The combined research of the National Association of Home Builders, Portland Cement Association and Insulating Concrete Form Association points to 2010 as a critical year. It’s the year that market penetration for above grade residential concrete walls is expected to hit 25 percent. That means a quarter of the homes built in the United States will be built using a concrete wall system.
“When it gets up to about 25 percent, people will notice it,” says Harry Junk, residential market manager for the National Concrete Masonry Association. “You can pick any product; when it’s introduced to the marketplace, it’s not always accepted right away. But if it has some life to it, then people start to take notice. That’s what’s happening with concrete homes,” says Junk.
A look back at the numbers since they were first tracked in 1993 shows a steady gain from three percent in 1993 to 17.9 percent in 2005 (the most recent numbers available). As market penetration continues to climb, it’s helpful for builders and contractors in any market to know where the biggest strides are being made and why—because as we reach that critical mass, you don’t want to be in the tide pools but rather positioned squarely in the current.
The Juggernaut: Florida “Florida is probably the concrete home building state,” says Jim Niehoff, residential promotion manager, PCA. He points out that while masonry block is the predominant concrete building system in Florida and will continue to be for the foreseeable future, other systems are also making significant inroads, particularly in northern Florida.
“Central and northern Florida are very hot areas for the ‘newer systems,’” Niehoff says. “Insulating concrete forms (ICFs) seem pretty strong in the Florida panhandle and in northern and central Florida. Removable forms are really making some strides in central Florida. I think even the precasters are starting to make gains there.”
The good news for concrete home builders is, these gains aren’t cannibalizing other concrete building systems. “The gains they are making are at the expense of wood frame and not at the expense of block,” Niehoff points out.
Architect James Zirkel, owner of Home Design Services, near Orlando, Florida, has seen the same trend in block construction. Zirkel, who designs primarily masonry block homes, also designs some ICF homes. In almost 30 years in Florida, he’s seen concrete block dominate southern Florida, and he’s watched the trend spread north through Jacksonville and into other areas.
“Jacksonville was an all stick-frame town. But production builders started building concrete block homes in that area, and now a lot of the builders are building with concrete block in the north and northeast parts of Florida,” Zirkel observes.
Perhaps the obvious reason for Florida’s dominance in the concrete home market is the weather. Building codes in the recent years have continued to become more stringent due to the frequency of hurricanes. While codes were once strictest in southern Florida, now northern Florida’s codes are seeing significant increases in code requirements, as well.
“The homes have to be able to withstand more today than they did three years ago and three years ago they had to be able to withstand more than they did three years prior to that,” says Jeff Muir, president, General Masonry, a concrete block contractor in the coastal Florida panhandle city of Ft. Walton Beach.
The word on the street, says Muir, is that the code is not done changing. “In this area of Florida, we still enjoy a lesser code than the people in south Florida, but supposedly that’s going to change, and we’re going to have to meet the same wind code as in south Florida. So our houses are going to have to be stronger again.”
That’s only good news for the concrete home market. The more stringent the codes, the more cost-effective it is to meet code through concrete wall systems rather than through reinforced stick frame. “Blocks are definitely stronger, and they don’t cost as much as compared to wood as they used to,” Muir points out.
“With the hurricane seasons they’ve had, and even the tornados they’ve had recently, Florida is ripe for the taking for concrete systems, period,” says Niehoff.
The Rest of the Coastline For those same reasons, the entire southeastern and southern coastal zones are also ripe for the taking. Concrete home designer Zirkel notes that while Florida is his top market for selling house plans, Texas has become his second largest market and the coasts in general are strong for his business.
“We’ve had a lot of success in Texas and all the coastal zones,” he says. “Along the coast, within 50 to 100 miles, are really our hottest markets for our concrete home plans.”
Throughout the Gulf Coast states there is a major push to improve residential construction across the board—from improved codes to better building systems—which bodes well for the future concrete homes in these areas.
“When you see the damage done by a hurricane, you have to say, why would people rebuild with the same stuff?” says Junk. His organization, The National Concrete Masonry Association, has put tremendous efforts into promoting masonry along the Gulf Coast in light of recent hurricanes, and they expect strong results in that market. “As soon as some of the tied-up money is released and decisions are made in terms of rebuilding, we expect to see a tremendous increase in the amounts of concrete masonry used in those areas,” he says.
