ICF Student Residence Hall Part III
March 11th, 2010 | From the Field, Marketing, Project Showcase
Wrapping up this project highlight I wanted to give some special credit to the guys who actually put this thing together. As Reward is just the insulating concrete forms, some one has to know how to stack ICFs, align ICFs, and pour concrete as well…oh yeah and DESIGN using ICFs.
ICF Construction and Design Team
Owner: Pegasus Group/Carleton College
Architect: LHB
General Contractor: J.E. Dunn Construction
ICF Installer: Northland Concrete and Masonry
ICF Distributor: Cemstone
Some Cool ICF Pictures
The picture above shows a sunny, however frigid day in Minnesota. If you have been up there in the winter months you know it can get pretty serious. But with the dorms needing to be ready for fall semester they worked through the winter in sub freezing temperatures. Many days hit below zero, but luckily ICFs allow for concrete placement and curing with sub freezing temperatures.
This picture below is a meat thermometer(highly sophisticated measurement) stuck in an ICF and the concrete after placement. It shows what the curing temperature is of the concrete…100 degrees. The outside air temperature was under 20 degrees.
Finished Insulating Concrete Form School
Please enjoy the pictures of this awarding winning school.
As the year goes on and hopefully this projects racks up a couple more awards and we’ll post some updates on the continual energy use and any more ambitions from that campus.
ICF Student Residence Hall 2
February 23rd, 2010 | Marketing, Project Showcase
Last week we started highlighting the award-winning Carleton College, one of the top ICF construction projects of 2009. We were happy to be the ICF of choice for this project, as the school is nationally know for their sustainable practices. Here are a few quick facts of the Carleton College.
ICF Project Statistics
- Location: Northfield, Minn.
- Type: MultiFamily—Two Student Residence Halls
- Size: 91,536 sq. ft. (floor) 52,150 + 39,376
- ICF Use: 63,840 sq. ft. (walls)
- Height: 4 stories plus gables
- Cost: $26 million (budgeted)
Live Energy Use Data
One of the unique features of the project is that there are energy use monitors installed in the Residence Halls. This allows the school to track energy use per building, per floor, and for each individual dorm rooms as well. They can identify energy hogs, and maybe advise heavy energy offenders how to cut energy use as well. This is a huge advantage when educating responsible behaviors to students and getting them thinking about the cost of energy.
Along with energy use monitors, they also have the ability to track the energy creation through photo-voltaics and steam generation as well. Those systems were put in place to help heat the water and to offset energy use. Carleton understood the importance of securing the building envelope so it made sense to add P/V systems.
Energy creation is good…and seems to be the only thing to get the government’s attention…but won’t be a feasible source (cost wise) if buildings don’t start limiting their energy consumption. ICFs can limit a building’s energy use! See their live energy use data.
Beyond the Insulating Concrete Form
Carleton College has identified over 36 distinct green attributes to these buildings, other than the use of ICFs and fly ash in the concrete. From reflective roof tiles, to using local vegetation for landscaping, this college is on the leading edge of sustainability.
As you can see there are wonderful things going on in the ICF world up in Minnesota. Next week we’ll go over the star contributors to this project and show some great cold weather concreting pictures.
ICF Student Residence Hall
February 16th, 2010 | From the Field, Marketing, Project Showcase
Carleton College Student Residence Halls
This was one of our favorite projects for 2009. There were so many features to these buildings and Carleton College truly showed their commitment to a sustainable campus. In the next few posts I will attempt to give our due diligence to this project, show you different construction phases and the finished project as well. Carleton College Residence Halls also won an ICF Builder Award, which was announced at World of Concrete 2010.
Building Energy Modeling Analysis
A building energy modeling analysis (from The Weidt Group) was completed during design, and it was determined that total energy consumption would decrease a minimum of 28% compared to a standard baseline building performance. Carleton did not install ANY A/C as well due to the tight thermal envelope created by ICFs. I asked Maureen Ness, AIA, LEED AP, CDT, with LHB to explain how the modeling worked:
“It basically shows that by spending $54,941 more than a typical building on specific energy-saving strategies, the annual energy savings will be $29,476. There are a lot of factors in the modeling and one of them that we’ve seen on non-air conditioned housing projects is that you don’t really get credit for not air-conditioning, even though that is a lot of savings over a conventional building.”
The total payback, of the additional costs, of making these ICF Dormitories energy efficient is 1.5 years!
(Do you want an energy analysis done on your current home being designed? We are offering a free energy analysis to show you the dramatic savings you can get with ICFs.)
Sustainable features of Carleton College
Overall, Carleton College has identified over 36 distinct aspects to these building that are considered sustainable features. From low flush toilets that will save 30% on water, to copper tiles on southern facing roofs to deflect heat gain, LED lighting, as well as natural foliage planted around campus that is sturdy and weather resistant. All of these features are contributing to their LEED Gold certification.
Next week, we will show you all the live energy data from the school as well as some more highlights of this project. In the meantime check out the rest of our highlighted ICF projects or our ICF gallery section on rewardwalls.com.
ICFs and Cold Weather Concrete Part IV
December 15th, 2009 | From the Field, Lets Get Technical!
Here is our final post, for now, on insulating concrete forms and cold weather concreting. This is a testament from our regional sales manager, Thad. The pictures and story was described from a Colorado school job site in November, where insulating concrete forms were used as the exterior shell of the building and CMU blocks were used for the restroom areas. These notes and the pictures show a real life scenario of the benefits of ICFs.
Three observations of using ICFs and CMU
Thad points out three huge observations that communicate cold weather benefits of insulated concrete forms in relation to CMU.
- The General Contractor has to pay for any cold weather material that is used for CMU construction- including heaters, plastic tenting, blankets etc . If it is windy they will have to repair all of those elements as they whip around and become damaged due to the weather. The GC spends more money in order to continue to keep the job on schedule and for safety of the workers. The tent is heated so that they can grout the walls, which ICFs no grout is needed so tenting is eliminated.
- The mason contractor can bid both ICF and CMU packages.
- The masonry workers had to shut down the day Thad was there because it was too cold and the tent was destroyed throughout the day by high winds. Generally the crew would have to be sent home and a day of work is wasted. The ICF portion of the building was not effected by the cold or the wind and construction was still moving forward.
For more information on cold weather and concrete see our previous posts or access our insulating concrete form product manual where you can see all of the research and testing done on our product lines:
Insulating Concrete Forms and Cold Weather Concrete Part I
Insulating Concrete Forms and Cold Weather Concrete Part II
Insulating Concrete Forms and Cold Weather Concrete Part III