Residential

R-Value Concrete Structures LLC has been awarded the Exemplary Project award from the Great Lakes Renewable Energy Association for its “foundational participation” in the Onekama Hybrid Home.

The home features Build Block ICF walls from footings to trusses, stained concrete floors, and incorporates Lite-Deck floors with radiant heat/snow melt for the garage, porch and a unique second-story deck, all installed by R-Value. Many challenges had to be overcome during construction including very narrow window spacing, the second story concrete deck, and high winds throughout the building process.

According to Jake Vierzen of R-Value: "I am excited to see ICFs being recognized as an excellent complement to renewable energy technologies, and very pleased to work as part of Team Hybrid on this and other innovative homes. The Team concept incorporates many of the trades, starting with the architect, in order to deliver the absolute highest performance home possible.”

In addition to the highly efficient building, the Onekama Hybrid Home discreetly incorporates both a wind generator and solar hot water. It is expected to earn the highest rating possible under the new LEED for Homes program.

It’s hard to sell much of anything in Michigan these days, let alone $500,000 homes, but green building with insulating concrete forms helped make it possible for one building group to have its best year ever in 2007.

Battle Creek-based Summit Investment Group recently had success with a development it called The Ridge at Cedar Creek, which featured energy-efficient homes in the half-million-dollar range.

Summit mainly uses Polysteel forms. Owner Daniel Kiefer says he prefers Polysteel forms – although he is willing to try others – because they come in bigger components and he likes how they are put together structurally.

While Michigan’s economy has been the worst in the nation for several years, Kiefer said quality building and competitive prices – helped by a recent reduction in the prices of green building supplies – have made it possible for Summit to buck the state’s economic trend.

“We are bucking it because we’re building in a price range that’s not nearly as economically labored as some others,” Kiefer said. “Our houses in this particular development start in a half-million range. We also do a lot of commercial construction, and I find that if we work hard and we’re a quality builder, and we associate with customers that are of the same mind – if you do a good product, there’s always a market for that. Even in the worst of times.”

Should the purveyors of concrete countertops be worried?

One designer’s opinion may not be worth much, but one Bay Area designer has told the San Francisco Chronicle that she thinks so.

“I think the trend of the poured-concrete kitchen and bathroom countertop has wound down,” said Christel Heinelt of Lushart Decorative Painting & Murals and Christel Heinelt Design, based in Pacifica, California. “I think clients felt that, though beautiful, it was not stain resistant enough or as durable as slab marble and stone.”

Heinelt was one of several area designers interviewed by the Chronicle on a variety of different design and construction trends.

A Port St. Lucie, Florida home built with insulating concrete forms will be sold for $10 as part of a fundraiser for the YMCA of the Treasure Coast, which serves Martin and St. Lucie counties.

The winner of the raffle, for which tickets are $10, will take possession of the home.

The home, which is being built on Escobar Lane in Port St. Lucie, is being donated by Homecrete Homes, and is valued at $349,800. It will feature thick, insulated concrete walls and a closed-soffit roof system aimed at making the house more energy-efficient, said Bob Cenk, vice president of Stuart-based Homecrete Homes.

Workers have finished putting plywood on the home's roof and plan to put up interior walls this week, Cenk said. The home is expected to be finished March 1. It will have four bedrooms, three bathrooms and a two-car garage.

The drawing will be March 20.

Homeowners in Pasedena, California will soon break ground on the first structural concrete insulated panel (SCIP) home in the nation to seek LEED certification.

At 1,975 square feet, the Pasadena EcoHouse will be built into a rocky hillside in the San Rafael Hills. A wall of sliding windows will offer panoramic views of the San Gabriel Mountains and Old Pasadena and give the cantilevered roof the appearance of floating atop the home.

The project will feature top-of-the-line green building and design products, including a grid-tied solar electric system, a solar hot water system, recycled glass countertops, a ductless high-efficiency heating and cooling system, permeable hardscape, a rain and greywater catchment system and much more.

When completed, the Pasedena EcoHouse aims to be the first single-family, SCIP home in the nation to have earned Platinum certification by the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED for Homes.

"The Pasadena EcoHouse represents our dream of creating an environmentally sound home, and within our strict budget," said the homeowners. "We are ready to break ground, and we look forward to sharing our green building adventure with the world."

A spate of fires in Montana several years ago inspired Stewart Hansen to find a way he could build homes with all the character of traditional log homes, and all the fire-resistance of concrete.

