Fox Blocks worked the Tilt Up Concrete Association Expo in Kansas City, MO. It’s cool working for a company that gives you a green light to pursue some different market opportunities. The Tilt Up folks are not known for using much ICF, but Tilt up buildings are getting furred out and insulated so here we come with a great alternative.

We have a new product called the Fox Tilt Insulation Furring System; it’s basically a knockdown ICF panel with a very slick insert that some smart folks at our company engineered in-house. The Fox Tilt Insert is a sleeve in, ratcheting, structural embedment fastener into the concrete. It’s the heart of the system; it’s what mechanically fastens the insulation panel and the plastic furring studs to the concrete wall.

Last year Fox Blocks decided we could add speed and value to the Tilt Up industry and it took all of 2 weeks to get the Fox Tilt insert engineered, mold made, and production started. I can’t stop grinning about the capabilities of our parent Airlite Plastics.

The Tilt Up Expo featured an outdoor exhibition of technologies and we did an actual concrete pour into a sample tilt up panel that had Fox Tilt as underlayment, and as a wet set array. You can see this demonstration in the video above.

A unique and interesting feature of this video is you will see me doing physical labor. A rare and wonderful thing – it is not to be missed. The real heavy lifting and knowledge base came from our associate Brian Smith; he has done multiple projects with this method and is true industry proponent. I edited the video and he is not in it much. It appears I am the expert. I don’t know how that happens.

Here are some fun things to consider. The Fox Tilt Insert stands ¾” from face of foam and therefore does not interfere with any rebar. Existing engineering applies. The Fox Tilt Insulation Panel is a flat panel; the thickness of the concrete remains the same. Existing engineering applies. All we are doing is providing a mechanically fastened insulation and furring system to either the interior or exterior face (or both if the sales guy is really good) of the tilt up wall.

So the reason this was so much fun at the Tilt Up Expo was showing off how fast we can do this and at how little it costs. So if you see a tilt up project specified to be furred out and insulated, or if you see a tilt up project that is specified as a concrete sandwich with the foam in the middle (yikes!) let us know. There’s a good possibility there’s a funner way to get the job done.