EPS, ICF, and Tilt-Up Homes

Fancy Bunkers, a return to the home that really IS a castle.

By: George "Sonny" Hoffman

In no way affiliated with anyone doing anything, receiving no money from any enterprise, still offering my unbiased, self-proclaimed, expert opinions on a commercial-free website, the master of my domain.

I recently approached the head man seated at the mitigation table at the FEMA disaster recovery center in Waveland Mississippi and asked him about EPS, ICF, and Tilt-ups only to get as dumb a look from him as I get from the average IHOP pancake slinger. When queried further, he made this statement:

He was dumbfounded to hear that they had been out and code-certified since the fifties, perfected in the sixties and seventies, built extensively in the eighties and nineties, proved themselves in the double naughts, and were the habitat hope of the future.

That was news to him. Unfortunately it is news to most people outside the concrete home builders community, but within that community, they know they build homes no weather can reduce to a debris pile.

What is it?

In brief, a concrete bunker made to look like your dream house. If Godzilla were to emerge from our waters and begin dino-stomping all over the hood, he'd hurt his creature foot on your ICF home. When a cat-five tornado whips through the hood, the ICF home gets stripped of it's facade, loses all of it's windows, and the contents get all wet and dirty, but that house still stands as will any who took shelter in that structure.

EPS stands for Expanded Poly Styrene (Styrofoam). ICF stands for Insulated Concrete Form, a type of stay-in-place building block made mostly of EPS. The Tilt-Up is a slab of concrete that gets raised to make a wall, floor, roof, or a ceiling. Some are decorative molds with EPS insulation cores. Many Tilt-Ups employ EPS and ICF technology.

Monolithic concrete domes are joining the family, or the family is joining the dome gnomes, but the future is very clearly set in concrete, hereafter lumped as ICF. Katrina may have killed the stick-built home like the big bad wolf killed the straw house, but I wouldn't bet money on it, because way too much money is being made by promoting, protecting, and defending disposable housing.

You must be thinking the hang-up must be the cost. You'd be wrong. The ICF home costs 5-8% more to build but quickly recoops those initial higher material costs in operational energy savings and lower insurance premiums. The ICF home doesn't cost. ICF saves AND is very eco-friendly with the advantage of being damn-near fire proof. If your concrete house does catch fire, there is no need to rush over. The fire department can finish their meal or movie, then come put the fire out. If you aren't busy, get a garden hose and do it yourself.

Build the house yourself. With ICF building blocks, home building is simple and easy. You'll need specialists for some areas, and a concrete man consulting, but for the bulk of the building, you and some friends could put one up and save bundles along with several trees. For the do-it yourself-er, the ICF home is way less than stick-built, so much less that most who go the do-it myself route end up building much more house with the savings.

So why doesn't everybody know about ICF?

The government hasn't pushed and has been very slow to accept and certify. The insurance industry that should and would have led the way deferred to FEMA. Politicians push and pull FEMA. Lobbiests lure and drag the finest politicians money can buy. There are far more lobbiests for conventional home builders and material suppliers with a vested interest in promoting and defending the dumb, wasteful, ineffecient status quo that keeps them busy building and rebuilding. Lawyers stay busy litigating, and in our litiginous society, the lawyers make our laws after finding out which laws pay the most. The golden rule applies, for he who has the gold makes the rules.

You don't know about ICF for the same reason you don't know about anything that makes sense in the real world. Too many like the world to stay like it is or go back the way it was. New and different is scary and upsetting, especially to those who are heavily invested in the old ways and means. We eventually get beyond that conservative drag, and traditionally do that by leaps and bounds as opposed to a steady march of progress. A march is always held in check by the opposite of progress, Congress.

It usually takes a war or a major cataclismic event to budge the conservative old assholes, but their ways and means will guarantee both. As sure as the sun rises, one day, the ICF bunch will be the conservative old assholes standing in the way of progress by influencing Congress. For now, rejoice for Katrina has shook the house, the Senate too.

What to do? Get online and get thee educated. Google EPS, ICF, and Tilt-Up Homes. Talk to a builder. Visit an ICF or dome home owner. Abandon the past and become part of the future. When enough of us are doing that, someone bright people will see where we are going, get out in front and lead. We will, as usual, vote for the best looking one who spent the most money.

Until intelligence returns to rule, investigate the home building alternatives available to us today. As a former dome owner and builder I can recommend Good Karma Domes, Monolithic Domes, and highly recommend American Ingenuity Domes. For lovers of the box, the very wise and affordable ICF homes, I refer you to Polysteel and Eco-Block with the understanding that I have no personal knowledge or experience in ICF. Those two look good to me, but a concrete dome looks best to me. Either will survive any hurricane I have ever been in.

My intention is to attend the International Home Builders Expo in Orlando on Jan 11th of '06. Should that come to pass, I will have much more info and material to offer with pics and plans, so return here and see what develops.

Nothing developed, because I didn't go.

For the full story of Hurricane Katrina survival at ground zero, read In the Eye of the Storm