Building with Insulated Concrete Forms in Baja

The weather on the Baja peninsula seems pleasant enough to winter visitors, but to make a year round home in Baja you need to consider the cost of summer cooling along with the handful of days you need to turn on the heat. A home built of Insulated Concrete Forms (or ICF) is the solution to this challenge, maintaining the strength, low maintenance and durability of  concrete construction, while achieving a significant gain in the heating and cooling efficiency over both block and poured concrete construction techniques. Estrella del Norte Construction is a Baja leader in sales of ICF products and custom home construction.

Why folks build with concrete in Baja
If you have ever visited the peninsula you will quickly discover there isn’t a stick of buildable standing timber for a thousand miles, lumber is trucked in and very expensive. Insects, ants and termites, present a formidable challenge to the durability of wooden construction. And of course there is the strength factor, nothing can withstand the rage of our tropical cyclone season better than a concrete home or provide the same degree of  home security when you are away.

Here in Baja you will find most homes are simple block construction, squared off with flat, un-insulated roofs, all you really end up with is a big concrete oven. Block conducts heat well and pour concrete even better, but both represent a dismal future for your summer cooling bill, as your energy dollar travels unimpeded from your wallet to the great outdoors. Building with ICF products can dramatically cut your energy costs.

Why we build with Insulated Concrete Forms
Concrete remains the best choice for a raw material for your Baja home, but the technology of Insulated Form Construction allows your Baja home to use as little as quarter of the energy required to cool as the same size block construction home.  With steel rebar reinforcement concrete form homes provide more than enough strength to weather hurricanes and provide far greater break-in security when compared to block construction. Initial cost of ICF construction is slightly higher than traditional un-insulated block, but a majority of happy ICF home owners report paying off that difference with the savings from just one or two cooling seasons. Estrella del Norte can build your custom Baja insulated concrete form home, ready to move in, for $105/sf.

ICF Construction –  The Building Process
Most custom home designs can be readily adapted to utilize insulated form construction, often it is only a matter of some minor size modifications to meet the size of available ICF components. ICF forms come in a variety of shapes and applications so you are not limited to building a mundane concrete box. Once you have selected your design and made the plan modifications, the first phase of construction is similar to that of any other home, preparing the pad and footings at ground level.

After that, the similarity to standard construction ends and erection of the forms on the footings more resembles building a home with Lego blocks. Ground level construction moves quickly, positioning the interlocking blocks and fastening them together and adding the reinforcing steel rebar. By the time each level of the home is complete doors and windows are evident and your dream home is quickly becoming a tangible reality. Because this stage of construction is so simple it is completed by smaller crews costing you less, precut pieces reduce site waste to virtually nothing and can this phase can even be completed by do-it-your-selfers with a little training.

The plumbing and electrical are added in the next phase, presenting another significant advantage to ICF construction. Rather than chipping, drilling and hammering electrical and plumbing connections into finished concrete, your plumbing and electrical is installed into the foam insulation layer of the interior wall with a chainsaw or router. Plumbing and electrical elements are held in place and insulated with expanding foam.

The next task is to fill the forms with poured concrete. Poured reinforced concrete provides unparallel strength and long term durability unequaled by block construction.

Once the wall forms and ceiling panels have been filled with concrete, the interior and exterior finishes are applied over the ICF blocks, providing the durable, low maintenance finished to the surfaces of your home. Because ICF construction takes fewer laborers  even the finished carpentry can progress fasters are the entire home is ready for finish work at the same time, no more tasks and crews competing for space and time.

Estrella del Norte Construction is an authorized distributor for Novidesa insulated form products. We provide sales, support and training along with complete construction services to build your dream home in Baja. Estrella del Norte Construction has been building ICF homes since 2008. Because ICF construction is so straight forward many homeowners after completing our training complete significant portions of the construction process themselves. EDNC is North American owned and provides the level of construction quality and construction timeline that our customers expect.

Why right now?
As authorized distributors of Mexican made Novidesa IFC products and because of the favorable exchange rate for North Americans buyers we can offer our products to our Baja customer at prices lower than distributor costs of similar products in the United States. Now is the time to make your move and build your energy efficient home in Baja. Our consulting staff is ready to make your dream a reality, so call, contact us via the email address below or visit our Facebook page for more information.