I have been giving step by step progress of our first floor house construction using Insulated Concrete Forms (ICF). I am truly amazed at how fast the wall go up.

As you can see at 10:00 am Thursday we have 2 courses done. With the concrete scheduled to be poured at 1:00 Friday, we still have a lot to do!

While some of the children continued to glue and snap together wall, others began to put the bracing together. From our 20 year old down to our 5 year old, everyone wanted to be involved. Even our 22 mth old walked around picking up screws and trash. (A large family certainly comes in handy!) I love the opportunity for them all to be involved and learn character and skills that they will use in their lives.

Back to our progress … The forms will hold the concrete but the bracing is used to insure straight walls. The brace parallel to the forms will be screwed into place before the concrete is poured.  The blue metal pole coming from the wall at a 45 degree angle will be screwed into a block of wood which will be glued to the slab.

So the morning continued snapping, gluing, putting up bracing complete with walk boards on top. Although we tend to grow them tall, once we reached the fifth course, the top could not be reached. The walk boards were used to finish the last course as well as pouring the concrete.

By Thursday evening we had finished the fifth course and begun the sixth.

As the sun set I noticed the view our our soon to be kitchen window:

We continued to work into the night. I moved the van so the headlights would shine upon our work area but ..  the mosquitoes! They were vicious man, woman and child eaters! So, at 9:40 pm we were pulling away for a much needed night’s sleep.

We picked up the door and window frames to be used with the Rewards Insulated Concrete Forms (ICF) today. John and the children began assembling them immediately. It is amazing how easily they are put together. The 16 foot pieces were cut to size and then screwed together with sheet-rock screws. Of course, there are always mechanical difficulties!

Corner braces are then added to maintain the 90 degree angle as the concrete is poured. Additional bracing with 2×4′s will also be added to prevent the forms from bowing.

Here is a picture of the door frames completely assembled. The corner bracing will be removed after the concrete is set.

Since these are plastic, the sawing to size creates a lot of snow-like trash. So, we have our own cleaning crew!

Tomorrow we will pick up the bracing and begin laying the ICF blocks. On Friday, if all goes according to plan, we will fill the forms (which will make our walls) with concrete.

Doing it yourself is a lot of work but also a great sense of accomplishment. It will be a wonderful experience for our children. Especially the younger ones who were not old enough (or not around yet) to help with our house in Alabama. Plus, we will be saving a ton of money!