Concrete walls built with insulating concrete forms (ICFs) give a house superior comfort, solidity, durability, resistance to natural disasters, quietness, and energy efficiency. Use of ICFs is growing rapidly. They offer both home buyers and home builders a superior alternative to wood frame walls.

What are insulating concrete forms?
ICFs are hollow “blocks” or “panels” made of plastic foam that construction crews stack into the shape of the walls of a building. The workers then fill the center with reinforced concrete to create the structure. The combination of foam and reinforced concrete creates a wall with an unusually good combination of desirable properties: air tightness, strength, sound attenuation, insulation, and mass.

How does you benefit?
Comfort. Houses built with ICF walls have a much more even temperature throughout the day and night. They have virtually no “cold spots”, and sharply fewer drafts.

Dust free. The virtually airtight nature of an ICF building usually requires some form of ventilation that will bring fresh air into the home. By adding an air filter, you can achieve an indoor air environment that’s virtually free of pollen, dust and other contaminants.

Quietness. About one-sixth as much sound gets through an ICF wall compared with an ordinary frame wall. This sharply cuts the intrusion of noise from outside.

Safety. A home built with ICFs is much stronger than a conventional wood-constructed home and is resistant to high winds and storms. The majority of injuries in severe weather storms come from flying debris impacting and entering a structure. The reinforced concrete walls of an ICF building are virtually impregnable and have actually been subjected to government supervised blast-resistance testing at the U.S. Marine base at Quantico, Virginia with excellent results.

Fire Resistence. Walls built with ICF typically have a 3 to 4 hour fire rating. With no wood in the wall structure itself, the and polystyrene offer little combustion potential. The Phoenix ICF uses a modified polystyrene bead that includes a flame retardant to improve the fire resistance properties of the form.

Bug Resistence. Termites don’t eat either expanded polystyrene or reinforced concrete, so with no food source in the ICF wall system you can be assured that your termite problem is substantially reduced when compared to a wood frame home.

Energy efficiency. The superior insulation, air tightness, and mass of the walls cut the amount of energy needed for heating and cooling by 30-40%. This can save $200-300 per year in a typical home. In addition, it allows the installation of smaller heating and cooling equipment. That can reduce the initial cost of a house by over a thousand dollars.

72% Energy Savings Warranty. Phoenix Systems & Components, Inc. guarantees that homes built with Phoenix Insulating Concrete Forms (PICF) according to published Phoenix construction specifications will experience at least 72% total annual energy savings (require 28% or less total annual energy consumption) for heating and cooling, compared to the energy consumption required to heat and cool a similar sized and designed home (“comparison home”) having the same energy source and built to Phoenix specifications. (click here for Warranty Details)

Design flexibility. ICF houses can be completed with almost any interior and exterior finishes and can take any shape as easily as wood frame. In fact, some interesting effects, such as curved walls and frequent corners, can be less expensive to build into an ICF home