September 19, 2006

Construction

Commercial use of ICF on the rise

Insulating concrete brick in ICI growing

KORKY KOROLUK

correspondent

OTTAWA

After a generation of being limited mostly to single-family residential construction, building with insulating concrete forms (ICF) is both growing up and going up — as high, so far, as 10 storeys.

It hasn’t penetrated the office market yet, but there is increased use for it in mid- to high-rise apartment projects, churches, hotels and other commercial applications.

In fact, says Vera Novak, “commercial construction is definitely where the fastest growth in ICF is taking place.”

Novak is technical services manager of the Insulating Concrete Form Association, a Chicago-based trade association that draws its membership from all over North America.

In Canada, “there are several examples of large apartment complexes and hotel complexes four or five storeys tall that have been built with ICF and precast floor slabs,” she says.

“So there is a mix of ICF with traditional construction, and that’s opened doors, allowing the market to pick up.”

Novak’s comments were echoed by others in the industry.

In Ottawa, Ross Monsour, director of marketing for the Ready-Mixed Concrete Association of Ontario, confirmed there is a lot more high-rise residential ICF construction.

There are “also quite a few churches and retirement homes — places where the owners have looked at the benefits of ICFs, like low energy bills.

And in London, Paul Rawlings, of Rawlings Homes, said he feels commercial ICF is on its way to greater success than ICF residential construction.

“I think there’s a whole lot of benefits (in ICF) for a commercial building — and I think the biggest one is insulation.

“You’re basically building a structural wall with your installation already installed, and doing it in one step, instead of building your structure, then insulating it.”

That’s one of the attractions of ICF.

“Wherever you can pour concrete, you can build ICF walls.”

Paul Rawlings

Rawlings Homes

Although there are several variants of ICF available, all are designed around the same idea: forms of insulating foam that, when assembled, leave a cavity into which concrete is poured. The forms are not stripped, but left in place, providing a wall insulated on both sides.

That means shorter construction times, since everything can be done with one crew, and there is no need to wait for concrete to set before stripping forms.

Insulation ratings are high, fire ratings are high, and the structure is extremely airtight.

But there is a problem lurking among the advantages: Labour.

Some contractors have hired and trained crews specifically to do ICF work. On some jobs, ICF work is done by carpenters; on others it is done by labourers.

At the moment, no one is quite sure how labour jurisdictions will be sorted out.

That means, said Rawlings, that the labour situation remains a challenge to those who want to use ICF for commercial construction.

There is also a perception that there is some sort of limit inherent in the system that restricts the height to which ICF construction can rise.

Not true, say its proponents.

“It’s concrete,” said Novak. “It’s a concrete wall. That’s all you’re looking at.”

“Wherever you can pour concrete, you can build ICF walls,” said Rawlings. “It’s the same as pouring a (conventional) concrete wall, so whatever limit you have on a concrete wall, then you have a limit like that on an ICF wall. Or lack of limit.”

The beauty of ICF technology, said Novak, is that you use the same basic construction for both single-family homes and high-rise buildings.

“It’s not like a traditional market where you have stick framing for housing, but a totally different wall assembly for commercial. This is the same wall assembly. The only difference is that it’s thicker, so there’s reinforcement in there.”

While ICF construction is becoming more common, it’s still not something you see every day.

Because it is still not a large segment of the construction industry, the manufacturers “don’t have the resources to market ICF to the extent they need to,” said Monsour.

There are, though, at least a few manufacturers who have programs to sell the concept to architects and engineers, said Rawlings.

And another builder, Paul Vincent, of Jamesway Construction Group in Kitchener, said manufacturers “were very content to remain in (the housing) market.”

“They didn’t have a huge vision to go forward. And even today they do not really support us in our quest to take this product to the next level.”

And that’s important to him, because Jamesway has made ICF construction a specialty, has put up several mid-rise buildings with ICF, and presently has a 10-storey ICF apartment under construction in Waterloo.

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