As a person drives through the United States today and passes various home construction sites he or she will most often see homes that have walls that are being built with standard two by fours. The wood used to create these walls is most often pine. If a person further explores these construction sites, he or she will likely discover that the stud walls are cut into to run plumbing and electrical through, stuffed with some type of insulation, sealed with vapor barriers, and then covered with sheetrock on the inside and a finishing look (perhaps brick) on the outside. All of these materials need to be cut to size, creating waste, and the process is labor intensive.
A less intensive and less wasteful method of constructing a new home's walls is growing in popularity in the United States. People are discovering insulated concrete forms (ICFs). A home constructed with ICF concrete blocks does not have two by fours in the walls; instead, the home's walls are first constructed using foam blocks that are stacked on top of one another. After the walls are the desired shape and height the hollow area in the middle of the wall is filled with concrete. A homeowner is given a solid steel reinforced concrete wall with over 4 inches of Expanded Polystyrene Foam.
Electrical and plumbing contractors can easily run their pipes and wires with ease. An ICF concrete wall is a great wall to mount drywall and siding onto because of the special measurement markings built into the foam panels.
The ICF foam block does not seem very strong on its own, but as the blocks are stacked up (almost like building with Lego's) they become a unified wall. Then, as described earlier, concrete is poured into the middle. The strength of a wall created using ICFs is astounding. A recent university test showed that these walls can withstand 250 miles per hour winds and the projectiles being carried by the winds.
Thanks To : Civil Engineering Soil Test Civil Engineer Bridge Works THE FUTURE OF CIVIL ENGINEERING
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