An increase in concrete homes is already happening. David Pfanmiller, owner of Security Building Group, Raleigh, North Carolina, has been building concrete homes in North Carolina for years using a removable forms system. He got a call one day from an oral surgeon in Mississippi who had been doing research about concrete homes and had visited Pfanmiller’s Web site. He asked Pfanmiller if he would come to Mississippi to rebuild his home that had been damaged by flooding.“My immediate response was, I can’t do that; I can’t go 800 miles to build one house,” says Pfanmiller. But the surgeon didn’t take no for an answer. “He said, ‘How many do you need?’ And from that day on, he’s been my champion in helping me promote the concrete concept down on the Mississippi gulf.”
With a local advocate, Pfanmiller has found the market incredibly receptive. They’ve held two educational seminars for which they’ve had an excellent response, says Pfanmiller. Today he has two houses under construction, two more in the design phase, and several more who he is confident will become jobs as soon as they can see what a concrete home looks like.
“People are scared. They want to rebuild, but they saw their homes not just damaged, but some of the waterfront homes were totally gone. There was nothing left when they walked up on it the next day,” he says. “And they are very receptive to an alternative method that will give them more safety and a stronger, more substantial structure.”
Pfanmiller also notes he is not the only contractor entering the concrete home market along the Gulf Coast. He has seen other concrete systems being promoted in the area, including a strong marketing push from the ICF industry.
Promotions are prevalent throughout the eastern coasts. Junk is seeing success from promotional campaigns for masonry block led by the local chapters of his association in Georgia, Texas and the Carolinas. Pfanmiller says that while his home area in North Carolina is still a small market for concrete building system, he has seen a variety of systems come to South Carolina—including masonry and ICFs.
“The Carolinas have always been a strong area for ICFs; removable forms have been used in projects along the Carolinas’ coast; and the Carolinas are stronger block markets than many people realize,” points out Niehoff.
Other “Hot” Spots It is probably no surprise that Florida and other coastal areas are growing markets for concrete homes, but it may surprise you that the 2005 Year End ICF Shipment Report (the most recent available) didn’t include a single southern or coastal state in its top five destinations for ICFs in 2005.
Minnesota came in first, followed by Colorado, Iowa, New York, and Wisconsin. Ontario was number one for Canada. While not all of these ICFs are used above grade, most are used in residential applications, according to the report.
“I think what’s happened in those states with ICFs is they’ve started out being used in basements as foundations and now they’ve gone above grade as well,” says Niehoff. “And it’s a natural transition, if you’ve been using ICFs below grade, to start using them above grade.”
On the other end of the spectrum, Florida, Arizona, Louisiana, California and Texas came in at the top for the percentage of ICFs used in above grade applications, but this percentage was shared with commercial applications. However, in every state, residential ICF usage outweighed commercial usage. Arizona and Mississippi stood out as two states where most ICFs were used for residential and most ICFs were used above grade.
While such detailed numbers are not readily available for all concrete building systems, industry insiders see similar trends across the board. Ed Sauter, executive director of the Concrete Foundations Association and the Tilt-Up Concrete Association, is seeing growth in the Midwest for removable concrete form construction, with pockets of activity in Kansas City and Wisconsin. Junk has seen an uptake for masonry in Ohio, Minnesota and Arizona.
But most industry insiders see almost any market in the United States and Canada as potential growth spots. Weather maps indicate that two thirds of the United States is at high risk for wind damage, Sauter says, making concrete homes strong options across the country. He also points to the Rocky Mountain region and California as potential growth areas because of their propensity for wild fires.
Niehoff sees the need for energy efficiency in cold climates continuing to make concrete homes attractive in the north and the green nature of concrete driving market demand in states like California, Colorado and Washington where there is more environmental awareness.
Sauter acknowledges that growth in some markets can be slow, and that it takes commitment from builders and contractors, as well as consumers. “A builder can’t simply decide he wants to do it; an owner can’t simply decide he wants it; and a concrete contractor can’t simply decide he wants to offer it. They actually have to team up to make it work, because if any one of those people says no, it won’t happen,” Sauter insists.He says that often in today’s market consumers drive demand, so if builders and contractors have teamed to meet demand, they can have success anywhere consumers are open to the option. “Typically it is the builder and the concrete contractor working together to make the market go. The benefits are sellable. But you have to be committed to it,” Sauter says.