SEARCH RESULTS FOR “R”

I had a call this week from a con­trac­tor who want­ed to know if there was an easy way to build a two foot jog into a wall. This brought back flash­backs of when I used to attempt to inter­lock cor­ners think­ing the strength of the inter­lock was going to hold things togeth­er dur­ing con­crete place­ment.

Research by Texas Tech Wind Sci­ence and Engi­neer­ing Research Cen­ter has demon­strat­ed that ICF walls bet­ter pro­tect occu­pants of hous­es from wind­blown debris, than frame walls. Being hit by wind­blown debris is the most com­mon cause of injury dur­ing tor­na­does.

Build­ing a home involves care­ful plan­ning and metic­u­lous con­struc­tion. The mate­ri­als used can dra­mat­i­cal­ly impact the dura­bil­i­ty, aes­thet­ics, and com­fort of the home. This arti­cle will explore the sev­en most durable build­ing mate­ri­als for res­i­den­tial con­struc­tion, and pro­vide insights into the strongest mate­r­i­al for build­ing a house and the longest-last­ing build­ing mate­ri­als avail­able today​.

The need to incor­po­rate sound­proof­ing fea­tures in the exte­ri­or walls of today’s homes and build­ings has increased in recent decades. Urban­iza­tion, pop­u­la­tion growth, and an increase in air, rail, and high­way traf­fic all have con­tributed to a wide­spread esca­la­tion of noise pol­lu­tion.

When you’re ready to move for­ward with your project, find­ing the right con­trac­tor can be a daunt­ing task.

The steel rein­forced con­crete, which can cure stronger than nor­mal con­crete because of the foam insu­la­tion, can with­stand winds of over 200 MPH, and pro­jec­tile debris trav­el­ing over 100 MPH. There are dozens of eye wit­ness exam­ples of ICF homes tak­ing EF5 tor­na­does head on with the walls still stand­ing.

Ener­gy effi­cien­cy isn’t just a trend in archi­tec­ture and con­struc­tion, it’s a require­ment. Archi­tects and con­trac­tors now reg­u­lar­ly imple­ment sus­tain­able meth­ods into their projects, and hous­ing is no excep­tion.

Sev­en spe­cif­ic prob­lems with wood frame con­struc­tion include fire- and wind-resis­tance, dura­bil­i­ty, low ther­mal mass, shrink­age, and com­pro­mised acoustics and indoor air qual­i­ty (IAQ).

Over the past few years devel­op­ers have observed that LEED reg­is­tered build­ings lease more quick­ly and with rent pre­mi­ums of up to 30%.