Dave,
We have not used the insuldeck product. I looked at some samples and didn't see any benefits to us based on the way we build. The chase system would not help us as we run all wiring in conduit and we also run xh cast iron DWV inside the envelope. With the amount of recessed lights we install I think carving out the foam would be very inefficent and require we build a dropped ceiling. Also not compatible with our style as clients are demanding 12' or higher ceilings. Finally I figured if we are going to shore the entire floor we might as well use pan forms and spray foam as required.

We have used a great deal of Hambro and speedfloor. Coming from a commercial construction background bar joist truss suspension systems generically make the most sense to us. For the most part they are self supporting during the pour. And, the webs are wide open to run all sorts of electricals and mechanicals. I personally think the speedfloor product is very well thought out. It is easy for two men to position the trusses (they may not call it  a truss but I do) for a good size house in one day. If you search the archives you will find methods to substitute ICF forms for the plywood. A method we use also, however we use regular foam and a support system we have developed in house. Price is pretty reasonable. Hambro is easy to get Speedfloor has had some lengthy leadtimes. Engineering support on either system is very good. Still we do most engineering in house.

Blended labor rate is about $62/hr all in. Insurance is pretty steep as is taxes, fees and overhead. We build in a 50 mile radius of NYC so we have to incorporate in three states, get licensed in three states, pay fees & insurance in three states, etc.... It's a royal pain in the ....

Not sure wher your located. Labor rates here are about as high as you will find. A buildable lot in town would be $1.2 million. That would get you: a 1940-1970s 3bed 2bath ranch or colonial that hasn't been renovated in 25 years on 1/2 acre. Permits and fees plus demolition will put you at 1.3m before you drive the first grade stake. Out of town you get the same house with 1-2 Acres of land. Virgin ground is pretty much impossible to find. Tradesman look at the selling price @ $2.5 million, think your making a killing and want their cut. At that price most builders are just breaking even after financing and overhead.

I have firends who manage sub developments for the big builders. They fall out of the chair when they here about the costs up here. They are paying 10-50 thousand per acre for improved land in certain parts of Arizona, Texas or Florida. In those areas I can believe the low numbers quoted. Everything is relative.

Dave F:

Which state are you paying 1.78 a foot? Most generalized construction methods i.e. concrete and wood rates for comp are 15-20 %. That was one of the good selling points of ICF to commercial contractors was the 7-8% ICF rate. Does your insurance salesman not know that these rates excist?

Typical home 200 L.F. per floor at an average height 10' = 2000sq
x 3.00
_______
6000.00 labor
x .08%
__________
$480.00
divided 20000 sq= .24 cents a sq ft at .08%
.48 cents a sq ft at .16%
.96 cents a sq ft at .32%
How are coming up with 1.78 ???????????????????????????

Dave

Hello Mark, yes I think you are wright on one score at lest, you have been talking to one of our partners on the admin side and he thinks it might work out for us, but as I said I've never even seen it put in let alone played with it which is what I'd like to do before I let loose on one of these projects. I'm just fishng at the moment mate, LOL.

"Typical home 200 L.F. per floor at an average height 10' = 2000sq
x 3.00"

You won't get me out of bed for that price.

Our take offs are based upon total footage including openings as a base figure then difficulty is calculated in and that means everything, even down to enough room for stageing materials, local concrete costs, local pump cost ect ect.

After we weigh every possible cost up the client gets the number for the envelope, take it or leave it.

But 3 bucks labour to stand wall is laughable.

Vermarj:
We've poured ICF walls, ICF floor and parapet the same day, can't say we see it's worth the effort, taking into account compression, safety, mobilization issues etc.
Thanks for the TF info, always wanted to be involved with one.

Dave F.
Just got a call today from a working man with several children, one is a daughter who has Downs syndrome. He can't believe how much of a blessing his new ICF home is for his familyand is thankful for our help. And yesterday an email from another "blue collar type" who is thrilled his three girls sleep all night through thunderstorms. Both jobs we did for a less than three dollars a foot. Proud of it. put it on my resume.

Kevin

Assuming the following.

Liability insurance $2,000.00 per year or about $38.50 for the job
Marketing $5,200.00 per year (includes cell phones, regular phones and fax, internet, travel to jobs to quote, paper and print, relatively conservative), or about $100.00 for the job.
Maintaining an unmanned office $600.00 per month, or $150.00 for the job
Equipment with depreciated costs over 10 years, including trucks, tools, bracing etc, at $30,000.00 conservatively, $57.69 for the job
Totals $346.19 bare minimun for a construction company to operate. I am assuming you have local work, and people are coming to your office for builds and quotes.


