ICF Foundations

ICF Foundations: Things to Know Before You Build

Are you planning on using ICF to build your concrete foundation? Great choice! Your new basement will outperform the building code and give your buyers a more comfortable living space. To help your ICF project succeed, we’ve jotted down a few helpful tips on planning, design, and installation. Read on to find out more! Space planning with ICF Consider how you’ll plan the space. To be realistic, allot roughly half of the ICF basement to storage and mechanicals, and leave the other half for living space. With this much living space available below grade, explore the option of reducing the square footage of the main floors. This trade-off will optimize the home’s floor areas and save your buyers money. Keep in mind that ICF works above grade too. Upgrading your main floor walls to ICF will speed up installation, reduce your project’s material use, boost the home’s energy efficiency, and free up some floor area. Design with ICF in mind Regardless of the basement’s intended height, try to design your walls to a 4-inch height increment. This way you can use a combination of our regular 16” tall blocks and our 12” tall V12 blocks and you won’t have to cut [...]

Solid from bottom to the top: How to provide a strong foundation for your new home

The foundation is the most important part of a new home construction. Its solidity and durability will define the structural load it can withstand. It also serves to make sure the load is spread out evenly, preventing any kind of uneven settlement. Solid and well-built, it offers a firm bed for construction, improving the stability of the whole structure. Various systems and materials are used to build foundations, but all have to adhere to certain basic criteria. For instance, you have to consider the type and bearing capacity of the soil you are going to build your house on. Settling, water, and frost are equally important aspects that should help you decide what type of material you are going to use and how. A solid foundation will offer a stable home for years. Foundations made with ICF are durable and energy-efficient Initially, concrete foundations were made by pouring concrete into temporary forms. Once the concrete was cured, it was removed from the forms. Over the past few decades, insulated concrete forms, also known as ICFs, have emerged as an innovative building material in the construction industry deemed the highest strength level reached with concrete. According to Keven Rector of NUDURA, [...]