Never Settle for a Home You Don't Love

The comfort and efficiency of your new home will depend largely upon the design and the quality of the construction materials used.

Insulated concrete forms (ICFs) can provide your new home with added protection against heat transfer. This improves your home's efficiency and can significantly reduce your utility bills in the future. There are some tips that you need to keep in mind when opting to use ICFs to construct your next residence.

1. Add to the Exterior

Once you have the architectural designs of your new home in place, you don't want to alter the dimensions of the rooms within the home. Installing ICFs to the interior walls could result in the loss of valuable square footage.

It's better to keep the internal dimensions of your home true-to-plan and allow the thickness of ICFs to alter the exterior dimensions instead. ICFs are thicker than traditional wood walls, so planning to use them on the exterior is the only way to preserve the integrity of your living space.

2. Avoid Bump Outs

If you want to feature ICFs in your home's construction, then you will need to keep the exterior elevation of the home simple. You want to avoid any bump outs that might affect the installation of ICFs. Bumps out can be difficult to work around, increasing installation costs and delaying the completion of your construction project.

Opting to eliminate bump out details from your architectural plans will streamline the construction process and help ensure the efficiency of your ICF installation.

3. Carefully Calculate Loads

ICFs come in many different thicknesses. The internal concrete core of an ICF helps determine the strength of the product itself. You want to match the core dimensions with the load requirements of your home.

Keep in mind that it is always best to use the minimum level of load protection when adding concrete forms to each floor of your home. This will reduce the total weight of your home without compromising the structural integrity of the building itself. 

Constructing your own home is an exciting and stressful process. You can ensure that your future residence is energy efficient and structurally sound by investing in insulated concrete forms.

These specialized construction materials can not only prevent the transfer of heat, but they can reinforce your home so that it is capable of withstanding most natural disasters. Consider adding ICFs to your future home's design. Visit a site like https://www.hanoverconcrete.com/ for more information.