Because it's not a monolithic wall structure.

And "Breathable" basically is synonymous with "leaky".

Part of the reason you go with ICF is a uniform structure with minimal penetrations to reduce energy waste due to heating/cooling loss.

"Breathable" is NOT synonymous with "leaky". It usually refers to water vapor permeance, not permeability to air or liquid water.

But on the face of it Durisol etc. looks fairly prone to actual air leakage and water wicking, possibly even liquid water permeable, and not as easy to air seal as monolithic poured concrete, though with direct applied stucco or plaster it's probably not bad.

poly ICF men always throw up the "leaky " argument for durisol
the instructions state specifically that you MUST parge coat it inside and out --which gets rid of the leaky argument. modern energy efficent house --you do not want breathable you want and need MVHR
all the fresh air you want --but retianing 90% of the heat or cold you have put in the building

Thank you scottishjohn for explaining how Durisol works and has worked for 60 years without the issues some bring up when you mention Durisol.

you could use "spider Ties" and the re is another brand that works the same .
a concrer "bunker walls tied to concrete roof is going nowhere
attach spider ties to plwood for concrete formers -then attach what ever your green choice of insulation is to the outside of it and then clad with material of your choice
re use plywood for interior stud wall,or maybe just cast them as well,lots more thermal mass
If you use thicker ply for formers then it could be used as flooring --no waste if done correctly.
will be more labour intensive than polyformers --but if DIY --that could be a positive --do it a bit at a time --concrete is not going to degrade if left open to enviroment

If I were 20years younger and lived in a less wet area .
I would build with "cob" or adobe-
or maybe a hybrid --concrete framed well tied into a re-enforeced concrete raft founds with infill .
you got lots of choices

Posted By scottishjohn on 20 Dec 2018 11:17 PM
poly ICF men always throw up the "leaky " argument for durisol
the instructions state specifically that you MUST parge coat it inside and out --which gets rid of the leaky argument. modern energy efficent house --you do not want breathable you want and need MVHR
all the fresh air you want --but retianing 90% of the heat or cold you have put in the building

Whenever I hear performance numbers on a house deliver in PERCENTAGE terms my BS meter goes off. (What's that smell?)

So, 90% of the heat you put is retained?

If that were actually TRUE it would get hotter than hell indoors just a few days even without turning on the heat. :-)

Even sleeping humans are putting 200-250 BTU into the house every hour, and if only 10% of the heat inputs are leaving the temperature of the house is monotonically rising over time.

This isn't a knock on Durisol, just the nonsensical performance claim.

Let me put in my vote for Durisol/Faswall. I have built 1 home with it, and found it to cost about 50% more than traditional ICF. that is square foot of wall to square foot of wall, NOT the overall cost of the home.
The claim of air leakage is true, IF it isn't parged. Everything has to be installed per instructions, no matter the product.
Another system to consider is Thermomass. It is a reverse ICF--concrete/foam/concrete. Very expensive, but perfect for what you want.
Lowest cost is traditional ICF.

Dana, I believe that Scottishjohn was referring to the efficiency of an ERV/HRV. I have heard there are models that efficient, such as by Ultimate Air or Zehnder; though we typically use models that are ~70% efficient.

Posted By rvalue on 21 Dec 2018 10:27 PM
Dana, I believe that Scottishjohn was referring to the efficiency of an ERV/HRV. I have heard there are models that efficient, such as by Ultimate Air or Zehnder; though we typically use models that are ~70% efficient.

My hat's off to you for the ability to parse the poorly constructed sentence and interpret the non-'merican alphabet My hat is off to you for the ability to parse the poor grammar non-sentence and interpret the non-'merican alphabet soup correctly! (Don't the Scottish schools teach the basics of English anymore? :-) )

You ever hear a Glasgewian talk?

It MIGHT be English...but most English speakers might disagree...

Posted By Dilettante on 22 Dec 2018 03:14 AM
You ever hear a Glasgewian talk?

It MIGHT be English...but most English speakers might disagree...

I lived a year in England in 1988/89. I was talking one day with a fellow American who was in the US Air Force. He said he was in a pub one evening talking with 3 other guys, a Scotsman, a Londoner, and a Welshman. All four were speaking English, none of them understanding the others!!

Posted By Dana1 on 22 Dec 2018 12:34 AM

Posted By rvalue on 21 Dec 2018 10:27 PM
Dana, I believe that Scottishjohn was referring to the efficiency of an ERV/HRV. I have heard there are models that efficient, such as by Ultimate Air or Zehnder; though we typically use models that are ~70% efficient.

My hat's off to you for the ability to parse the poorly constructed sentence and interpret the non-'merican alphabet My hat is off to you for the ability to parse the poor grammar non-sentence and interpret the non-'merican alphabet soup correctly! (Don't the Scottish schools teach the basics of English anymore? :-) )

I was indeed referring to the MVHR --

since when was real english used in forums ,or complete well constructed sentences in communication since the advent of the smart phone .
this forum editor is hardly up to date or easy to use
most of my errors are typos as I still am a 2 finger typist and old age ,fat fingers and brain moving quicker than fingers cause errors.
plus the "edit " function on here is a JOKE -

Ok cool. Everyone is good now

To summarize:

ICF - Good
Nexcem/Durisol - Good
Other building methods - Good

Just some like one more than others.

Posted By dmaceld on 22 Dec 2018 03:29 AM

Posted By Dilettante on 22 Dec 2018 03:14 AM
You ever hear a Glasgewian talk?

It MIGHT be English...but most English speakers might disagree...

I lived a year in England in 1988/89. I was talking one day with a fellow American who was in the US Air Force. He said he was in a pub one evening talking with 3 other guys, a Scotsman, a Londoner, and a Welshman. All four were speaking English, none of them understanding the others!!

Found your problem right there...

"MVHR" isn't the North American shorthand for that sort of equipment (HRV is), and was new to me.

I find Hindi-English dialect & accent more comprehensible than what's spoken in Scottish pubs! But in the written form I can usually make it out, despite the spelling. :-)

With myriad actual consonants traded in for glottal stops spoken Danish sounds a bit to me like a Scot trying to speak Swedish (and mostly failing. ;-) )

Posted By alwayslikedICF on 22 Dec 2018 05:33 PM
Ok cool. Everyone is good now

To summarize:

ICF - Good
Nexcem/Durisol - Good
Other building methods - Good

Just some like one more than others.

Some of it is "like".
But a lot of it is "understand where certain methods are (or are not) appropriate".
This helps you achieve the end you're looking for in the long run without compromising you in other ways.

that does not suprise me at all -- Mechanical Ventilation and Heat Recovery afar better description than your yanky version ,cos it decribes exactly what it does more accurately than the american version , no american can have the gaul to comment on other peoples english when you have bastardised so many of our words and pronounce things incorrectly . alluminum for example when it is spelt alluminium. then to start making racist slurs with your hindi -english quote --you just typical yank full of crap --you want to get your own country sorted out first --hows that wall going ? you would like to come across as that america is the leader in advanced house building ,typical ,truth is your way behind europe in alot of areas . "passiv house " --thats not american is it ?? PCM --heat batteries -again developed in uk --well scotland to be exact. same goes for your home grown ICF systems --not really leading the field any more -check out ISODOM 2000 -number of units available and quality of product far better than american ICF so you may have to learn some new mnemonics and do some new reading to keep up. only in america do they allow sips as below grade basement walls --not allowed anywhere in europe for good reasons rotten sips roofs --only a problem in the americas --cos build code is wrong--not a problem in europe --so want to build correctly you might want to check out european build codes

You want to parse that again?
In English?