Trends change: From wood frames to insulated concrete forms

By Emma Peterson. 

Learn about the latest trends of the building envelope industry with Dave Marrs, the co-host of HGTV’s Fixer to Fabulous. 

In a special episode of Roofing Road Trips®, Dave Marrs, the co-host of HGTV’s popular Fixer to Fabulous series, stopped by The Coffee Shops™ to chat about the trends he’s seen gain traction recently. The series highlights the home building and restoration business Dave operates in his current home state of Arkansas. One of the biggest trends he’s observed recently is the rise of homeowner interest in making major home investment decisions.  He explained, “Since COVID, we now live in a time where people’s houses have become so much more important than they used to be. People are working at home, so they are valuing location more than ever...Further, they are looking for homes that fit their specific needs because it's going to be something that they want to stay in long term.”   

This is a big change from what the industry looked like during Dave’s childhood. He shared, “My father was a log home builder in Colorado, so I've been around building all my life. And  what we used to do was focus a lot more on making use of every individual space and making these homes as efficient as we could. That was how my business started when it was with my father. And then we went into the early 2000s where a lot of it was just building to flip and sell.”   

One example of the major changes Dave has seen over the course of his career is the shift away from the wood frames of his father’s generation and towards a new product – Insulated Concrete Forms (ICFs). He first heard about this new type of material from a friend who works at Tremco on their ICF line, called Nudura. Dave shared, “I've got a friend that works for Tremco, that had been telling me for years, ‘Hey Dave, you got to try ICF.’  Then, a little bit over a year ago, we had nine tornadoes in one night in Northwest Arkansas here where I live. And it really devastated our community. Our family was impacted by it, and it was a wake-up call. I got to researching and really realized what Tremco’s Nudura can offer as far as weather resistance.” 

High-performance ICFs like Nudura are perfect for areas like Dave’s that struggle with severe weather conditions. Dave explained, “With ICF, you're getting wind ratings for hurricanes and straight-line winds and tornadoes. You are getting fire protection for something that's not combustible, that can't burn up like wood, and you're getting safety for your family...It's building strength into your home, which is a lot of people's greatest asset.”  

In addition to the performance and durability that ICFs provide, they are also more efficient than traditional wooden framing. And when we say efficient, we mean ICFs both create a more efficient building envelope and they make an installation crew more efficient. Dave explained, “You're getting a lot more insulated tight structure with ICFs. You're breaking that thermal gap, that thermal bridge that a typical in lumber construction and allows heat transfer. Heat, which is its energy, its heating in the winter, it's cooling in the summer...And as far as timeliness goes, my team can put the entire exterior structure of a 2000 square foot house up in a day and a half. It's like stacking Lego blocks, so once you get that first foundation row down, it goes really, really quickly and efficiently.” 

Read the transcript or Listen to the full episode to learn more about ICFs like Tremco’s Nudura and their benefits.