ICF versus SIPS versus traditional framing. This is a question I get all the time. On the Build Show today, we're going to take a deep dive into all three of these systems.
I've actually built with all three of these types of construction over the years, so I have some personal experiences to share with you as well as some pros and cons for each one of these. Let's get going. All right, first up on this video. ICF construction, that's insulated concrete forms.
Most of the time when you see these, you're going to see a form that has insulation on the inside and the outside. You're going to pour concrete into the center, and then when you take the bracing away, the insulation stays. So in effect, you've got a concrete house with insulation on the inside and the outside.
This is a system that I like for many reasons, but let's start with this one right here. The big Pro of course is energy efficiency. You know, you've got that continuous insulation on both the inside and the outside.
There's no thermal bridging. There's no breaks. This is a really well-insulated house.
The other thing that I really like about this system is you've got huge thermal mass because you typically have a 6-inch concrete wall in the center of this, which has mass, which means that when it heats up or cools down, it's going to want to stay in that condition. So in the wintertime, when you're heating your house, that concrete's going to heat up, it's going to want to stay heated, and that cold's going to have a hard time coming in. It also means that there's less temperature swings on houses like this. You know, a lightweight framed house, it doesn't take long for that framing to heat up, and in the heat of the day, it's going to start radiating into the house. But on a concrete house, an ICF house, it takes a long time for that concrete to heat up, so that thermal mass is a big deal.
When I visited my buddies at AFT Construction in Arizona recently, they had a Foxblock house under construction. And it was really cool to see those Lego blocks and actually play with some of those Fox blocks. And it was super easy to snap those things together.
You could see how the plastic in the center would hold the rebar so that it's got a full reinforced concrete center. And I also like how on most ICS systems, you get a really easy attachment where basically the plastic is inside the foam on the outside. So when you screw into that in those quote unquote stud locations, You've got great holding power. That means you can hang your draw wall right to it on the inside. You don't need to frame it.
And on the outside, you could do siding. You could do expanded metal lath. Any of those things are going to screw right on there and hold tight.
The big pro, though, when you're talking ICF, I think is durability. If you saw my videos recently from my trip down to the Dominican Republic, everything down in the DR is basically block construction, concrete block construction. Because they know they've got hurricanes, they've got storms, They've got wind.
And if we're talking concrete construction, those are going to withstand the storms. Anytime you see a storm blow through Florida and there's a hurricane that goes through, there's always a photo of a neighborhood that's flattened, but there's one ICF house still standing. That's the huge benefit for ICF, is durability.
You've got that concrete core there that's really going to withstand all the massive impacts. Storms, fire, wind, even bullets. If you saw my testing video I did.
A few months ago with Tori Bellaci, we were shooting at a wall. In most construction, those bullets are going to go right through. You've got a six-inch concrete wall. There ain't nothing that's going to go through that.
The last two things that I want to mention on the pro side of ICF is they make a particularly quiet house. A lot of that is because air sealing is really kind of done for you. Once you stack those cores up or those forms up rather and pour that core with concrete, really very, very tight airflow in there. But the only place you're gonna see air leakage is maybe your punched openings, your windows and doors. And if you do a good job of air sealing those, you've got a naturally tight house, which leads to a very quiet house.
And the last pro that I wanna mention is, I think there is a certain DIY component that I like about it. And I don't mean that you're gonna build the house yourself. What I mean is that you're gonna order in the blocks that you need, the end pieces, the corners, all these kind of parts and pieces.
And you're going to assemble it yourself just like a traditional framed house. You know, when I order my traditionally framed house from the lumber yard, I'm placing order for two by sixes and zip sheathing, but I'm assembling it all together on the site per my specifications. That's the same thing that's happening with an ICF house.
Now, there's a bunch of manufacturers. I'm not going to get into all that, but check out the video I made not too long ago with Build Blocks in Georgia. You know, we went out there with our friends, Polywall, longtime sponsor of the Build Show.
and Polywall makes a specific ICF waterproofing system that I really like. You have to be cautious about ICF, and this is where I'm gonna get into the cons. It can be hard to waterproof. On the outside of your building, you've basically got a foam exterior, and foam is hard to stick to. You know, you can mechanically fasten into those studs, but other than that, it's not easy.
