BRIER—Just off Poplar Way, builder Vladan Milosavljevic is finishing up work on a few 2-story, 4,600-square foot houses.
From the outside, the houses don’t look unusual, other than their size and the fact that their exteriors are made of stucco.
But inside those walls, it’s a different story.
A series of blocks made from polystyrene, popularly known as Styrofoam, reinforce the structure, serving as particularly good insulation.
“Good” isn’t a word that Milosavljevic, owner of MIR Co. of Bothell, would use; “excellent” is more like it.
That styrofoam block, known in the building trades as insulating concrete form (ICF), is filled with cement and reinforced with steel bars known as rebar, creating a long-lasting and virtually impenetrable building material.
“It’s like a bunker, basically,” said the builder, who goes by the name “Milo.” And the styrofoam blocks are simple to use.
“It’s like Legos,” he said.
Though ICF has been available in North America since the early 1980s, it has “really taken off in the last 10 years,” said Clark Ricks, editorial director for ICF Builder, the industry trade magazine.
He cited statistics showing a quadrupling in the use of insulating form concrete from 2000 to 2006.
Builders such as Milosavljevic like ICFs because they save money, are easier than wood to work with “and you don’t have any of the mold issues you have with wood,” Ricks said.
Homes built using the styrofoam forms for insulation are generally about 5 percent more expensive than houses of comparable size, Ricks said.
But that up front expense can be offset in what you save on long-term heating and cooling expenses, he added. The burgeoning “green” building movement has incorporated ICF construction techniques because of its durability and energy saving potential.
“They’re really a perfect building solution,” Ricks said.
Many common wood frame home problems, from insect infiltration to rodents and rot, don’t show up with this alternative building material, advocates say.
Milosavljevic, a builder for 27 years, said he’s switched over to ICF for all of his single-family residential construction projects. The material saves his company money mostly because houses are easier to build.
“Two people can put one floor together within a matter of a few days,” he said.
It took three men about two weeks to build one of his new Brier houses. A wood frame house would have taken a month or longer, he said.
“From now on, this is the system I’m moving to,” he said.
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