The solution was to develop concrete log homes, which his company, Missoula-based Concrete Logs LLC, is now doing successfully into its fourth year.

With 30 concrete log homes on the market, Hansen said the company is now developing between 10 and 15 new concrete log homes each year.

Concrete Logs LLC sells just the exterior wall system, not the entire house, and charges between $70 and $80 per square foot. Finished turnkey costs can run anywhere from $130 to $500 per square foot depending on the customer’s preferences.

Using forms cast from actual wood logs, Concrete Logs LLC has also placed a premium on energy efficiency in its homes. Hansen said a recent test conducted by the National Center of Appropriate Technology indicated Concrete Log homes are seven times as airtight as traditional wood-log buildings and six times as airtight as traditional wood-frame buildings. A recent 10,000-square-foot custom home in Colorado has monthly utility bills of $322 per month, he said.

A nearly century-old development of concrete homes in Pennsylvania looks to have a date with the wrecking ball, although it is possible one may be saved as a historic preservation measure.

Concrete City, which sits on 39 acres straddling Hanover Township and the city of Nanticoke, has been deeded to the city of Nanticoke for $10 by a nonprofit organization known as the Regional Equipment Center, which is disbanding.

The 20 duplexes, which were built in 1911 by the coal division of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad, were among the first homes in America built entirely with poured concrete. The railroad rented them for $8 a month.

Concrete City closed in 1924 after one of the subsequent owners refused to put in a sewer system to replace concrete outhouses.

The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission designated Concrete City a historic site and erected a marker in 1998. Concrete City was determined eligible for the National Register of Historic Places in 1991.

Municipal officials said they would like to keep one of the homes standing for the historical value, but do not foresee preserving more than that – as they have become graffiti-adorned, bullet-ridden eyesores.

Builder confidence within the home building market remained steady at 19 in December – its third straight month at that level, which is the lowest reading since the National Association of Home Builders began recording confidence figures in January 1985.

A reading of 50 indicates average confidence.

“Today’s report shows that builders’ views of housing market conditions haven’t changed in the past several months, and there clearly are signs of stabilization in the HMI,” said NAHB Chief Economist David Seiders. “At this point, many builders are bracing themselves for the winter months when home buying traditionally slows, scaling down their inventories and repositioning themselves for the time when market conditions can support an upswing in building activity – most likely by the second half of 2008.”

The index gauging current sales conditions for single-family homes improved by a single point to 19, and the index gauging sales expectations for the next six months rose two points to 26. Meanwhile, the index gauging traffic of prospective buyers declined three points to 14.

Regionally, the HMI results were mixed in December. The Midwest and South each posted two-point gains in their HMI readings, to 15 and 21, respectively. The West held even at 18, and the Northeast, which experienced wetter weather conditions than normal in the survey period, posted a seven-point decline to 19. All regions were down on a year-over-year basis.

The U.S. Department of Commerce reported that housing construction fell in November and that single-family activity dropped to the lowest level in more than 16 years. Construction of new homes and apartments dropped by 3.7 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.187 million units.

Construction of single-family homes fell by 5.5 percent to an annual rate of 829,000 units, the lowest level since April 1991, while multi-family construction was up 4.4 percent to an annual rate of 332,000 units.

Applications for building permits fell for a sixth straight month, dropping by 1.5 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.15 million units, the slowest pace for building permits since June 1993. The overall construction decline left home building 24.2 percent below the level of activity a year ago.

Habitat for Humanity of New York City is using Insulating Concrete Forms in the construction of nine Brooklyn homes.

Habitat is building the homes in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, using ICFs in an effort to make the homes energy-efficient.

The nine families who will own the homes have contributed 300 hours of "sweat equity" per adult to the construction of the homes on Halsey Street and Marcus Garvey Boulevard.

The homes are expected to be move-in ready by 2008.

ArroDesign of Waitsfield, Vermont, recently completed construction on an all-concrete tree house.

In addition to traditional cardboard tubes, ArroDesign employed Fast-Tube column forms. Manufactured from high-strength fabric, Fast-Tube comes on rolls of 60 and 120 feet, and in diameters ranging from eight to 24 inches.

“We were able to pour 29-foot columns with a single form and obtained a beautiful textured finish,” says Sandy Lawton, president of ArroDesign.

To join the tree house with the main residence, the crew created a suspended, curved concrete walkway using both conventional forms and Fast-Tube column forms.