Your family's comfort and safety are paramount. This is the reason so many buyers choose Insulated Concrete Form structures to provide an environmentally and physically safe residential structure.
Insulated Concrete Forms are coming of age with the emergence of green and sustainable construction. ICF construction meets the public's demand for homes and buildings to be more energy efficient and environmentally responsible while also supplying the benefits of extreme comfort, quiet, and safety.
One of the benefits of ICF walls includes a significant sound reduction from wood frame walls. The ICF walls of course include concrete and foam insulation. The measure of sound is described by the acronym STC (sound transmission class), which is measured by recording the fraction of generated sounds over a range of frequencies through the wall. Conventional
wood frame walls have measured an STC rating of 36, which means approximately that the sounds were "audible but not intelligible." On the other hand, various ICF walls have measured between 44 and 58, which are described as between "must strain to hear" to "inaudible."
ICF walls include the foam and concrete as the insulating materials and therefore, more fully cover the walls when the walls are formed. In wood frame construction, insulation is added after the frame is erected. Typically, there are gaps along the studs and between insulation pieces. ICFs consequently have fewer cold spots than wood framed construction.
ICF walls perform better than wood walls regarding air infiltration. The interlocking foam blocks or panels and solid concrete significantly reduce the air drafts.
The R-value, or the thermal resistance, is the material system's resistance to the conduction of heat from one side of the medium to the other. The R-value for wood frame construction is typically in the 15-19 range. For ICF walls, the R-values are significantly higher, in the 23-25 range.
|