Anybody have experience in living in an Insulated Concrete formwork (ICF) House?

D

Dinny

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Hi,

I have just received planning in the South East and am looking at starting to build early next year.

I am very interested in the ICF building system. Wondering if anyone has experience of building and living in an ICF house. What are the pluses and minus of living in the house for example heating, sound proof, flexibility of putting up shelves, curtain poles, kitchen units or are you stuck to certain areas were you can place fixings etc?

Thanks for any feedback
 
I am just about to move into one - this weekend. Already the house is roasting and my heating is on the lowest level - we have UFH with Geothermo. Its 23deg.

With regards to the kitche we had no problem fixing the kitchen to where we wanted it... Curtain poles are only going up now as we speak but I do not think this is an issue. The skirting also we glued to the walls in some rooms and in others screwed them.

If you can wait a couple of weeks I can post back and let you know how I am getting on. If Mr Polo is in the bedroom I have to go into the hall to call him, without doors so so far so good.
 
Polo1

That would be great thanks.

How did you finish the external of your house?
 
polo1 said:
If Mr Polo is in the bedroom I have to go into the hall to call him, without doors so so far so good.
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Keep in mind that not all ICF solutions include internal walls. The ICF is literally for the perimeter wall of the house. I was looking at ICF at 1 point and was on site with 3 companies. 2 were perimeter wall only.

In a nutshell, sound proofing internally isn't necessarily a feature of ICF.
 
Thanks for the feed back.

Seems to be a lot of posts on the build and reasons for and against using ICF.

I am looking for feed back from people who have experience of living in an ICF property or have heard from people who have.

It would be an expensive mistake if went with the wrong build type but would't like to be put of by people who are afraid of new methods


Thanks

Dinny
 
Dinny said:
I am looking for feed back from people who have experience of living in an ICF property or have heard from people who have.
Click to expand...

I was all set to go with ICF. I had met a recommended builder and really liked him. He took me to see his own house so I could see what the outside felt like once rendered and to get a look at the overall house.

All was going really well until I asked how they had gotten on during the hot spell last summer. They said they just opened the windows and doors and allowed the breeze to cool the house. And with that ICF was gone...

A build system should try to maintain the same internal temperature regardless of whether you have the sahara or 20 feet of snow outside. ICF appears to be very good in winter, but not so good in summer. This house in particular was not designed to take advantage of solar gain so I don't believe it was poor design that caused this overheating issue.

I had heard about this issue before and to hear it from the person trying to get my business was the deal breaker. Also, there is a pretty damning thread on acrylic renders (which I believe are the recommended renders for ICF) here that came up recently.

If you do opt for ICF, I'd recommend you keep it to onces with IAB or BBA certification. Take a read of the certs too. I had one ICF company push the fact that they had certification which looked good. When I read the cert though it only certified the system when used as the inner leaf of a 2 leaf cavity wall, not as a single leaf rendered wall which is how that companies builds it here.

I don't fall into the category of "afraid of new systems" I feel because I'm going the poroton route.

Good luck,

SAS
 
SAS,

Thanks for the honest reply. I am keen on try to be as heat efficient as possible. The house will be over 3000ft and I would prefer to spend some time now on getting the right method of build that will be energy efficient in the long run as the cost of heating a house will only get more expensive.

Regards,

Dinny
 
Two of the best ICF systems I came across were Euromac & Integrespec. The window/door recess details were quite good compared to others. Other ICF co's tend to use timber supports around the reveals. I was comcered with dampness at these areas. Added to the fact that these systems require acrylic rendering. Now acrylic rendering is fine - if it is done correctly.
What stopped me from using ICF was due to the lack of experienced installers.
Integrespec had no one doing this is Cork. Euromac gave me details on a German installer who wanted to charge me about 50% extra over any other type of build.
I have since learned more about one of the major shortfalls ie such as what SAS has stated with regard to Thermal Mass.
ninsaga
 
At the planning stage and thinking of using ICF. Hadn't heard about the issue of overheating during hot weather. Just wondering would this also be an issue with timber frame construction?
 
overheating calculations can be worked out during a preliminary Building Energy Rating calculations.... if you are really worried (and personally i think it should be dealt with during the design) then source out someone who does the BER certs and engage them to do a preliminary cert....

It is incorrect to assume that a large thremal mass is a bad thing, if the dwelling is designed with good passive heating / ventilation features then this should not be a worry....
 
Hi Dinny

Well we moved in (eventually) in August and its going very well thank you. They house is extremely warm particulary in the Kitchen area but this is complimented by the fact that we have 25mtrs squared of glass in our dining area.. We have Geothermo UF heating also and we have this on at the moment at the lowest possible setting and to me the house is nice and warm.

We had the guy up who installed the UFH and he did temp checks all over the house and he says that we are not even loosing 1deg of temperature through the windows or anywhere else in the house so he was really surprised by this and says its the first time he has seen that. ie the temp going into the house is the same all over and we are not loosing anything. We installed alu clad windows btw.

I suppose the other posts in here about the house overheating in summer could be a problem but to be honest I would rather have constant heat than trying to heat a house but that is me personally. (I am a cold creature). We have had to open the windows a couple of nights while sleeping also cause of the heat but I dont see this as an issue.

Out electric bill was very small last month but dont think they did a reading so cannot give you an accurate figure (it was 60 for 2months - 3400sq ft house). The Plumber said that we should run the pump of UFH on very little based on the checks he has done so far but I guess the proof will be in the next couple of months.

if you have any specific questions let me know and I will try to answer.
 
Out of curiousity which ICF product did you go with e.g. Reward, Euromac, Nudura etc..

What was the declared u-value for the wall?
 
We used Nudura.
U value is approx 0.22. The thermal conductivity value is 0.037Wm K
 
Polo,

Thanks for the update. Will touch base with you in cold December to see how the heating is going if that is OK.

Did you use a normal roofing system or one which was spplied by your ICF guys.

I am leaning towards the direction of ICF for our new build.

Thanks again

Dinny
 
We have "regular" joist type roof with natural tegral truetone (sorry about the spelling) slates. We also put ply on the roof before we slated it and used rockwool insulation which I know helps..
 
Polo1, I was all set to go ICF but the external render caused me some concern, in relation to the qulaity of finish and cost. I looked at M2 which use a single panel of 170mm to 300mm of insulation with 35 mm sprayed on concrete on either side but I just wasn't convinced by it. I have asked the Nudura builder in Loais for a quote. Can you shed give any costs i.e. how much the external walls cost and how much the plastering cost? By pm if you prefer.

Thanks
 
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