Green Home Made From Concrete Converted to Live Classroom

Chester County, PA's newest green home currently under construction was converted into a hands-on concrete form classroom last week for the benefit of architects, builders, engineers and government officials.

ShareThis Email PDF Print

Built entirely with Insulated Concrete Forms, 60 Bragg Hill's lower level is ready for filling with concrete.

With ICFs we can build smarter, stronger, greener homes than ever before

West Chester, Pennsylvania (Vocus/PRWEB) December 07, 2010

60 Bragg Hill, is Chester County, Pennsylvania's newest green home currently under construction. The barn-inspired design is being built with Insulated Concrete Forms (ICFs), a highly efficient, sustainable system that uses site-poured concrete sandwiched between firm insulated foam. The onsite seminar was entitled "Demystifying Concrete Design and Construction" and enabled the trade professionals to interact with industry experts on ICF techniques and best practices.

Rich Jones, general manager of Foam Form Technologies, provider of the ICF wall forms and Lite-Deck insulated stay-in-place concrete deck forms for 60 Bragg Hill, sponsored the event for trade professionals. Jones spoke to the assembled group and offered them a unique first person exposure to concrete form construction. "For over 40 years, insulated form construction concrete has been available for residential as an alternative to traditional stick construction. Due to the advances in ICF design and manufacturing, we can build smarter, stronger, green homes with concrete than ever before," said Jones.

Matthew Moger, the architect of 60 Bragg Hill discussed how the ICF system is comprised of concrete and steel, the basic building blocks of the modern architectural movement. "For me," Mr. Moger added, "ICF construction offers a unique opportunity to design houses that are liberated from residential conventions, i.e. entire corners can be removed and infilled with non-structural glass curtain walls. Floors can be set at any height without breaking the contiguous super insulated shell." In summary, ICFs allows the designer to create more compelling architecture.

Mark Thompson, 60 Bragg Hill contractor, discussed and demonstrated how smart the new generation of ICF products are to work with. Not only to they enable his team to assemble walls and corners faster, they are stronger, stiffer and perform much better during the concrete pour. The results were clear to the attendees. The lower level of 60 Bragg Hill had been infused with concrete the week before and the crew was already assembling the form blocks for the main level of the home.

The homeowners, Mr. and Mrs. Leonard talked of the green aspects of building with ICFs. "Not only do we feel a sense of security in a strong ICF home, we know that ICFs are made from 100% recycled content and that they provide a healthy indoor environment. Due to the lack of air infiltration through the walls, our home will be virtually dust and pollen free." To Mr. Leonard, sustainable means not having to recycle the home's building materials for 100 years or more.

Foam Form Technologies is the Northeastern US provider of LiteForm Technologies Insulated Concrete Form building systems. Located in Malvern, Pennsylvania, FFT is licensed by Lite-Form Technologies to manufacture and distribute “Lite-Deck” an Insulated Concrete Foam Form for Concrete decks, roofs, and walls and distribute “Flexx-Block”, a stackable insulated concrete wall form.

###