Assuming a 40 hour week, about what it takes to complete a 40'x30'x8' wall this would also include material handling, loading and unloading braces, block, equpment etc.
Three workers, average $20.00 per hour, you will pay very close to $4.50 per hour in comp, employer related taxes and government taxes, totalling about $24.50 per hour conservatiive. totalling $2,940.00/job

Total is $3286.19

Wall area is 1120 square feet
You get paid $3,320.00
Assuming you are one of the workers, being paid, you are working very hard, taking the risk, and have to work continuously to maintain all of your expensis, making, about 32,000.00 net per year. Hope that nothing goes wrong, like, sickness, job errors that require remeadial work, vehicle breakdowns or worse you dont work every week of the entire year (snow and rain has a tendancy to reduce workng time), or need to pay overtime. Remember that this is with only 3 people selling, estimating, marketing, quoting, site visiting, construction and maintenance of a construction company, so is very conservative in time as well. If a project had more windows, corners or shipping issues occure
and your on site time would go up.

Nice of you to sum it up for us Mark, I belive anyone who works for free will find plenty of things to do to ocupy their time, but the issue I am raising is that while there are bottom feeders around who do bad work the knock on effect in the industry is such that ICF's and equiverlents will never achive the status they should get.

Of course in any industry there's always going to be bottom feeders but the ICF biz seems to be full of them and that's why it hase never achived the foothold it shoud get given its absolute superiority, and something I don't get is that these here bottom feeders seem to resent guys like us that do it properly for a proper fair rate of return. Take the Omaha fiasco, that guy stood the wall for 2 bucks a foot, the block company was so inexperienced as to not know that you can't do a comercial project for that kind of money even though we warned them in advance they were headed for a fall. I wouldn't be surprised if they don't go into bankrupsey over this and that's a real shame because their block was quite good.

You know this is the lesson that the industry as a whole needs to take heed of in the fact that no matter how good the block, the engineer, the planners ect ect at the end of the day it all depends on the guy who stands the wall and until block manufacturers 'get it' they will suffer the never ending  litany of bottom feeders screwing up their and the industry as a whole reputation.

Having said that 'its an ill wind that blows no good' and for me the difference is very valuable, as I said I won't get out of bed for three bucks a foot and its those guys who actualy get me my work and the real premium I get to charge. One guy I'm talking too right now said "I don't care what it costs as long as the numbers crunch" and "that's what I'm looking for, someone who can build me the whole envelope and not take three yaers"

This attitude these guys have is cutting their own throats and they don't see it, all I can say is WOW!!!

My guess however is that these are the guys who couldn't make it in stick build because they are just so bad, so they come over to ICF since there's a shortage of contractors in the field, did you know that the carpenters union recon that half a million feet of ICF sales don't get build each year because of the shortage of contractors. Ya know I thought that when there was a shortage of anything that the price would go up, yet these guys work for peanuts. I was talking to an old sparky a few years ago in Vegas and he said "never leave anything on the table" something I've always remembered such that for instance last year I was talking to a client and he told me that I was nearly double what the 'other guy' was wanting to charge and he asked me if I would lower my bid, I started laughing and told him the story about 'flying monkeys' and if he wanted to pay peanuts then he knew what to expect, I got that contract. The previouse year I bidded on a 9600 house and was a mere 65k above the local guy and the same question was asked, this guy wasn't so smart though. I didn't get the contract, the house however is now 17 months over time and is expected to take another "year or so" according to the contractor and is 3 million over budget, its become a laughingstock with people pointing at it and sniggering, with the owners throwing fits hourerly.

Bye the bye that candlewood hotel  is being fitted with dynamite in two months.

I got out of the small printing business nearly 30 years ago because it was next to impossible to compete with the bottom feeders! One problem, I think, facing the ICF business is that the bottom feeders in it are more expensive than the bottom feeders in the stick built business. A competent ICF builder has triple the competition to deal with, the bottom feeders in both construction segments plus the competent stick builders.
I'm not sure bottom feeders resent the competent, they just laugh because they get the business by being cheaper and say "you guys don't just get it." That comes from a lack of business acumen. I've heard many a small business operator say, "If I can just make the payments on my equipment I'll be OK." They seem to forget they need to earn an income at the same time.

Oh Mark just noticed you forgot to mention state contractor fee's and bonding (2% of evey gross contract) a requirement here.

