Having installed 2 geothermal systems and lived with those for 11 years I can say they are worth it. I found originally my cost for geo and wells was $75K. A similar tonnage high performance heat pump system was $45K. With state and federal rebates the geo system was less expensive than the high performance heat pump system. With regards to your analysis, if you build minimally with 2x4, your HVAC system will be much larger, meaning greater capital cost, than your ICF high effic. home's HVAC size. That is further savings. I live in a coastal area and planning to build ICF here with variable refrigerant HVAC. Thanks for your videos.

@Challenged1

4 ай бұрын

Thanks for sharing!!!

I had my geothermal system installed 14 years ago. It paid for itself in 6 years. Here’s how; My previous heat pump needed to be replaced. Even for a moderately efficient (SEER 10) version of the replacement that was going to cost me $8000. The geothermal system cost me $20,000. There was a 30% tax break on the geothermal that I would not have received with a cheaper system. That savings lowered my initial cost to about $13,500. My previous heat pump required electric heat strips and 800 gallons of propane per winter for supplemental heat. The cost of the propane was $2.50 a gallon. Or $2000 a year and my electric bill was $120 a month in the summer and $200 a month and my propane bill was $180 per month. After installing the geothermal system, my propane bill went away. My electric bill was reduced from $1800 a year to $900 per year for a total savings of $2900 a year. There were other savings as well. The cost of heating hot water went down by 50% because my geothermal system creates half of the heat required by my integrated 60 gallon water heater. The payback time for the geothermal system should have been about 7.8 years which was an acceptable expense to me because the life expectancy of the geothermal system is 40 to 50 years. The real payback time was further reduced because our electric rate went up 40% in the 14 years since the system was installed so my actual payback time was reduced to 6 years. This made the system even more affordable because my electric rate for HVAC was locked in from the date of installation. I can’t endorse going geothermal highly enough. It’s been trouble free, a financial win-win. for me and for my heirs who will inherit the house and for the environment.

The comfort level of a well-insulated home = priceless.

@Challenged1

Жыл бұрын

Absolutely agree!!!

I just finished both my personal houses in ICF, one in florida one in idaho. Did 12” walls, triple pane hurricane windows and both face south with concrete floors. Essentially I went for passive house. Looking forward to seeing the energy tally for a year but itd be worth it just for how quiet the house is IMO

@antontaylor4530

Жыл бұрын

Have you considered solar water heaters? My father-in-law is installing one in his cabana soon. Will be interesting to see how well it performs.

Great summary. Thanks for doing all the work of breaking down the costs, value, and savings - and for explaining why one might want to go to double the expense by building ICF to the ceiling. I wonder if tornadoes do zero damage to ICF homes though... Egg-shaped or cylinder-shaped concrete structures laugh off tornadoes and hurricanes, but am not so sure about conventional square-sided homes with long 40 ft "flat" wall runs. The toppling force of pushing and pulling wind forces of 200 mph winds would do a number on any free-standing flat wall.

@Challenged1

Жыл бұрын

I wonder that too. I feel the basement would be fine because of the floor structure, but the main floor would be interesting to see what would happen.

@EdwardTilley

Жыл бұрын

@@Challenged1 I took a look on KZread for tornado-hit ICF homes and they hold up really amazingly well. The entire neighbourhood will be flat and the ICF home will have no roof, but the walls and safe-rooms hold-up 100%. Another benefit of ICF is termite protection. There are some cases of subterranean termites burrowing inside the foam to the ceiling, but very few. The insurance companies consider termite risks marginal to zero with ICF apparently.

@jaysson1151

Жыл бұрын

The 2013 tornado that hit Moore OK is a prime example. There’s a story on ICF builder magazine about two homes built with Reward wall ICF, which their design is kind of a honeycomb design instead of a solid slab wall like most ICFs, were hit by the tornado. The roofs were ripped off clean by the EF5 tornado, but the walls didn’t budge. Heck, the neighbor’s pickup truck was slammed into the wall of one of the icf houses and it didn’t move. Those homes were built in 2000, and there’s been a lot of improvements on attaching wood frame roof structures to ICF walls since then. Now, a well built wood frame roof can withstand upwards of 170-180 mph winds! That same roof will perform less when built onto a wood frame wall however.

Geothermal never pays back and the extra 20k estimate is way to low due to the ground work. Look into trench-less, but overall great video. Energy efficient homes are fine for people who can afford it, but what's ironic is that the sales pitch is what attracts people who cant. Perfect example of spend a dollar to save a dime. There has to be a method that pays back in ten years, or most people wont or cant afford it. Air sealing has the biggest bang for the buck.

