ICF Home Builder & Contractors Bend, Oregon
There are dozens of things you will notice that are different when you visit an Artisan Home. Some make a major contribution to the comfort, healthiness, safety and livability of the home while others reduce maintenance and energy costs. Collectively we refer to all of these differences as “The Advantages” meaning, they make owning and living in a typical Artisan Home an advantage to its Owners.
THE ARTISAN “ADVANTAGES” USING THE WOOD FRAMING SYSTEM
Insulated and sealed underfloor crawl space. The crawl space is conditioned with recycled air from the heat recovery whole house air exchange system. This system creates warmer floors, reduces drafts, saves significant heating costs, eliminates foundation vents and unwanted animals and insects that live under your house.
Added polyiso insulation to all exterior walls. This increases the R-value by 50% (from R-21 to R-32) reduces fuel costs all year around, reduces noise intrusion by over 50% and further reduces drafts.
Glu-lam and engineered wood framing material.Increases building strength, reduces interior cracks, further reduces interior noise level.
Hand plastered interior walls.Enhances wall performance, increases durability and provides a hand textured appearance.
Wood interior doors with engineered wood cores.Provides excellent performance, privacy, sound control and appearance.
Ultra-high performance heating and cooling equipment.96%+ efficiency. Includes humidification, air exchange and filtering system. Reduces fuel costs, reduces noise level of equipment, dramatically increases indoor air quality, conditions under floor crawl space and balances indoor humidity.
Low toxin cabinetry, paint, wood finish products, floor covering, etc. (This feature greatly enhances the indoor air quality of an Artisan Home. When coupled with a 24/7 air exchange and filtering system your Artisan Home will promote better health for your entire family.)
“THE ARTISAN ADVANTAGES” USING THE INSULATED CONCRETE FORMS (ICF) BUILDING SYSTEM
This system replaces most of the exterior wood walls with steel reinforced concrete walls and the wood framed floors with concrete slab floors. The ICF Building System has the same “Artisan Advantages” as the wood framing system plus these additional advantages:
- The ICF concrete/steel wall is about 10 times stronger than the wood framed system.
- While both have a similar R-Value the ICF home will reduce fuel costs between 10 – 20% compared to the Artisan wood framed home described above.
- The concrete home will be approximately 8 times quieter than the wood framed home.
- The concrete home is 10 times more resistant to rot and insect damage, 14 times stronger and stable under stress, 8 times more resistant to lateral damage, and has 3 times the anticipated structural life span of the wood framed home.
- Qualifies for reduced insurance premiums up to 25% with most insurers.
The ICF Building System
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Why Choose Artisan as Your ICF Contractors?
When you choose the Artisan team of ICF contractors, we insure that your new ICF custom home will be built with time tested materials like insulated concrete form builders, and assembled in the most professional manner possible. An Artisan home is designed to provide decades of service to its home buyer with a minimum of maintenance. Artisan ICF builders consider the cost effectiveness of materials and processes based on anticipated years of service to owner (until replacement) and the cost to owner during those years of service. This is just one of many advantages to choosing Artisan Homes and Design as your ICF building contractors to build a custom house. The selection of all materials and procedures chosen for your project are based on that analysis. Additionally, the ICF home builder team will help guide you as you explore the options for the features you would like to help make your choice of products so you can avoid those items that compare less favorably. As for the materials chosen by the ICF house builders at Artisan, you can be assured they will offer the best overall cost effective materials available. Call us for our custom home building services.