I've been reading about ICFs for a year or so and lurking in the forums anonymously off-and-on as I get ready to have a two-story (6000 sq. ft., plus basement & attic) home built in central NJ.

Compared to conventional framing, what's a ballpark estimate on the cost for an ICF shell (basement and two stories)? I've heard "0 to 10%" more for the cost. What does that depend on?

How much more (or less) time is typical to install? What factors into that?

I apologize that no one has responded to your question yet. I have heard the icf's to be as much as 3% more than framing with wood. I believe that depends on what kind of framing you are doing also (2x4, or 2x6). Another thing to consider is that you are building a basement. Wilth the icf's it is pretty easy to build, waterproof, and back fill a besement which might be a little quicker and/ or more cost efficient. For construction timing, I believe it depends on your crew. Usually it takes a little bit longer, unless you have a solid crew that knows how to get it on.

Thanks, aronmac. No problem on the delay -- good things comes to those that wait, right?

I completely understand that it will depend on the job specifics and crew experience. Just looking for ballpark experience as more background knowledge for the planning process and trying to see what factors influence these numbers for when I start getting bids and evaluating contractors.

At least in this area, after about 100 phone calls to general contractors and my own estimates and supplied SIP's, ,this is the best "ballpark guestimate" I've been able to find. See http://www.grandcountysips.com/WhatsitCost.html

Steve
GrandCountySIPs.com

OK. Having said that, depending on how complex the job is determines what I usually charge for labor (I speak only for myself and not the other icf contractors who might have a better system than I do). I start with $3.50 per sq. ft. of wall for labor. That is typically what I charge. If the job has a lot of extra corners than most homes do, or radius' I will charge more. In bidding a job in Santa barbara for my old boss, he had me quote the labor at $4.00 per sq and we still lost a little on that one. The extra stuff slows labor rate down. Then there is your concrete factor- how wide of a block will you use, what are the concrete prices like in your area? Which block will you use? I know of some contractors who will charge more if the client wants to use a certain block because it is more difficult to work with. How accessable is your project? Who is going to engineer your project? Are they familiar with the icf's? I have seen engineers cause the cost of a project to drastically increase because all the extra rebar or other stuff they wanted to add to it which I believe the project did not need. Then there is rebar, lumber, hardware, and o&p. I think you might be safe to start at $13 or $14 per sq. ft. of wall, and again that depends on your project. I would be interested in hearing what other icf guys are doing. You should be able to speak with a installer and give them an idea of your project and get a ballpark from them. I hope that helps, or at least gives you sense of ease with what kind of people you are going to run into on this website. Generally here, and throughout the icf industry, most of these guys are excited about being involved in a new revolutionary product and want to help others and help this industry grow. This is a good place to bring any questions you may have in the future with your icf project.

I asked several times - what is wrong with this estimate -
http://www.standardicf.net/estimating.php
which gives about $7/sq.ft for everything - including materials and labor.
And of course, all the icf installers here push for $13+ /sq.ft with no explanation and any reasons.
The only place they can charge more is labor  and  $4/sq.ft in labor is roughly $120/h - way too high and it is still
gives about $11/sq. ft.
$13/sq.ft is like $200/h for labor and $18/sq. ft. is like ~ $350/h labor wise.
What an appetite for unjustified profits.
Unless I miss something.

olegy, I am curious if you have ever supplied and installed and icf job and made money at it or are you just floating around the web looking for prices??
I have been to that link you gave and to me it doesn't make any sense. I install in Ontario and have a breakdown as follows.
ICF block with taxes in $4.03 per square
Concrete with taxes $2.01 per square
Rebar with taxes $0.51 per square