So check out that video. Polywall has a fantastic product for both foundations and for waterproofing above grade. Very impressed, and it won't eat away at the foam like traditional systems would. Another con, I think, for ICF, although this is maybe more in the neutral category, is you want to find a builder or a subcontractor that's built with this before.
You don't want to be the guinea pig the first time the builder or the sub has ever used this ICF block before. There's enough intricacies in the system and if you make a mistake, let's say you pour a wall out of plum, there's not much you can do to fix that, right? So you really want a builder who's done it before, maybe made the mistakes on someone else's job five years ago and had that pain of trying to fix it. So if you can find someone that has some experience, I think there's a lot of pros to this system. But again, don't be the guinea pig.
Another con of this system is you really want to be cautious about termites. Termites love tunneling through foam. Now there's nothing really to eat in that foam, but let's say if you had a wood-framed roof, they could tunnel up through that foam and start chewing on your roof. And this is actually another downside or con I would say of ICF is what do you do about the roof?
Now I did a little research for this video. I'd never built one before. But there actually are some roof systems out of ICF. For instance, the guys at Quadlock on their website, they've got a great couple details on ICF roof systems.
And I think I'm going to actually get to see one of their jobs under construction when I go to Vancouver in December. I've got a week-long tour coming up in December, so hopefully we'll see some of that. But I think that's a little bit of a con, is what do you do with the roof? So you might check out the ICF roof systems.
I think if you're going to build an ICF house and you're doing it for durability and stormproofness in particular, I think you really ought to consider doing a roof and ICF as well. The last con I want to mention is anytime you build a really high efficiency house, you can have condensation and moisture issues. So if you're going to build an ICF house, you really need to think critically about your mechanicals.
You're typically going to need a smaller system when it comes to heating and cooling, but you really want to consider adding a dehumidifier. I've had great success with the Ultra Air models over the years. I use them in all my houses down here in Texas. that even if you're building a house in Minnesota, you most likely are going to need a dehumidifier for an ICF house as well. Okay, next let's move on to SIPS construction.
That's a structural insulated panel. Now, I built a SIPS house not too long ago here in Austin, Texas. And when we're talking SIPS, most of the time what you're going to see out there is an OSB outer core and inner core with a center of foam. Now, you could use plywood, you could use all kinds of different options for the inside and outside structure. And in the center you could use different types of foam, but in general you've got anywhere from a 4 inch thick to maybe as much as a 10 inch thick wall with massive amounts of foam in the center.
A lot of pros to this system. This is a panelized system where you're actually going to build the house on the computer and a panel manufacturer is going to spit out all these panels and drop them on a truck. So that when you get to the job the framer is kind of assembling the house that's been pre-built off-site. like a big Lego system and putting everything together.
Now, a critical component of ICF is the joints, and you really want to make sure that those joints are air sealed correctly. There's a bunch of options out there for that, from pookies to tapes to gasket systems. Do your research because it's critical to make sure you seal those joints, especially in a cold climate.
And if you do any research on sips, you're going to come across some roof failures that were especially prominent. Really more like in the 80s and 90s, but I think they're probably still happening today. We're in cold climates, especially Alaska and northern U.S. climates.
If you have any air leakage at those seams, it's going to find a cold condensing surface in the wintertime, and you're going to have basically roof rot. So you need to be really cautious about the details when you put that together. Okay, now pros for the SIP system. The first and most obvious one, a massive core of insulation, really, really high R values.
And because you've got that continuous OSB on the inside and the outside, air sealing with tape-based systems can be pretty straightforward and you can get a very airtight and very well-insulated shell without having to go through a lot of hoops and do special details. It's pretty straightforward to get a really well-insulated, really airtight shell. I also like the roof systems.
Now, I started off with kind of a con there about the air sealing on the roofs, but a SIP's roof You can get massive panels, you can crane them in place, you can have all your mechanicals within the envelope of the house, meaning the air-conditioned and air-sealed envelope. This roof is really, that's a huge pro of this system, I think. The last two pros, I think, of this system are cycle time.
