Step right up and beat those high lumber prices!

[Resonator]

Lots of good youtube videos on building with ICF, one advantage in a tornado or hurricane prone area they seem to stay intact.

[Magicman]

We have a "red iron" home presently being built in our "hood".

 
The sun was wrong and made this picture sorta shadowy, but this is the new "red iron" home being built.

[mike_belben]

Well thats interesting. 

[Mooseherder]

That'll save a few banged thumbs and a lil piggy from da big wind blower huffing and puffing. :elvis:

[mart]

Great thread. The best way to make a small fortune with a sawmill is to start with a large fortune.  ;D

[Woodpecker52]

Red iron home means no termite problems. In all seriousness I have enjoyed my LT15 since I bought it 3 years ago, I paid for it in about 6 months selling salvaged wood.  I have it now to cut the occasional wind down trees etc. on my place or for neighbors, it is a great tinker and hobby but I enjoy retirement to much to go into business with it.  Tax man comes around every year to check up on any new building projects since last appraisal, Ha Ha, once I hit 65 my tax bill crashed to near nothing.

[farmfromkansas]

Those ICF basements were hot for a while here, there is one near here, just a walk out basement open on the south with no house on top, that has had mouse and rat problems, the vermin dig into the foam, hollow it out, and just come on into the house.  Real mess.  Think I would want to put something over the foam on the outside to try to keep the vermin out.

[mike_belben]

Bet that wasnt in the sales brochure.

[alan gage]

the vermin dig into the foam, hollow it out, and just come on into the house.

How did they get through the concrete?

Alan

[moodnacreek]

You used to be able to build your home with bundled news papers. I think today tack welded discarded micro wave ovens could work, I mean we need to stop killing trees.

[mike_belben]

With lumber and plywood prices the way they are youre gonna see quite a boost in alternative building interest.  Strawbale, cordwood, stone etc etc. 

[K-Guy]

I've been studying the way the Vikings and Celtic people did it.  :D

[Southside]

You building an Igloo there Stan?  :D

[farmfromkansas]

There is a space where the foam exists on the outside and the inside of the basement or foundation when you use the foam forms, the vermen just tunnel through the foam, and find their way inside the building. There needs to be a coating over the foam to protect it from the mice and rats. 

[Don P]

You are supposed to parge over them, sounds like they ran out of round tuits. I do have mixed feelings about them. We were building on one and were up on the floor framing, the backhoe was outside backfilling and we felt a whump. I poked my head outside and the operator said "Whoops!". He had whacked the foundation. We looked around but all we could see was intact foam. It had absorbed the impact but it was also impossible to see the concrete to see if he had broken anything.

They are well insulated and make a tight home. The foam is only so strong so you work your way around in low lifts at a time. We had stacked and were pouring a 2 story at one point and got going a little too fast. It'll blow out easier than ply forms, "Whoops!"

[Stephen1]

I have been fighting ants in my ICF and Sipps since I built 15 years ago. My qoute for my new baemnt foundation came in at double what I was quoted 2 years ago. I am now going to go with block.

[HemlockKing]

I have been fighting ants in my ICF and Sipps since I built 15 years ago. My qoute for my new baemnt foundation came in at double what I was quoted 2 years ago. I am now going to go with block.

Don't worry I'm sure block will be a fortune soon too, as well as everything.

[HemlockKing]

With lumber and plywood prices the way they are youre gonna see quite a boost in alternative building interest.  Strawbale, cordwood, stone etc etc.

I have so much stone on my land. Might try to learn carbide chisel shaping make some blocks 

[OldMontanaFart]

Built with 8" thick ICF back in '02-

10' high full walkout basement 1800SF, exterior foam covered with the resin-filled waferboard prefinished T-111 siding with the 8" O.C. grooves.  

Some interior foam has been covered with conventional 1/2" drywall, rest is still virgin foam and has undergone no visible deterioration.  

ZERO issues with insects or rodents-not visualizing how rodents can possibly get in as there are only what appear to be molded HDPE ties every 6" to hold the 2 form sides a uniform distance apart and to offer a nailing/screwing surface for interior and exterior finish coverings.  

These ties are embedded in the concrete/rebar matrix as the wall is poured and are too small to allow anything but an extremely tiny rodent to tunnel through the concrete [assuming they were able to chew and excrete the HDPE...]

With a "Super GoodCents" manufactured home craned into place over the basement and 2" of EP insulation under the basement slab and no basement heat source, this basement has never dropped to the freezing mark even during weeklong subzero [-28F] spells though it has approached it.  [NW MT].

2 8'x9' moderately insulated metal rollup garage doors in the E. end and 6 low-e vinyl doublehung windows in the south and west sides.

I put in a sleeved, perforated drain at the base of the backfilled walls, applied 2 coats of asphalt-based sealer and hung 6 mil plastic prior to backfilling.  So far not a drop of water ever in the basement...

[Okrafarmer]

Why with lots of pictures you could probably write a kids book Bestest Seller.

That's a pretty funny idea. It can start with the dad telling the kid about how they're going to build a tree fort together and every page can start with the kid asking, "dadddy, can we build the tree fort this weekend?", after which follows the dad's reasons why not: picking up the sawmill (or maybe ordered the sawmill but can't pick it up for 1 1/2 years), still learning to saw, can't find logs, found logs but they were rotten when cut open, blades are all dull, have to stack lumber, truck broke down, sawmill broke down, smashed finger loading logs, blades are all dull, have to clean up mill area due to neighbor complaints, fighting bug infestation, blades are all dull, etc.

The seasons pass. The kid is older every time he asks. Finally the dad is proudly standing next to a perfect stack of lumber and it's finally time to build that tree fort. But little Johnny is nowhere to be seen and come to think of it he hasn't been asking about building the tree fort for a while now. He finally finds little Johnny on the porch swing of the neighbor's house with their daughter. Johnny is too old to care about tree forts anymore.

The sequel of the book will be the dad trying to sell this lumber he no longer needs on Facebook. The title of the sequel will be, "Is this still available?" (joke might only be funny to people who sell on Facebook Marketplace).

Alan

So yeah, that sounds like a plot from one of the original Berenstein Bears books, from back in the 60's or 70's. Like the Bear's Picnic, or the Bike Lesson.  ;D