Hello all, 

 

I am a 4th year student of building surveying currently doing research for my dissertation. 

 

I'm looking for case studies of polystyrene based ICF builds and came across this forum. I'm looking to include a few case studies of this construction technique to exemplify the advantages and disadvantages in a real world context. I'm mainly looking for projects that had some significant issues, but all would be helpful really. 

 

Is there anyone who would be interested in helping me out with this? I will only need a few basic details (and maybe a few photos). It will be entirely anonymous. If you are interested, drop me a message. 

 

Thanks for your time

Can I ask, why just Polystyrene ICF, wouldn't your output be more rounded if you also looked at woodcrete ICF also?

My dissertation includes woodcrete as a potential alternative, however it is focused on the potential for the widespread use of polystyrene based ICFs primarily. 

Edited January 29, 20242 yr by schalm203

We built an ICF house, no issues tho 😂

3 hours ago, Conor said:

We built an ICF house, no issues tho 😂

Us too. All good here😁

21 hours ago, schalm203 said:

 I'm mainly looking for projects that had some significant issues

 

Also known as selection bias. Stacking the deck etc. you're going to want a big a pot of examples as possible, along with statistics from the mortgage council on how many homes are actually built using this technique. And if you get, say, 15 randomly selected case studies from here or other sources, you can then do your own analysis and gain insights based on these studies. Let's say 15 cases, 2 had significant challenges, looks very different from 4 cases with two having issues.

21 hours ago, schalm203 said:

mainly looking for projects that had some significant issues

Doesn't that end up giving a very biased outcome, you miss the 100's with zero issue, but you get the ones with issues, whether caused by poor workmanship, poor selection of product and or project.

 

Then you need to differentiate the two routes of a self build a 'self build', and the custom build. One is the actual person doing the build, the other paying a professional to do it them, with no real participation in the hands on stuff.

 

All the above with have a different thought processes, maybe similar outcomes maybe not. You also need to include bankruptcy and people's money being taken - real issue.