New Form Building Systems
90 Heritage Park Rd., Ste 2
Bucksport, ME 04416
Phone: 469-2711            

Fax:  207-469-3567

 
 


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ICF Energy Savings

The benefits of owning an ICF home are numerous. One of the primary benefits is energy savings.

Near Zero Air Filtration
An ICF home is built as an envelope. No joints exist between wall and wall, or wall and floor. This prevents any sort of draft between interior and exterior of the home. Energy savings from near zero air filtration are obvious when compared to the large amount of heating and cooling losses experienced in the traditional stick built houses.

Consistent thermal envelope.
Another key benefit to ICF constructed walls, is the consistency of the insulation in the wall system. In wood frame walls, stud, plate and header areas are solid wood, which allows heat to be conducted more easily. The insulation, which is the real barrier to heat loss, is interrupted at these locations. This means that often up to 15% of your wood frame wall has no fiberglass insulation at all. ICF walls have a consistent and continuous 5 total inches of EPS insulation.

Thermal Buffering
One key benefit to ICF is the concrete’s ability to buffer, or slow the buildup of heat due to its large mass. Much like an adobe wall in New Mexico, heat slowly builds up in the wall, as the sun shines on it during the day, to release it into the interior during the night. This buffering, or ability to store heat and release it when needed, slows down the transfer of heat from the inside to the outside or vise-versa.

Superior Insulation Values.
Fact: ICF assemblies are up to three times higher in real R-values than local code built construction. In Hayesville, Kansas two identical houses were built, one using Insulating Concrete Forms, the other being traditional wood construction. A utilities cost comparison provided these numbers:

ICF Monthly Utility Cost: $20.68
Stick Frame Monthly Utility Cost: $49.49

This shows an astonishing savings of 58.2%. And the importance of this number only increases when we see utilities costs on the rise throughout the US. I should note here that savings well over 58.2% can be achieved with ICF construction.

 

 

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