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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)

EPS does not off-gas. Fox Blocks forms do not and nev­er have con­tained any CFC or HCFC prod­ucts. The forms are made by a steam process that uti­lizes ​‘pen­tene gas’ as a blow­ing agent. The blow­ing agent dis­si­pates from the prod­uct with­in 48 hours of man­u­fac­tur­ing. Fox Blocks forms are odor­less, do not dete­ri­o­rate, and do not off gas.

EPS is list­ed basi­cal­ly under four prop­er­ty clas­si­fi­ca­tions – Type I, II, III and IV. The char­ac­ter­is­tics are based on the den­si­ty of the mold­ed foam which defines the prod­uct type. Fox Blocks ICFs are man­u­fac­tured as a Type II EPS with a den­si­ty of approx­i­mate­ly 1.5 pounds per cubic foot.

Taper Top forms are specif­i­cal­ly designed to pro­vide a larg­er bear­ing sur­face along the top of the wall. Typ­i­cal­ly, the increased bear­ing sur­face may be used to sup­port mason­ry, floor or roof loads. Taper top forms are used in the tran­si­tion from ICF to wood frame con­struc­tion and the taper top form would be the top form on the wall.

No, the EPS has no struc­tur­al capac­i­ty to sup­port any loads. Wood sill plates must achieve the required bear­ing from the con­crete with­in the ICF. A wood plate that can­tilevers ¹⁄₃ over the EPS and bears ²⁄₃ on the con­crete is allow­able. This can be done with a min­i­mum 2 x 6 plate. If a 2 x 4 plate is required, a taper top form should be used to extend the con­crete under the plate.

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.

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.

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 con­crete is nor­mal strength, min­i­mum 2500 psi (20 MPa) per build­ing codes. The mix design spec­i­fies a small­er aggre­gate and high­er slump than con­crete typ­i­cal­ly used for floors. Most Ready-Mix sup­pli­ers are famil­iar with an ICF con­crete mix design.

The con­crete mix is a high slump 5″- 6.5″ (125 mm – 165 mm) with a small­er aggre­gate size so the con­crete flows eas­i­ly. The per­son in charge of plac­ing the con­crete should watch the con­crete flow through­out the whole wall to ensure there are no void pock­ets. Inter­nal vibrat­ing pro­vides good con­sol­i­da­tion, elim­i­nat­ing voids.