of the wall is almost the same as that through the web. This not only avoids thermal short-circuiting, it ensures uniform wall temperatures with no cold spots to encourage condensation, create discomfort, or cause dust marking.

The Tech Guide also states that "Specific test reports on topics such as thermal resistance" are available upon request. I will request these and see what I can find.

To be clear, I am personally not considering this as a replacement for a full wall system, just as a replacement for stem walls and foundation walls, so I am comparing them to solid concrete in terms of performance/cost. I have not even figured out what the cost differential between a durisol wall and a poured concrete wall is, but I have a price list so I will be doing that shortly.

The Tech Guides asserts that the "standard Non-thermal Wall Form unit has an insulation value of R8." In other words, the block itself is giving R-8, and the added rockwool is increasing this somewhat... They are also very clear that the poured concrete in the middle of the blocks is what should be counted on in terms of structural capacity.

" just as a replacement for stem walls and foundation walls, so I am comparing them to solid concrete in terms of performance/cost. "

Just to help readers out, that would be like comparing apples to oranges since these systems (Nexcum not having a patent on the basic design principles), in general, contain different interstitial material properties & transitions between the concrete core and skin boundary reactors. How drastic the differences are is a function of a lot of building variables. There is NO WAY to understand those properties by looking at steady state r-values determined in a lab test. This entire industry has limited knowledge by only looking at steady state R per ASTM C177 and Perm Rating. It can be highly misleading. Nexum does provide dry-wet perm range & densities, heat capacity, u-value, diffusion, darcy, freeze-thaw, etc.... good enough. Go compare those basic properties to your monolithic concrete mix and you still won't have a performance comparison because of what they have done with the cellulose aggregate, not rock and sand, etc.....

The Nexcum statement you quoted is not inaccurate if it was determined in a cyclic heat-humidity chamber otherwise not dynamic or complete nor has it been tested and validated in every international climate including acidic. That is where CFD/FEM models come in, been that way for decades and proven accurate by qualified users/models. Nexcum provides some of the other mechanics of material properties necessary for a dynamic structural analysis on their site, go compare them to concrete.

One has to know how to interpret tech guides/data and what to do with the data or one could waste alot of money on a bad design that does not validate the material design intent. It happens all the time, material properties get ruined by people that don't know what they are doing nor understand the data the OEM provides. This holds true for any material design.

The biggest bang for the buck is whole house. To make an accurate comparison the design BIMs processes would be 3D_CAD-CFD-FEM-$ for both designs. That's called a trade study. All that's needed for it is clearly displayed on their site. The most important "fishy dead links" are the rest of the test standards and who executed them? Their accuracy will reveal itself in the CFD/FEM by a trained eye or a calibration test I said I will be doing soon with applicable errors & omissions margins.

Nexcum Hygrothermal & Structural Material Properties: https://nexcembuild.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Nexcem-Material-Properties.pdf

The next steps we are working on is the cloud based IOT interface electronics (LRUs) between dynamic mass and MEP systems. The cost associated with it is plummeting as more OEMs come on board that will effect the entire tiered supply chains, including companies like Nexcum.  The paperless IOT BIMS models will validate, verify, conform the build to the design model that will also serve as electronic life cycle, AHJ sign-offs to code, no need for costly raters or inspectors producing lower cost MUCH higher quality design-builds that has never been seen before. In the interim, today the models can produce just about any report imaginable much more accurate than paper pushing costly raters/inspectors, to the users, clients, or AHJs.

Did you ever finish your home? I'm curious how it went and if you would still recommend it. Thanks!