Why You Should Consider ICF Materials When Building Your Home

If you have the chance to build your dream home – or even renovate a home to turn it into your dream home, as is the case for many people – you are a very lucky person indeed. But the process of building a home or even just extensively renovating one can be immensely time consuming and expensive, something that makes it unobtainable for many people who would otherwise jump at the chance to do something like this. However, there are a number of building methods that are both high performance and cost effective, as well as incredibly long lasting.

The first and perhaps most important of high performance and low cost building methods is that of ICF home construction methods. ICF home construction methods have actually been around for quite some time, dating back all the way back more than half of a century – in total, about 60 years. Such methods are not just utilized here in the United States, but in many other locations all throughout the world as a whole, making it an incredibly important system of high performance construction available to a wide array of different types of people.

But why are ICF systems so ideal? For one thing, ICF systems use light construction materials – at least, they utilize materials that are considerably lighter than other construction materials that you’d likely find in use all throughout the United States. This cuts down on waste considerably, which is just as good for the planet as it is good for your wallet. In fact, you’ll safe as much has 75 cents per each square foot of construction, which might seem like a small amount but will add up to be quite an impressive one when the entire scope of the property is taken into consideration.

And when it comes to the construction of a basement, ICF construction methods tend to cost as much has 40% less than other, perhaps more traditionally and widely utilized, methods of construction seen in common use throughout the United States. This can be attributed to the fact that, when ICF methods of construction are used, the number of steps in the construction process can be reduced considerably. And with less steps, it’s likely that less time will be spent and materials used, both aspect of construction that can drive up the overall price of the construction expenditure quite considerably, at least here in the United States (but likely in many other parts of the world as well).

And the insulation that a home with ICF construction has is incredibly high performance, to say the least. In fact, the high performance of this insulation is so truly impressive that the home owners or the people who are living in such homes actually end up knocking off as much as one quarter of their heating costs (and typically no less than one fifth of them) over the course of just one year. For many people, these savings are nothing if not game changing and incredibly beneficial at the end of the day.

This high performance can also be seen when it comes to the stability and the security of these buildings. For though you might not think that buildings made of such light materials would have high performance ratings at all, this is actually far from the case and ICF buildings are more high performance than those made from more traditional methods of construction by quite a long shot, all things considered. In fact, these buildings have even been found to be up to nine times as strong as your traditionally constructed building – and certainly no less than six times as strong at the very least. After all, the high performance of ICF systems is such that it has even been discovered that they can withstand winds that reach total speeds of 402 kilometers per hour, which is quite impressive by just about any standards and makes methods of ICF construction ideal to parts of the country and parts of the world that are prone to severe weather like hurricanes and tornadoes and other such natural disasters.