I think that you can see a reduction in cycle time if you have both a frame carpenter and a panel manufacturer that are in sync and are really delivering things on time and maybe have built with SIPs before. And I think that there's a benefit to having sort of traditional erection methods, right? We've got a crane.
We've got framers that have both nails and screws. There's nothing fancy here. It's not like SIPs where you're almost having a concrete guy build the shell of your house. Really, most framers could be trained on how to do SIPs correctly. Now, let's talk about some cons.
The big con for me is it's manufacturer dependent. And I'll tell you, my experience on a house I built not too long ago was with a manufacturer that's actually out of business now. They went out of business really during good times, which is not a good sign. And so I did not have a great experience. I had some panels that came out not quite right.
We had to do some field modifications. In the end, my customers got a great house that was really well built, but we dropped some of the cycle time benefits because of that. And I think that there was a lot of heartache that didn't need to be there. Now comment below on this video if you are a panel manufacturer or if you've had a great experience with a panel manufacturer. I'd love to know Who are the really top guys out there?
I saw several on Google searches, but I don't have personal experiences with them. I'd love to get out to a job site with a builder and a panel manufacturer that are really in sync. And that's my other con on this system.
Everything needs to be in sync. If your gears are grinding, it's not a good system. But everything falls into place.
A subcontractor that's framed it before, a panel manufacturer that's really good, an architect that knows how to design with that in mind. I think if those gears are meshing up, this is a fantastic system. If they're not, things can go poorly.
Which leads me to the next con, is you really need to detail these houses correctly. If you miss a detail, we can have problems. You know, if your major structure is OSB on the outside of the house and you have a leak, there's very little hygric buffer capacity, meaning there's not studs in there that could absorb that water.
There's not a concrete core that could absorb that water. and as a result Small problems can lead to bigger problems and I think that's the downside of SIPs is you really need to nail the details because a small problem can lead to a big deal later including potentially structural failures. Another con of this system which really is shared with ICF is it's really hard to remodel.
I forgot to mention that on the ICF but you know you want to change an opening, you want to cut in a door, expand a window, it's not easy on an ICF house nor is it easy on a SIPs house. compared to a traditionally framed house that really everybody knows how to remodel those houses. And the last con I think is probably cost.
You know, again, you're going to be more than traditionally framed here. It's going to be really hard to nail down how much more. I think probably at a minimum you want to assume it's probably 5% to 10% more, but it could be as much as 15% or 20% more for SIPs.
Again, comment below if you have special or specific experience, if you're a builder who's done this before. Now, In between these two and before I get to traditional framed house, I do want to mention a system that kind of doesn't fit with either one of these monikers. And that's with my friends at Bensonwood. You know, they're building houses up in Walpole, New Hampshire that are sort of a Sips, sort of a traditional framed house.
I built one of them down here in Texas a couple years ago and had an amazing experience. Like the polar opposite of my Sips experience. Super pro team.
Impressive engineers and staff and architects that helped us get everything together so that when the panels actually arrived on site, man, everything went together super smooth and easy. And we're talking super insulation and super air tightness. Again, this is not quite the same system though.
Stay tuned for some future videos. I'd like to talk more about them in the future, so hopefully we'll get a chance to shoot some videos with them. But check them out if SIPS is on your radar. Now, last, let's talk traditional frame.
99.999% of the houses built in North America today are traditionally framed houses. And of course, that's the big pro for the system. This is a system that's been around for hundreds of years.
America has amazing resources for lumber. We have massive forests that are managed really well. We cut down trees. Twenty years later, that tree is regrown and is ready to be re-harvested again.
So we have great wood resources. Another big pro of wood houses is that really they have a lot of capacity for a problem to occur without a failure to happen. As I mentioned earlier on a Sips house if you have small air leakage or small water leakage that can learn that can kind of lead to big problems.
On a traditional framed house we've had massive air leaks for years we've even had massive water leaks for years that don't always lead to failures. Now sometimes They do, of course. But, you know, if you've watched my real remodel series, that 70s house, there was no air sealing on that house. And frankly, very little waterproofing. And it led to massive problems.
But we didn't have any structural problems. That house was perfectly structurally fine, even 40, 50 years later, even though we had a not very good system in place. Now, we'll get back to that house. And that house, I think, is going to be a really interesting bellwether to how to build a traditionally framed house.
but build it with the benefits of some of these other systems, which is really good insulation and really good air sealing. So stay tuned for that. But I would say if you're going to build a traditionally framed house, don't build it light.
