I'm sold on ICF. My question concerns the wall between the garage and the house. Is it normally made with ICF or stick framed? I'm considering building a ranch with an ICF basement and all the exterior walls on the first floor to be ICF. I wonder about the wall between the garage and the house as to how it should be constructed. All comments welcome. Thank you, Bruce

It is done both ways. Which way you choose largely depends on whether having a hollow wall is beneficial to your overall design in some way.

An ICF wall is certainly more fire resistant which is an important consideration for a wall separating living space from garage space.

Would a hollow wall in this location be beneficial to you for locating CB panel, HR manifold station, routing plumbing/wiring, etc?

Where are you located? How much of a heat or cooling load are you going to have? Since a garage door is a big, low R value, Notoriously leaky necessity in a garage, an ICf wall to separate and buffer this area from the rest of the house you are heating or cooling might make sense. It also might make sense to enclose the living area in ICF and stick build the other three garage walls... Of course you can also accomidate that big leaky hole in the garage wall with attention to sealing and insulation detail on a stick built dividing wall.

I built the house and garage both with ICF. Makes it easier to heat the garage in the winter when I want to work out there.

I went ICF for the house and stick for the garage. Our garage is strictly to park the car, so it doesn't need much (or any) insulation. To answer the question, the wall between the house and garage is ICF.

I built ICF walls for the basement and house and 2x4 walls for the attached garage. The wall between the house and the garage is ICF. The ICF walls are much stronger if you tie them all together rather than have a wall dead-end. Tornadoes are a concern in my area, so wall strength was high on my list of priorities. In fact, a tornado damaged some high voltage transmission lines yesterday near the power plant where I work and caused the plant to come off-line due to loss of load.

Location is Indianapolis Indiana. Thank you, Bruce

In tornado alley there's a safety rationale for making it concrete, no? Indianapolis still looks like a higher risk zone:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/Tornado_Alley.gif

You're right Dana1. Tornados are a concern here. Thank you, Bruce

I ask about garage usage. Heat is a factor here as well. But if you build the common wall between garage and home you drastically cut down on the garage noise. Air compressors, grinders, swearing when the nail gun gets your left hand etc. etc.

I do the same - ask them about usage. If they like to work in the garage they will be glad to have the feeling of it etc. I usually suggest the following order based on budget etc. -- (1) house envelop including garage wall (2) house plus garage wall and garage. I don't really like doing the entire exterior including garage without the separator wall although its still a big step up from conventional. A bit off topic but unlike some installers I always recommend inclusion of gables to my installers (and sealed attic). Regards, Cameron

I do as well Texas. We have moisture/dew point issues here and doing the gables really cuts down on that. It serves as a firewall between house and garage in the garage attic or loft depending on design.

It's all in the details and your end goals...stick frame garage is fine if there is a wood frame wall above the ICF garage living wall in the attic. It needs a service door and spray foamed from the inside. This seals your lid on your ICF cooler so to speak if you have spray foam rafters.

Doing the entire exterior walls out of ICF and leaving the garage living wall wood frame is acceptable only if you build the same wall above to seal your lid.

I like to do both because of windstorm, but sometimes the budget doesn't allow. Therefore doing your living areas are the most important.

For those of you who do all of the exteriors and not the garage living wall, builders don't always do the right thing for performance style building. I have seen too many that build exterior walls only and spray foam the entire roof. Then there is no partition wall separating the garage from the living area.. sounds ok right? Blower door tests show massive amounts of leakage....why? No garage attic pull down accesses are sealed worth a crap and two gigantic garage doors leak like a sieve....

Education is key. If the homeowner or builder hasn't done ICF or has, ask them their plan to seal the lid. If they don't understand help educate them why...

Ok rant over