Hey, guess what, I am already at $6.55 per square. So please don't tell me I can install for $7/square it isn't possible. I still have to add in a pump truck, bracing rental, miscellaneous such as anchor bolts, screws, tape, window and door buck, gas to run the generator, the list goes on and on. Please note that I still have not included labour so right now by your estimate I am working for free!!! And unless you are going to pick me and my guys up every morning and take us to and from your job site I guess I am going to need a truck, which includes insurance, license sticker, gas, regular maintenance, etc. I am also going to have to supply you, the owner,with all of my insurance coverage's while I am building your house incase someone gets hurt. I will need Workers Comp. I need to match payroll deductions for my guys, some people may supply benefit packages and health insurance, $$$$$$$$$. Am I making my point YET. And at the end of the day, why does everyone think that me, the owner, has to work for an hourly wage, if I wanted that I would go and work for someone else and do away with the headaches. Why can't I make $100,000+ a year, I know my lawyer does, my account does, I am quite sure my Doctor does. Everyone is so quick to count a contractors dollars as soon as he is seen driving a new truck but don't say sh*t when there lawyer drives away in a BMW. People in the ICF trade, and it is a trade, regardless of what people say, not any Joe with a hammer can do it (no offense to anyone named Joe). We take a long time to learn all the tricks of the trade because our walls are finished walls, if its wavy or out of plumb, thats what you are going to see. I have put in a lot of time to make my jobs the best they can be for the customer, and to be quite honest with you, I expect to get paid well for my experience and knowledge.
Olegy, if you can find someone to put up an ICF job for $7/square that the majority of us on this site would consider a quality job, I'll eat my hat, but from where I sit it just ain't possible. And finally the purchase of a new home is the biggest expense we will ever have. People spend hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars on there Dream Homes, would you spend a good portion of your hard earned money on the cheapest guy around and hope he really knows what he is doing, or maybe use the guy who has a proven track record of quality work, and at the end of the day the choice is yours!!!

I'm not an installer - just planning to build a new house.
But I'm a software developer and did contract a lot in the past.
And I know, all my potential employer wants to know - what is my rate per hour.
Nobody would care, if I have to purchase another computer, errors and omissions insurance, get a faster internet connection, drive back and force several times per day, if needed, etc, etc, etc.
All he wants to know - what is my hourly rate.
The same applies here - I don't care and I should not - how much you pay for the insurance, gas, etc.
If I hire an installer for an individual job - I need to know, how much the materials are going to cost, how much rentals are going to cost and what is the labor rate.
That is all.
I did not presume, that an ICF installer has to build for $7/sq.ft.
I've asked and asked several times - "what is wrong with that estimate".
Why every installer here wants at least $11-12 or more / sq. ft.?
If you want to make a lot of money my telling people, that a labor rate is $350/h - that is fine with me,
however I have a right to find someone, who would agree on $50/h, which is quite reasonable, I'd assume.
One more time - my question was - "what is wrong with that estimate".

On a thread not to long ago people were looking for the cost of concrete, not to many were paying $100 per yard, That site says that a pump will cost $250 min plus $3 per yard, my pump is a 4 hour min at $183/ hour plus travel plus grout, plus clean up. What about waterproofing? What are his 3 different prices for, 13.59 15.59 17.59?? I searched a bit on that site and it said block was, I believe, 18.99 if you had less than a truck load, order a ton more and we will cut you a deal!! I didn't see the 13$ price.
If you are suppling all of the materials and I am doing a labour-only job on an hourly rate I would probably supply me and the guys for $50-$55 per man per hour. But when I am supplying, everything gets lumped into one sum. I agree that some people just want to know how much is labour, I would like to know how much does it REALLY costs to make 1 ICF block, $4 maybe $5 but I still gotta pay $22 bucks, why that doesn't seem fair, why is concrete $100 a yard, I bet it doesn't REALLY cost that much to make it. No one seems to haggle on the prices of block, rebar, concrete etc. it is just accepted as status quo and thats that, but lets just see if we can't get the install price down!!
Back to that web address, I just don't see enough of a breakdown to make heads or tails of their cost. I agree with you that people don't care if you need to replace your computer every once in a while, but guess what, somethings you have too, and all of those expenses HAVE to be included in the price, its called the 'cost of doing business', if I don't consider the cost of my truck in a job, I can't afford to have a truck to get there, its that simple!
If I could install at $7/square and make a good living I would simply because I would have a huge line up of people who wanted me to install there jobs, I showed you some of my costs per square, they are honest pricing for my area, you must see how it would be impossible to do a job for that kind of money, I would be interested in contacting those folks and have them price a job see where it comes in, how close to $7 they are, I bet there are a load of extras involved?!? There must be some people on this site who install that block that can give us the goods on it.
They say that at $30 per man hour 1 man can lay 5 blocks an hour and that its $5.33 per block in labour, my question is, Who unloads the truck?? Is that included or does the truck unload itself? There seems to be to many variables missing. After all of that now you have me wondering "what is wrong with that estimate???".

