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My new blog, Tracy DeCarlo's Home Building Lessons is live! For more practical ideas for building your home, click the above link.
Building or Remodeling? Do yourself a favor and increase your knowledge of the construction process and your options. Being informed can have a direct positive effect on the bottom line, the conveniences inside your home, and the future cost of running the home.
The Difference is in the Details: The Homeowner's Planning Guide to Building a Functional Home not only provides hundreds of tips like these, it also provides lives links to suppliers and organizations. This photograph-filled e-Guide shows you how to adjust the building sequence to your financial advantage while helping you create a healthy, energy-efficient home that works for your family - inside and out, from the foundation to the rooftop. “With dozens of “how to build
your new home” books available, what could be left out? Plenty, as author DeCarlo shows in her
practical approach to topics often left out, forgotten, or given scant attention. Readers will thank her
for raising subjects to consider in the earliest stages of planning a new home.”
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ICFs, Building with Energy-Efficient “LEGOs”
INSTALLATION: The picture below on the right shows how ICF walls are braced prior to adding concrete. In the photo on the left, concrete is being poured into the hollow core.
Integrated furring strips provide a way to attach drywall and exterior cladding, and a rain screen is generally formed into the foam to provide drainage between foam and cladding.
Plumbing, up to an inch in diameter, can be installed the same way, or a framed wall can be added as needed.
ENERGY-EFFICIENCY: According to the Insulating Concrete Form Associa¬tion, ICFs require an estimated 44 percent less energy to heat and 32 percent less energy to cool than comparable frame houses. An ICF wall provides a consistent R-value of between 17 and 26, depending upon wall thickness. (R-value measures the capacity of a material to impede heat flow: the higher the number, the greater the capacity.) These infrared photos, courtesy of Greenblock Insulated Concrete Forms, tell all
Construction: 1st Floor Concrete Block, 2nd Floor Frame The bright yellow colors in the above thermal image of a 2 story, standard-construction home portray the many areas of excessive energy loss. Most of the homes in my neck of the woods are built using concrete block, which has an R-value of about 1, comparable to single pane windows. Concrete-block construction provides durability in our hurricane-prone area, but it’s obviously pretty pathetic when it comes to energy-efficiency. Notice how the studs show up as vertical stripes on the 2nd floor . Wood creates a bridge, transmitting the heat between conditioned and unconditioned space. This thermal bridging reduces the effective insulating value of stud walls.
Construction: Greenblock ICFs www.Greenblock.com As indicated by the darker colors of the exterior walls, the thermal image above, taken on a cold night, shows very little heat loss from this two-story ICF-built home. Generally, homes constructed with ICFs cost from two to five percent more than those constructed of concrete block and stick frame, but reduced energy consumption and increased comfort provide on-going benefits over the life of the home. There are many manufacturers of ICFs across the US. For more information about this product or to locate suppliers in your area, visit The Insulating Concrete Form Association www.Forms.org IS THERE A SUBJECT YOU'D LIKE ME TO COVER? Let me know by sending an email to tracy@tracystips.net. WANT TO SEE MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS ONE? All past issues of this ezine are in the Ezine Archives on our web site. Click here for Ezine Archives ! WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR E-ZINE OR WEBSITE? You can, as long as you include this complete blurb with it: Tracy DeCarlo, author of "The Difference is in the Details" publishes the idea-packed, monthly e-zine "Tracy's Home Building Tips." If you're ready to learn how to plan a more durable, energy-efficient, and easy-to-live-in home, get your FR*EE tips now at www.DetailedSolutions.net.
By working with homeowners to focus on their daily habits and preferences, she helps them create living spaces that support and compliment their lifestyles, while at the same time teaching techniques to manage the bottom line.
I’d love to hear from you:
Tracy DeCarlo, Detailed Solutions, Inc. P.O. Box 161644 Altamonte Springs, FL 32714, United States Phone 407-814-2328 |
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Having
an energy-efficient
building enclosure is one of the major contributors to reducing your monthly power bills.
One extremely strong and highly insulated option for your exterior walls is ICF (Insulating Concrete Forms)
construction. ICFs are made from lightweight foam. The hollow blocks are—you guessed it—stacked like LEGOs to form
the exterior walls of the structure. When complete, the hollow core of each wall is filled with steel-reinforced
concrete to create an incredibly durable, energy-efficient, and quiet home.
Room
for electrical wiring and boxes comes from carving out the foam with a hot knife. To fill any gaps, foam insulation is sprayed into the carved cavity.
Tracy
DeCarlo owner of Detailed Solutions, Inc. and One Stop Green Home Certification, has more than fourteen years'
experience in the residential construction industry. As a Home Building Function Analyst,
Certified Green Professional, Green Certifying Agent,
and Certified Aging-in-Place Specialist, Tracy addresses the functional aspects of home
construction, design, and usage, including items such as energy efficiency, disaster mitigation, air quality,
aging in place, green building, plumbing, electrical, lighting, and storage. 
