So, you’ve decided to build a home and you want to make the most of this HUGE investment? There are a few things you should know about the building process and the many years to follow before jumping off the deep end. Most people that I’ve come across getting ready to build a home put a lot of thought and energy into the process of designing and building their home and absolutely no thought about living in this home and paying the bills to run and maintain this home. Don’t make that mistake! You CAN have your cake and eat it too, if you plan for both. I built my own home with no prior home building experience and am very proud of that fact. My home is a 3400 sq-ft two story home with an open floor plan, wrap around porch, two car garage, balcony on the back of the house, two fireplaces and a game room. It was a huge accomplishment and took me right at two years to complete. I had to learn a lot of things a long the way but I hope to pass on all the tricks and tips to those interested. You’ve come to the right place for help and discussions along the way. First you need to decide if you’ll contract the building process out or do the work yourself. I did about 75% – 80% of my home and contracted out the rest. If you have the patience, time, and some mechanical aptitude you’ll gain immediate equity in your home by doing some of the work yourself. This is called sweat equity and I have well over $100,000 dollars of it in my home! Even if you don’t decide to build the home yourself I strongly recommend that you learn as much as possible about the process so you can speak your concerns to the contractors and not get taken advantage of. I would recommend buying either BuildWisely or How to Build a New Home to learn about some of the major steps to building a typical home. After reading these you’ll be in a better situation to ask the right questions about building an ICF Energy Efficient Home on here. Of course you’re welcome anytime and there are no stupid questions as far as I’m concerned. Remember, I had no prior experience and am sure I asked some pretty stupid questions along the way.
The main reason for this article is to convince you of which material you should use to build your home and the best resources to get the job done. There are a lot of decisions to make when designing your home but I hope that you take my advice on the construction material. I built my home using Insulating Concrete Forms (ICF) from Polysteel ™. I don’t get any money from them or anything and don’t have any experience on other types of ICF’s; Polysteel is just what I used so it’s what I know. Some of the important factors of building an energy efficient home are categorized below:
Cost to build
If you’re wondering about the cost to build an ICF Energy Efficient Home then here are some considerations. There was virtually no difference in cost for me to build my home using ICF’s vs. wood or block construction. Block in fact would have been much more expensive. One thing to consider is the price of concrete. At the time I built my home concrete was about $75/yard, now it’s around $100/yard. Wood prices have also continued to climb but I don’t know at what rate compared to concrete. A block home is very labor intensive and I would not recommend doing this yourself unless you’re a mason. It takes experience to get straight walls and good bonding of the blocks. In contrast to building a block home, ICF’s are very easy to use to build your home, even with no experience. It’s like using building blocks to build the exterior of your home. They come pre-formed and simply glue and snap together, then you brace all corners, door and window openings, make sure the walls are straight and braced off, then pour your concrete. You can rent a concrete truck and do the pour yourself as well! Then all the wood that you used for bracing the walls and corners are used to frame the inside of your home so there is little to no waste! From the calculations that I made on my home taking current concrete prices at $100/yard it would still take me less than 3 months to break even with the lower electric bills! And from then on those lower bills are pure savings! So for me there is no doubt that ICF’s are the way to go.
Ongoing and Maintenance costs
When thinking of building an ICF home you should also consider the ongoing and maintenance costs compared to other building materials. If you build your home with ICF’s the exterior walls of your home are nothing but concrete and Styrofoam. You don’t have to worry about termites, carpenter ants or any other type of bug infestation, which is very important where I live in Florida. You don’t have to worry about wood rot or any maintenance regarding the maintainability of the exterior walls of your home which will literally save thousands of dollars over the life of your home. You don’t have to worry about termites and bugs with block homes either but you don’t have the insulation R-value either, which brings me to my next point. The savings with ongoing costs such as electric bills and gas bills will blow your mind! My bills are almost three and a half times lower than houses comparable to mine! That’s right, this summer my highest electric bill was $150 when other homes of comparable size where anywhere from $400 – $600!! OUCH! I asked around and collected data from friends in those homes so you can take that information to the bank, I’m not making it up, I have no reason to. Plus, my home is entirely electric and I’m on well water. I say that to show you that the cost to run my home in its entirety, at its highest, was $150. Some people had the same electric bills as me but were on city water (no electricity used for a well pump which I have) and gas heating and cooking (which is not reflected in electric bills). I couldn’t find anyone to come even close to my bills if you added in their gas bill. And before you say I tried to keep it that low by skimping on comfort, forget it! My wife and I kept the house at 76 degrees F all summer long and several days there was a heat index outside well above 100 degrees F. My wife cooks every night on our electric stove, I watch TV every night on our 46 inch LCD TV, and my wife loves to keep just about every light in the house on (we do use energy efficient bulbs though). So we aren’t trying to save every dollar on our electric bill, it just happens on its own because of the construction that I used to build my house. And the icing on the cake is my house has an open floor plan (the upstairs is open to the downstairs below so you can see down into the living room and foyer). This type of floor plan is notoriously hard to heat and cool because the open space is so large. That didn’t matter though; my home was much cheaper to operate HANDS DOWN than both single story and two-story homes of comparable sizes, COMBINED!