Here are a few things I could pick apart from the estimate on that site. Usually you start a guy who has no icf experience but some construction at around $10 per hour. For $30 an hour I would be training 3 guys who had no idea of what was going on, which would slow the labor rate down and cause me to raise the rate again. That's worse case scenario. You generally want to have at least 4 guys on a medium (3500 sq. ft. home) that know how to build with icf's. Here is an example. Say I have a house with 3,000 sq. ft. of wall. The labor on that comes to $10,500. With an experienced crew I could probably get it done in around 2 weeks. 4 guys making $20 an hour at 50 hours a week is $4,000 a week. The extra $2,500 is going to cover whatever time I put in the field, time bidding the project, working with the owner, subs, engineers, inspectors, etc.. and give us a cushion for unforseen problems. Do you see how that makes sense? Another thing is that they had concrete at $100 per yard. For at least a year now concrete has been around $125 per yard, I have seen as much as $130. I know that is only $25 a yard, but it can add up. With rebar, it varies with the job. The last time I checked it was around $8 for a 20' #5. That comes out to at least $.40 per foot, plus you have to figure your lap splices, lintels, stirrups, etc... Depending on the job you may have extra rebar. For the pump, $250 may cover a line pump, but most pours are with boom pumps now which will be at least $1,000. I am assuming the $.30 they alloted for miscellaneous might cover hard ware like anchor bolts and stuff, which might work, if there aren't any saddles or other bigger embeds. Then you have o&p to cover profit, office expenses, insurances, maintenance on your vehicles and tools, and whatever else I am not thinking about right now. So, I hope this helps break it down a little.

oh yeah, thanks Paul, I forgot about the brace rental.

What's wrong here?
I can't see how I can make money even for $15 / sq.ft.
Block, delivery, concrete, pumping, rebar, waterproofing, joist hangers and hardware (I own bracing) equal close to $15 per sq ft.
Four weeks on site, 90 minute commute, 16 corners, and two storeys add another 10 / sq.ft..
Cost of Labor seems to be about 40% of the contract, only 15% for o/p.

This site is dead.
It is full of general contractors and novices. 
The first onces are just promoting themselfs and trying to convince novices on thier rediculous pricing.
I'm from the second category, but educated one.
Sure, you cannot make any money for $15/ sq. ft.  Probably, you're paying $40,000 per truck load for delivery.
That is an exact scenario, when you will not make any money for $15/ sq.ft.

I am a homeowner and in the costing/planning stage of building another home. Basically, it's a 3000 sqft one-story, cold canadian climate with walkout basement. I am not a contractor but it's also not the first home I've had custom-built.

I have scratched ICF walls off the list and the primary reason is the cost factor......WAY too expensisive. Anybody that says that ICF will cost 3-10% more than stick-frame is grossly mis-leading (much like the R50 claim from earlier days).

_ I don't live in a violent storm area (tornado/hurricane) so that's not a selling feature to me.
_ I don't live in a forest fire area. If there was a fire it would be internal and then my floors, roof, possesions are toast anyone. Who cares if the walls are still up.
_ The 'thermal mass' argument doesn't work in cold climates. When the temperature is moderate, I can see how this would be reasonable. But when the temp is -10C from several months, the thermal mass becomes one huge frozen icicle.
_ Air and moisture penetration is certainly the main reason why I even considered ICF in the first place, but there are a lot of other methods to minimize this problem.....certainly to the point where the cost of OCFs versus the marginal air benefits becomes non cost effective.
_ The biggest reason (if u haven't guessed by now) is the almost double cost of building ICF walls as compared to 2x6 frame construction (I'm still looking at SIPS).