Great breakdown!

Thank you for breaking it down to the per sq’ prices

Thank you! I live in the kc mo area!

A lot depends upon where technology is and life span of the system. Payback is another factor along with interest rates. Money costs whether it is in your pocket, bank, or investments. If one assumes they can make money on their investments then one has to look at rate of return on investment versus interest rates for borrowing additional money over a mortgage period (most opt for 30 years). Energy costs are important as well. At my age it would not make sense for me to install any energy savings in a new home with a payback greater than 10 years. Of course, I might do that since higher sell price might benefit my heirs. Overall, a good presentation. Thanksl

there is another benefit with ICF besides raw isolation/kWh savings, your heatpump runs in a more efficient mode. better power to geothermal energy ratio

A few things about my icf- 1) electrical boxes for switches in the outside walls are special conduit boxes for inside concrete. That makes it hard to get new wifi switches in those holes. 2) it is not as convenient for putting up shelving in the garage (no studs) 3) my garage door tracks were not properly secured to the wall. It's harder to mount a header to the concrete. I ended up having to fix that issue myself. 4) kinda sucks running cables/vents outside after the fact. That being said, my drywall is stress crack free because the house moves as one giant block. No flexing= no cracking.

@Challenged1

Жыл бұрын

Thank you for sharing

@offroad6309

Жыл бұрын

Your 1. Is interesting. What block? I did my home with Amvic and used regular boxes. Last week I worked on the shop for our local Amvic supplier and he also used regular boxes. Used a battery chainsaw to make channels for the Romex and ran some conduit to boxes through both stories just in case. 2. if you plan ahead before putting sheetrock or plywood on the walls you can add stringers to attach to. 3. The framer should have tapconed in some framing or had J bolts in the cement. 4. You are right, any wall penetration needs to be planned ahead. The nice thing is you don't have insects or vermin coming in through the walls or cold/hot air.

@realitychecks6797

Жыл бұрын

Actually most of the brands of ICF have plastice strips every 8 inches that you can screw into. We built our home 11 yrs ago now from basement to ceiling rafters. We have several heavy items on shelves and don't have any problems. The catch is trying to find those darn strips.

If you take into consideration inflation it you paid more for it than you did by the stated pay back time. You have to increase the price by the inflation rate(or projected rate) for every year since currency loses value over time. For example if you got a loan for the same amount to cover it at a 3-4% rate that debt would be eaten by inflation every year as well so you would be getting it for a cheaper price than paying cash... assuming you found such a rate. That said I will be putting one of these in at my next farm house property after insulating the house and making an addition. It can make sense even without SIPs, but you do have to do it all yourself as well.

Housing should be seen as a long term investment.

What are your thoughts on thermasteel? It’s a sip system with steel studs inside and out. No thermal bridging. I know ICF can have a battery effect that can help in big temperature swings.

@Challenged1

Жыл бұрын

I have never heard of it.

If you spread the extra cost of the ICF build across a mortgage of 15+ years, your lowered energy bills will pay for the increase in mortgage payments from day 1. So ICF doesn't need to actually hit your pocket at *any stage* of a house build unless you're rich enough to pay for everything up front. Then, once your mortgage is paid, you have *drastically* lower costs. And that's assuming energy prices don't go up, which they have been lately (especially in Europe). Photovoltaic solar can be paid for in the same way, too. If you do the mathematics, you can work out what size system will save you the most on a per-month basis, and paying for it over a 15+ year period would mean your monthly outgoings are the same during that period - meaning that essentially, you get free solar panels after 15 years. If you do your sums, you can get both ICF and Solar to *literally* pay for themselves. Zero increase in monthly bills. And once they're paid for, decades of significantly lower (or even zero) energy bills.

I didn't hear anything about the R value of the icf wall. I assume it's fairly high. Is thermal bridging eliminated? (No contact between inner and outer concrete?

@Challenged1

3 ай бұрын

Each layer of foam (inside and outside) is continuous, no thermal bridging. Just the ICF is r-24, but the thermal mass of the concrete makes the icf wall structure equivalent to an r-50

Two questions. Installing the ground system did you already own the Earth moving equipment or did you have to rent that is not included. Secondly, how did you finish the inside walls on the main floor? Did you put up a standard two by four wall so you had space to put in the electric outlets or did you put that into the concrete? How did you run the wires so that would be additional cost? I am not saying that your house isn’t great I’m just saying the finished product to finish product and all associated costs such as equipment to do the ground work.