Tax Benefits
Another cost consideration when building an energy efficient home are tax credits. That’s right. Your going to build your home for the same or a slightly higher cost (which will be redeemed in less than six months), your going to save money on ALL your bills, and the kicker……..the IRS is going to give you some benefits on your taxes! Why would you build anything else? You can check out all the tax benefits, grants and loans out there by going to www.energystar.gov I will be getting several tax benefits and credits on this years return! And I actually paid less to build my home than using conventional methods. Of course I put a lot of work into it but its well worth the small sacrifice.
Safety
Some other thoughts about building an Energy Efficient ICF home are the safety factors. One of the most important of all the benefits of building your home with ICF’s are the safety and security they provide your family. My ICF home has 11 inch walls, 5 inches of Styrofoam and 6 inches of concrete. ICF’s have proven resistance to tornados, hurricanes, and earthquakes as well as unparalleled fire protection. They were once used to build tornado safe rooms for goodness sake, and now you can use this type of building material to build your home! ICF walls are 2 to 4 times stronger than the maximum design wind load required by the Uniform Building Code and I know that the ICF I used, Polysteel, has been independently tested to withstand flying debris driven by a 250 mph wind. That’s something to brag about! I could go on and on about the safety of building your energy efficient home with ICF’s (like how ICF walls are 4 to 9 times stronger than the maximum design earthquake load required by the Uniform Building Code) but I think you get the point.
Comfort
One thing you want to consider before building your home is the comfort. Now if your like most people you probably haven’t thought of how important it is to keep your home quiet and comfortable to be in, but think of this. With ICF exterior walls there is a balance created by the heat being emitted from your concrete wall and your body heat loss. This balance creates a stabilizing effect on the interior environment, leaving you with an unequaled sense of comfort in summer or winter. And this is a huge difference that you’ll notice immediately. And it won’t take anything on your part to make this happen, and your electric bills will be much lower for it. Another factor related to comfort is the temperature difference between the floor and ceiling. In buildings constructed of conventional materials, the temperature difference between the floor and ceiling will range from 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit. By comparison, the temperature difference from floor to ceiling in an ICF home is typically less than 2 degrees Fahrenheit. This is why my home with an open floor plan is still half as cheap to heat and cool than a home of comparable size made from conventional materials.
You’ll also want to think of sound protection, especially if you live an a suburban area and have neighbors. The combination of concrete encapsulated within high density expanded polystyrene provides a superior barrier to the sounds and noises of the outside environment. This creates a virtual sound proof barrier in which you’ll live. So turn up the radio and don’t worry about what the neighbors will think, plus you don’t have to worry about all the outside noise ruining your sweet home escape. For the ICF’s that I used they claim a Sound Class Rating of 48 when finished with standard 1/2″ drywall.
Environment
Now some of you out there will be made that I put this last, but for me saving the whales has never been a priority. I didn’t build my home to save the rain forests or reduce my carbon footprint, but fortunately I still have probably contributed to both. By building an energy efficient ICF home I used less wood cut from forests and use less power to operate my home which has some positive impacts on the environment. This was not a priority for me but I’m glad to have contributed. If you’re a serious environmentalist and this was the only reason you’d want to build an ICF home then by all means, go do it! You can feel good about helping the environment and still save all kinds of money.
So whether you decide to build an ICF home for the environment, safety, comfort, to save some money or whatever your reasons are, I highly recommend going for it! Don’t let anyone tell you that it will take longer and don’t get in a rush to build a home that will be inferior to what you could have. It’s a huge investment and you want to do it right the first time. I built my own home and you can too. I want to help all you out there build your own home using ICF’s. Please feel free to discuss building an Energy Efficient Home on this site and talk to all kinds of people in the same boat as you. Talk to me and ask me anything. I will be adding all kinds of tips and tools to this website periodically to help all you out there build your own Energy Efficient ICF home. My website is an open forum blog website so builders you are more than welcome to join in the fun, help everyone out and join the team. Together we can all benefit in this growing industry!
