Insulated Concrete Forms - Common Sense Home

ICF Construction – What You Need to Know About an ICF Home

January 27, 2018 by Laurie Neverman 41 Comments

Back when we were researching our “forever home”, we chose ICF construction for a number of reasons. It's tough, energy efficient and should last a lifetime with minimal upkeep. In this post, I'll discuss:

what ICF construction is
how it differs from conventional construction
why we chose Insulated Concrete Forms
how much energy is saved (for heating and cooling) by using ICF construction
how an ICF home performs during emergencies
ICF costs
whether it's suitable for the do-it-yourselfer
what it's like living in the house
recommendations for potential ICF problem areas

Let's get started! [Read more…]

Building an Eco Home – Floor Plans – part 5

November 4, 2012 by Laurie Neverman 1 Comment

The “Building an Eco Home” series is nine articles that were originally published in The Healthy Independent while we were in the process of building our current home. I have made only minor edits to include links and format for the online publishing. I will be discussing green building and remodeling in more detail in upcoming posts, so if you want to know more about a topic, please make a request.

For those of you who are new to our “eco-home”, let me provide a brief overview of progress to date. Our goal at the start of this project was to build a home that conserved energy and resources, was accessible for family and friends with physical limitations, and had enough acreage that we could fully pursue our interests in organic gardening, orcharding, heirloom plants and livestock and other outdoor pursuits.

Finding the right property in our budget was a challenge, but we did it. (Read more about that in part 2.) House placement and access presented some more challenges, but we finally broke ground in October 2004. Just about everything that could happen to slow things down, did, but we are finally nearing completion. Hopefully by the end of May or early June we will be moving into our new home. [Read more…]

Building an Eco Home – part 3

October 5, 2012 by Laurie Neverman 3 Comments

After all the months of waiting, we are finally building our new home! As of this writing, we have a large hole in the ground complete with footings and the beginnings of the frost walls and basement walls. I think our builder is probably as relieved as we are, as this means no more “tweaking” the footprint of the house and revising window and door placements. We also have (almost) finalized our heating and cooling choices, as well as our choices for potable water and “wastewater”. [Read more…]