I think you were very conservative in the general overhead dept also, my phone bill is 1600 per month plus tax (eight unlimited cells), plus landlines that I actualy don't know the cost of, travel and subsistance is about 6.4k a month on the job side and 40k a year for conferences and training ect, every training course I run cost me 5k or so.

I never stand block so that would be an extra cost in your figures, I charge myself out to the company at 75 per hour and that's every hour, 55 cents per mile for car alowance, 125 per day subsistance and whatever the hotel costs are (typical a hundred or so). For instance yesterday I went to see a distributor. out the house at 7 back at 5 so no hotel, but the rest applies, not my sort of work, 20 small houses 2500ft or so and a couple of commercials, I'll train crews for him to do the jobs and I'll oversee and do quality controle as well as bid the projects on a DBS basis. We do um DBS because no one can come around us and try to sell block cheaper because that's just one element of the DBS package and we don't give any breakouts.

Its obviouse that there are people out there who never train, never go anywhere, never talk to anyone and don't have the slightest clue as to what a 'take off' is.

"I'm not sure bottom feeders resent the competent, they just laugh because they get the business by being cheaper and say "you guys don't just get it." That comes from a lack of business acumen. I've heard many a small business operator say, "If I can just make the payments on my equipment I'll be OK." They seem to forget they need to earn an income at the same time."

I think they do DM, and yes they see guys like me buing new vehacles every year and resent it, but they occupy a market that would be smaller if ther did it properly but not that much smaller that they wouldn't make at least as much as they do now if they did it right and charged the right amount, the only difference being they would get time off in between the jobs the way I do it.

.....and yes I've heard the same statements, 'just need enough for this or that' but living on the edge is not for the likes of me there's enough stress in sociaty these days without wondering where your next meal is comming from and its nice to drive past big houses virtualy always on top of the areas largest hill and see what you will leave behind you when the guy upstairs calls your number.

So......it sounds like 'only' millionairs can afford to build ICF with unliminted mononies......That will surely keep ICF's from becoming more popular.....

You clearly are not aware how many million plus homes a built in the states each year are you, let me put it this way, if 10% were to go ICF  that would represent 3 times as much ICF's used as from now. Second commercial projects in ICF are now more than half ICF's total sales and set to grow significantly but only with comercial grade contractors. I just picked up a small leasure facility for next year for instance, they were going concrete and steel but switched because they feel happy about the standard of build, we are at 286 to 300 per ft which is comparable to standard steel and concrete. I haven't chosen the block yet but it will be one of the folowing, Arxx, EcoBlock, Logix, or Tegrant.

Next question is are you remotely aware how much comercial footage ICF's could break into if there were enough REAL INSTALERS out there?

All block holds concrete, some better than others though.

Are you a real installer Dave?
If so can you recommend me a real installer in state of californina.
beside have you really looked at which one of the ICF system is more efficient and convenninet for installation. Do you use Glue and bracing for all levels,
have you comapred prices form one ICf to another and are yo aware that you will still not to the maximum efficiency of the ICf as it is tent to be!!!!!!
regards,

Oh please help all of the pros here find the way. Geez, nice try.

Oh, on that recomendation of a contractor though, yes its possible, it may even be possible for us to do it, but we would first have to know what IT was, and second since you appear to stand wall yourself the question would be why would you need someone else to help you.

One thing that I would never do is lend our services or the services of an associate to any one who may be 'iffy' in some way. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that there's something fishy going on but your website tells large stories of 5000 distributors for your own block and to put that into perspective that's about 6 times more distributors than actual contractors in the biz worldwide.

I'll be forwarding your message to Victor, lets see how long it takes for you to get the boot.

Dave,

Please do share.  What are these new technologies.  I will be in Orlando for the NAHB show.  Any chance these guys will be there?

Leonard

From what I'm told at the moment the answer is yes for Tegrant, but they plan on a launch a little bit earlier in the new year if that's not too much of a gamble if you get the drift.

The panel guys I don't know yet and truth is I don't think they actualy know either, I don't know if they want us to stand them a project before the launch or do it blind. If I were them I would wait until there were a few projects on the ground. Dealing with large corporate entities isn't like dealing with people who make decitions by themselves and I'm just the guy who stands the wall so I'm not involved in the discussion side of things and frankly I don't care to be, its the simple life for me thank you very much. One thing I can tell you is they passed the 150mph missile test in Miami Dade as a stand alone without concrete and the test guys seemed very exhited saying they had seen nothing like it before.

All block holds concrete.