@Challenged1

8 ай бұрын

I rented for quit a while, and then finally bought the mini excavator while building my house. The mini as a rental was about $1,000 per week. My inside walls are all finished with drywall. It screws right into the embedded studs of the icf. The icf is pretty easy to run electrical within. You just create a small channel within the foam and push your wire into it. The outlet boxes screw into the embedded studs. Just dig out a square into the foam and inset the electrical box within.

I love my geothermal system and we just got solar 4 weeks ago

@Challenged1

Жыл бұрын

Me too. Good to hear on the solar. I know mine really makes a difference.

I call ICF homes Yeti homes. It’s basically and ice chest

Did you consider the cost of getting a proper ACH for any of the traditional methods? It struck me that your expected electricity usage was pretty darn low for traditional homes. Maybe it's my locale. It'd be a sweatbox here if we limited our electricity usage in a 3k sq ft house to 2kwh a month.

@Challenged1

Жыл бұрын

Please elaborate as I don't understand the question. Expected electricity usage for an average home would be 1000-1500 KWh a month.

A couple things to also think about are any or all of the tax breaks you were eligible to consider; solar, geothermal and the ICF should have some tax breaks or outright paymentsj, federal or state. Those would help, but perhaps marginally, towards the cost of your build. My own journey will be a bit more and I intend to video blog my progress and the results. Salud, and good day.

@MrRerod

Жыл бұрын

It's pretty clear that if someone like the government with our tax dollars has to help you pay for efficiency, The upgrades, like solar, aren't worth it imo.

Shocking that you pay 10 cents per kWh. I copied your numbers exactly and my break even would be 4-11 years without considering opportunity costs. A bit of a stretch in Kansas, but who knows where energy costs will go in the future.

@Challenged1

Жыл бұрын

I'm assuming they will go up someday

@renalshomlmes338

Жыл бұрын

This last year ours increased from 7.xx to 14.

A big factor where I live is the cost of electricity, where we only pay .05/kwh. It's even hard to justify solar here.

@Challenged1

Жыл бұрын

That is a pretty fortunate situation to be in. Saves money all around

@robertfakler8564

Жыл бұрын

@@Challenged1 I'm in Grant County WA, which has 2 hydro dams on the Columbia River. That attracts a lot of high energy using industry to locate here, and fortunately, so far, the price of residential power has remained low.

@renalshomlmes338

Жыл бұрын

Ours went up over 40% just last year. I don't imagine they will ever decrease it either. Solar became very attractive.

@JamesPeters68

Жыл бұрын

Wow 5 c/kWh is damn cheap. I thought I had it good at 6.75 c/kWh.

While I like geothermal efficiency to be blunt though with an ICF house it's undeniably overkill for Kansas. If we were talking about California electricity rates I could consider it a rational approach.

@Challenged1

Жыл бұрын

It definitely makes a big difference on electricity rates where the install is located. I'm wondering when electricity rates in my area are going to start rising. They've been extremely steady in the last 10 years.

@renalshomlmes338

Жыл бұрын

It gets hot in ks so the icf does help, but the storm safety part is a HUGE plus imo for ks. In addition drywall looks better for much longer because the house is solid, so no cracking. Overall I would say icf fits perfect in tornado alley, not just ca.

I'm wondering what payoff timeline would look like if you went with SIPs instead of ICF

@Challenged1

Жыл бұрын

If you can provide how much a SIP's panel cost along with the install hardware, I can run the numbers.

What's the extra cost per year on the mortgage?

@Challenged1

Жыл бұрын

I paid cash to build.

Air source heat pumps keep getting more and more efficient and capable. Definitely giving pause when considering going to a ground source heat. pump even if you do the work yourself.

@Challenged1

Жыл бұрын

They have come a long way. They are terrible at or near the extremes though.

So this means I do the labor. I think I’m cool with that

@elijuh3

Жыл бұрын

And thanks!!!

@Challenged1

Жыл бұрын

You definitely can if you want to. It's nice to know the labor should be equivalent regardless of which method you use.

Kansas Tornado alley !

Almost efficient as my icf home.. Mine is 3000sq ft and is total off grid. My hydronic earth coupled 4 ton ac runs on less than 500 watts.... haven't paid an electric bill in 6 years....

@SatinCamaro

10 ай бұрын

And no. I don't use an AC... Chiltrix CSI units overhead and slab cooling at 68 degrees. Pumps are all I use as my water is 60F all year at 13 ft.

🤓🖖✌👍👌😎

Sorry, disregard the dislike!