Readers of our blog will be familiar with the benefits of panelized construction, its ease of assembly and long-lasting durability. Yes, the panelized shell, including all the windows, doors and roof represents about 40% or the value of the building. And yes, a big chunk of the rest is plumbing, electrical, finish carpentry, drywall, tiles, appliances and a host of other items making your house what you want it to be. But it all starts with something you will never see, yet something that is vitally important to the integrity and performance of your house. Of course, it is the foundation.
I promise not to nerd out excessively here but allow me to shed a little bit of admiring and well-deserved light on the subterranean ICF, a method we are using in the 3 current builds. What is ICF I hear you ask? Patented in 1966 in Canada, Insulated Concrete Form, or ICF, is a time-tested, energy-efficient and highly durable method of constructing foundations or walls. Of course, in our case we use it for foundations only since the rest of the bones of our houses are provided by Bensonwood’s panels.
ICF combines one of the finest insulating materials – Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) – with one of the strongest structural building materials – steel reinforced concrete. The result is a foundation with excellent frost protection and other insulation features, durability and fire resistance. You can say that the foundation of your house resembles the bottom part of a bunker – not a bad thing in our increasingly unpredictable world.
And since we build all our houses to Passive House standard, we need to make sure that the whole construction continuum meets the requisite criteria. Not surprisingly, ICF is highly regarded in the Passive House world. Our current builds follow the co-called Prescriptive Path as defined by Passive House Institute US (PHIUS), the leading standard-setting institution in the US. In plain English, the Prescriptive Path requires each element of a building to meet a minimum acceptable value according to energy code. ICF meets it with flying colors, as do all the other components of our beautiful, energy efficient and durable homes.
Have I lost your attention yet? Very possibly I am afraid, but this was the very minimum of acronyms and trade language this topic required. For those who are interested in more (and there is more, lots more!), give us a call and we can expand and dig deeper. And for those who already forgot what this was all about, fear not: your home will still sit on an amazing foundation, satisfying the most rigorous industry standards. As in life, it’s good to have a solid foundation.