You know, don't go with 2x4 construction. At least consider upgrading to 2x6 or 2x8 construction and consider lots of insulation in the cavity or even better, lots of insulation on the outside of your house. In fact, you can make a traditionally framed house kind of a half-face SIPs by doing no cavity insulation and massive insulation on the outside.
Now, I did a house a couple years ago that I called a perfect wall house, which is based on Joe Stebrick's concept at Building Science Corporation, where we didn't have any inside insulation. And as a result, we didn't even use any drywall on the inside of the house. Everything is exposed framing-wise on the inside. And then we put massive insulation on the outside.
And that led to an incredibly durable house. In fact, Joe Stebrick says that house could be around for 500 years. Now that house is only a few years old, so we'll see, but I think there's a lot of lessons there that could be applied to even quote-unquote normal traditional framed houses in America.
The other big pros, of course, easy to remodel, trades know it, there's no funky things you need to do when it comes to the electricians, to running plumbing systems. All those things are pretty standard and straightforward, and really most experienced subcontractors in America are going to do a good job for you on that. There's no kind of hidden...
gotchas on those systems. The other thing I want to mention on traditional framing too is there's been a lot of advances in building materials recently. For instance, I've talked a lot on these videos about Zip System Sheathing. Huber is one of my sponsors. They've got a relatively recent addition into their team called Zip R Panels, which is foam bonded to structural sheathing, where when you install that sheathing on the outside, the foam creates a sandwich on the outside of your framing.
and gives you a continuous insulation, but also a really, really good water and air seal on the outside of the house in a more quote-unquote traditional way. So there's some additional materials and methods that I've seen out there that I think are making traditional framing more and more efficient, more and more durable, and more understandable and easier for the general public to understand and for builders to adopt those methods. Speaking of that, I do want to mention we've got a video coming up. pretty soon with my friend Jake Bruton and Steve Basic, where they've built some traditionally framed houses in Missouri with crazy air tightness, crazy high insulation levels, and incredible affordability.
So stay tuned for those from those two smart builder friends of mine. Now let's talk about some cons though in traditional framing. I think the number one con has to be durability, right?
You've heard me say from my friend David Nicastro, if it can't dry, It's gonna die. And that is so true with wood framing. We've got to use really good waterproofing methods on the outside. That's the number one priority for a builder is the exterior waterproofing.
Make sure that bulk water and rain can't get in. Make sure that foundations are waterproof. That's our main job as a builder.
Almost everything else comes in a distant second or third beyond that when it comes to priorities on the house. And if we do have those problems, that's where rot and mold take a hold. And ultimately you can't even have structural failures as well as massive indoor air quality issues on traditionally framed houses.
So pay attention to the details, especially the waterproofing. That's why I've been such a nerd about that over the years. And you've seen so many videos from me over the last 10 years on how to waterproof correctly, how to install your windows correctly, how to detail your joints and seams, how to air seal correctly.
All those things are super important to building a really good traditionally framed house. Guys, I hope you enjoyed a deep dive today into these three systems. Comment below if you've built with one of these systems and you liked it or you didn't like it.
I'd love to know what your experiences are, especially if you've got a manufacturer that you liked out there as well. Now, stay tuned. As I mentioned earlier, I'm going to head to Vancouver, a really cold climate. And my understanding is Vancouver, B.C. really has a ton of high-performance building going on.
We're hoping to get a tour of a QuadLock ICF job site. I think we're taking a factory tour of the Innotech. Window Factory.
They're building some amazing triple glaze products up there. And we're going to see some job sites that are utilizing some of Seagas products for air sealing. So we've got a really interesting tour coming up.
Stay tuned for some more details, because I think I'll have a speaking engagement or two as well on that. And by the way, I'm going to Denver next week to speak at a building science conference for two days. There may be a seat or two left by the time we publish this. I'll put a link in the description. But we've also got a Denver Builder Instagram meetup.
on Monday night. So if you're watching this and it's still November 2019, look for that link. Hopefully I'll get a chance to meet you in December.
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