Let me explain my reasoning:

There is approx. 50x60=220 ft of linear wall (couple of inside corners but we'll forget about those for simplicity. Let's assume an 8' high wall (actually they will be 10') so that the square footge of exterior wall = 1760 sqft. At almost $15/sqft taxes included that's a cost of $26,400 and just just the exterior walls.

Now let's compare the 2x6 framing. Do this by looking at a standard 4x8 size as a 'unit' The materials cost for this 'unit which includes the 2x6 studs, Exterior plywood, Housewrap, 2" exterior insulation (to eliminate the thermal bridging from the studs), 1" interior sprayed foam for sealing, fiberglass insulation, plastic vapour barrier. Total cost of that unit in materials is just under $100 tax included. On 220 linear wall you would need 28 units x $100= $2800. The framing crew labour on the exterior walls only is $3500 (including installation of doors and windows. Total price is $ 6,300.

Compare $6,300 to $26,400 and it's a no brainer.

I can give you similar calculations for basement (formed concrete vs ICFs) The savings are less but the price is still 1/2 of the ICF price.

Unless I'm missing something, I just don't see where the ICF contractors are getting the calculations that ICF will cost only 3-10% more. If they mean that the increased cost is a percentage function of the whole house cost, then that is somewhat mis-leading. Heck, it's grossly mis-leading....

Hey, I'm just a potential customer and probably think like a lot of other potential customers judging by the number of people who post on costing issues. It certainly a major area that the ICF industry should address honestly and fairly if there is any chance of ICFs becoming anything more than a 'novelty' construction method.

I think they do refer to the % of total cost of the build.

Ok....so let's analyze based on a % of overall cost of the house.

Assume the cost of a 3000 sqft house is $300,000 @ $100/sqft. Then the excessive cost of ICF versus stick is 26,400-6,300 = $20,100 over and above the cost of stickframe construction. That's 6.7% increased cost on the overall house. That extra $20,100 is a LOT of money and for that amount I can basically have Geothermal HVAC installed.

Let's look at it another way. Assume the material costs are $8/sgft of wall which is a bit high but can't blame the sub-contractor for the price gouging by the block and concrete companies. That's $14,080 just for the materials. That leaves $12,320 charged by the contractor for installation....essentially for two weeks work.

Now, I read about contractors posting insurance costs, office overhead, gas, truck lease, etc, etc. Those are fixed expenses ....the cost of doing business. These costs are amortized for the number of jobs done. So if the contractor does one job a year all the costs are charged to that one job. If the contractor does 20 jobs a year, the costs are spread to all twenty jobs proportionatly.....that's the basics of cost analysis 101. Probably know where I'm going with this. A good, reputable contractor is going to be busy and the fixed costs per job are going to be small when compared to the $12,320 charged by the contractor. To charge $6000 per week to build a wall is downright ghastly!

I don't bemoan anybody to earm a decent living. But, to compare an ICF install to a docter or lawyer is absurd. An ICF contractor doesn't spend 10 years in university (I have though as a litigation attorney) or spent $150,000 in tuition. Nevertheless, the contractor is entitled to a decent income.....just not at the expenses of the homeowner by trying to sell a product that is way over-priced. It's interesting that I have many friends that are in the residential or commercial building industry and most of them live in multi-million dollar homes.

WOW, did my eyes deceive me, or did I really have a lawyer telling ME that I charge too much, what's next, is a used car salesman going to tell me that I am not honest enough!!

WOW, did my eyes deceive me, or did I really have a lawyer telling ME that I charge too much, what's next, is a used car salesman going to tell me that I am not honest enough!!