SEARCH RESULTS FOR “W”

Yes, if the fol­low­ing cri­te­ria is avail­able for the design of a con­crete lin­tel (beam) over the open­ing – con­crete lin­tel depth min­i­mum 16″ (400 mm) or more with no point loads. Larg­er open­ings would require an engi­neered design.

Acrylic stuc­co is a thin coat fin­ish which can be direct­ly applied to the EPS insu­la­tion on the exte­ri­or face of the ICF. Fox Blocks pro­vides a con­tin­u­ous EPS sur­face con­ducive for the appli­ca­tion of acrylic stuc­co. All acrylic stuc­co man­u­fac­tures are famil­iar with ICFs as a sub­strate and each have their rec­om­men­da­tions for appli­ca­tion over ICFs. Note there is a dif­fer­ence in the instal­la­tion pro­ce­dures between acrylic stuc­co and tra­di­tion­al stuc­co.

No, ICFs in gen­er­al are cov­ered in the build­ing code and Fox Blocks ICF has a prod­uct eval­u­a­tion report that con­firms the prod­uct and appli­ca­tions meet the require­ments of the respec­tive build­ing codes in the USA and Cana­da. These reports are avail­able on our web­site.

Yes, mar­gin­al­ly high­er on the ini­tial cap­i­tal costs, but, it is a record­ed fact that Fox Blocks high per­for­mance homes out per­form in com­fort and oper­at­ing costs over a wood framed home. These cre­ates month­ly cost sav­ings for the life cycle of the Fox Blocks home.

Fox Blocks forms have a reversible inter­lock sys­tem on all blocks. The robust inter­lock allows the blocks to fit togeth­er very tight­ly, elim­i­nat­ing any require­ment for adhe­sives. A reversible inter­lock speeds up the instal­la­tion.

To alle­vi­ate the pres­sure from the liq­uid con­crete, the con­crete is placed in lay­ers or ​‘lifts’. The first lift is lim­it­ed to 4′ (1.2 m) of con­crete around the perime­ter of the build­ing. This allows approx­i­mate­ly one hour for the con­crete to set-up before con­tin­u­ing with the next 4′ (1.2 m) lift. The low­er lift pro­vides sup­port for the next lift as the con­crete is placed con­tin­u­ous­ly around the build­ing in con­sec­u­tive lifts to the top of the wall.

The assem­bly and place­ment of con­crete may take the same time as to build with con­ven­tion­al meth­ods. The advan­tage with Fox Blocks is that the walls are now insu­lat­ed, have a vapor and air bar­ri­er installed and are ready for fin­ish­es once the win­dows and roof are installed. These ben­e­fits will save weeks and/​or months depend­ing on the size of the projects.

Yes, but you will notice a light dust­ing on the sur­face and a yel­low­ing dis­col­oration of the forms. This does not indi­cate any detri­men­tal effects to the ICFs. We do sug­gest, that if the exte­ri­or fin­ish is not going to be installed with­in around a 3 month peri­od or more, the forms be pro­tect­ed from UV rays by installing a tem­po­rary build­ing wrap type mate­r­i­al. The pow­dery film must be removed with soap and water before the appli­ca­tion of a syn­thet­ic stuc­co fin­ish or water­proof­ing mem­brane.

Yes, con­sol­i­da­tion of the con­crete is one of the key ele­ments in the place­ment of con­crete in an ICF wall. Fox Blocks rec­om­mends inter­nal vibra­tion with a pen­cil vibra­tor, quick­ly in and slow­ly out.

Absolute­ly. The exte­ri­or walls are two lay­ers of con­tin­u­ous insu­la­tion, the den­si­ty of sol­id con­crete and a lay­er of ½” gyp­sum board on the inside all con­tribute to supe­ri­or sound sup­pres­sion of STC 50 for the whole build­ing enve­lope. Note: A wood frame sys­tem of equiv­a­lent STC rat­ing would be 2 x 4 studs spaced 16˝ o/​c, with 3½˝ absorp­tive mate­r­i­al, 1 lay­er of 5 /8˝ Type X gyp­sum board on resilient chan­nels spaced 16˝ o/​c, and 2 lay­ers of 5 /8˝ Type X gyp­sum board on the oth­er side. (Cour­tesy of 1995 NBCC Sec­tion A9.10.3.1 Wall #W5a)