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JellymanJoe wrote...
I'm disappointed to see that you're building traditional on top of ICF. When you were talking about building a 'green' house, I thought you would have fully constructed of ICF - it's the only way to see any real energy savings. So now you will have a nice cozy basement, and drafty main living areas. Too bad.

Jeremy Bell wrote...
That's not true at all... We'll be using a combination of rigid foam on the exterior and spray foam inside the house. The exterior foam creates as a thermal break (similar to that of the ICF), and the spray will create an airtight seal on the interior. While the ICF would have provided thermal mass (which greatly increases its performance), it's also quite expensive when compared to the alternative. There's nothing wrong with traditional framing methods, so long as they are insulated properly. ICF is a fantastic option, but there are some downsides as well. In our case, we had an issue with the width of the blocks (we couldn't afford to go back and redesign the structure to accommodate the difference), plus the cost of the concrete + rebar worked out to be greater than a traditional solution. Similarly, we had to account for a greater installation cost for the electrical because you it's far more difficult to run wires in a ICF house. SIPs were another option, but they weren't viable in our area either... mainly because we couldn't find someone who was willing to give us a fixed cost estimate. There haven't been many (any?) full home installations in our area, so trades were reluctant to fix bid the job (too much risk in their opinions). Regardless, I'm sorry but you're simply incorrect to think that the main floor will be drafty, simply because we didn't use ICF to the roof. It's all about tradeoffs... but I'm quite confident we'll have an entirely cozy house.