Cost
The initial costs of using ICFs rather than conventional construction techniques is sensitive to the price of materials and labor but generally building using ICF can add 3 to 5 percent in construction cost over building using wood frame. In most cases ICF construction will come in about 40% less than conventional (basement) construction because of the labor savings from combining multiple steps into one step. Above grade, ICF construction is typically more expensive, but when adding large openings, ICF construction becomes very cost effective. Large openings in conventional construction require large headers and supporting posts, whereas ICF construction reduces the cost because only reinforcing steel is needed directly around the opening.
ICF construction can allow up to 60% smaller heating and cooling units to service the same square footage which can cut the cost of the final house by an estimated $0.75 per square foot. So, the estimated net extra cost can be as much as $0.25 to $3.25. ICF homes can also qualify for green tax incentives further lowering the costs through tax credits.
ICF houses are less expensive over time as they are more energy-efficient requiring less energy to heat and cool the same size space. Additionally insurance costs can be much lower as ICF homes are much less susceptible to earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, fires, and other natural disasters. Maintenance and upkeep costs are also lessened as ICF homes do not contain wood which can rot over time.
Read more about this topic: Insulating Concrete Form
Famous quotes containing the word cost:
“Each is under the most sacred obligation not to squander the material committed to him, not to sap his strength in folly and vice, and to see at the least that he delivers a product worthy the labor and cost which have been expended on him.”
—Anna Julia Cooper (1859–1964)
“Life! Life! Don’t let us go to life for our fulfilment or our experience. It is a thing narrowed by circumstances, incoherent in its utterance, and without that fine correspondence of form and spirit which is the only thing that can satisfy the artistic and critical temperament. It makes us pay too high a price for its wares, and we purchase the meanest of its secrets at a cost that is monstrous and infinite.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“The President has paid dear for his White House. It has commonly cost him all his peace, and the best of his manly attributes. To preserve for a short time so conspicuous an appearance before the world, he is content to eat dust before the real masters who stand erect behind the throne.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)