| The Ultimate Guide to Cutting-Edge Construction Methods
- Business and technical considerations
- Construction processes
- Training and supplier information
- Job-site experiences
- Residential and commercial applications
Draft-defeating, quiet, energy-efficient, strong, durable, lightweight, easy to cut and piece together, stably priced, and offering design flexibility—it's no wonder ICFs are being used in construction at a briskly growing 30% a year. If you want authoritative, detailed answers on whether insulating concrete forms are right for your business or project—on what it's like to work with them—on how they perform—on installation or post-installation trades work—you've come to the right place.
Look inside for:
- The business and technical facts you need to make pro or con decisions about ICFs
- Construction process details, including plumbing and electricity
- First-hand, from-the-site reports on working with ICFs
- Comparisons of ICFs in commercial and residential construction
- Getting a good ICF crew
- Estimating ICF jobs
- Tips from the pros on marketing; working with building officials, architects, and engineers; and more
- Future trends in ICF construction
- Training and supplier information
From the Preface:
This book was written to introduce contractors to the emerging building technology called insulating concrete forms (ICFs). ICFs are fairly new as
construction products go. But Because of their rapidly growing popularity, more and more contractors want or need to learn about them. For many, ICFs present an opportunity to expand their business by providing the customer with a superior product. For others they are a threat - competitors who use ICFs are attracting buyers and taking jobs that would otherwise have gone to a traditional contractor.
In this book we give you a basic understanding of ICFs, and we explain the things you need to consider when you're deciding whether to make the transition to building with them. For those of you who choose to adopt them, we tell how to get trained, choose a supplier, manage projects, and market your business.
We got our knowledge of construction and ICFs from a wide range of experience. Between us we have worked in different trades in the construction industry and as a general contractor. Later we founded a company called Building Works, Inc., which is dedicated to researching new construction technologies. At Building Works we have studied ICFs since 1993. In the course of that work we wrote numerous books, engineering reports, field evaluations, and construction manuals. We also worked on job sites with leading ICF contractors, went through most of the major ICF training courses and trained other contractors ourselves. Currently we work on a variety of research projects for the construction industry. This keeps us at job sites and in constant contact with homeowners, builders, engineers, architects, and code officials.
For this book we have drawn from the experiences of over fifty ICF contractors from all parts of the United States and Canada. They range from small builders of single-family houses to large commercial developers. The factual information about ICFs comes from dozens of studies generated and supported by numerous private and public organizations such as the National Association of Home Builders, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Insulating Concrete Form Association, and the Portland Cement Association.
About the Authors:
Ivan S. Panushev is a licensed engineer who has researched ICFs for the past three years. He is a graduate of three ICF training programs and labored on
several job sites to learn the details of ICF construction first-hand. His articles on ICFs have appeared in such magazines as concrete construction and he is the author of the Prescriptive Method for Connecting Cold-Formed Steel Framing to Insulating Concrete Form Walls in Residential Construction.
Pieter A. VanderWerf, Ph.D. is an expert on insulating concrete forms in construction who has been researching the subject since 1993. A columnist for
Permanent Buildings and Foundations, a trade industry publication, he is the co-author of two other books on insulating concrete forms: Insulating Concrete
Forms for Residential Design and Construction and the Insulating Concrete Forms Construction Manual. He also co-authored The Portland Cement Association's
Guide to Concrete Homebuilding Systems. He has served as a general contractor on ICF homes and for a year he moderated an online ICF message board.
Table of Contents:
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS; INTRODUCTION; Chapter 1: Advantages of ICF Buildings; Chapter 2: Benefits to the Contractor; Chapter 3: Market Demand;
Chapter 4: ICF Products; Chapter 5: Concrete and Steel; Chapter 6: The Construction Process; Chapter 7: Choosing Suppliers; Chapter 8: Training; Chapter 9: Getting a Good ICF Crew; Chapter 10: Other Subcontractors; Chapter 11: Estimating; Chapter 12: Special Construction Awards Programs; Chapter 13: Working with Building Officials, Engineers, and Architects; Chapter 14: Marketing; Chapter 15: Tips from the Pros; Chapter 16: The Future of ICF Construction; Index. |
