Written by Amanda Martinez
Wednesday, 05 December 2007
Santa Cruz green builder Georg Kluzniok takes structural integrity to all new heights
If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a million times: when you want something done and done right, you just have to do it yourself. This was the reasoning behind green builder Georg Kluzniok’s 2005 decision to raze his Santa Cruz house to the ground and build anew using the environmentally friendly construction material known as isolated concrete forms or ICF.
“I decided, you know, I’m going to be the first one to build like this here in Santa Cruz, so I bulldozed my house down,” Kluzniok says.
The total demolition wasn’t exactly out of left field. Kluzniok describes his previous dwelling as having been “literally a chicken coup with the roots growing through the floor.” “I knew when I bought it that it was a severe fixer-upper,” he says.
But the main reason Kluzniok decided to start from scratch was to demonstrate his excitement about ICF to the Santa Cruz community, to show the extent to which he believes in this material and to coax potential homebuilders, who were afraid to take the risk, to put their faith in something other than the construction status quo.
Kluzniok’s first task was to win over the Santa Cruz building inspector. Although the material was new to Santa Cruz, and as a rule in society, all new things are inherently suspect, Kluzniok was able to make a very compelling argument citing ICF’s impressive assets: it’s highly energy-efficient and it’s virtually indestructible. No really, it’s nearly fireproof, mold won’t grow in it, it’s withstood simulated Earthquakes measuring 8.5 on the Richter scale in lab-scale tests, it’s an estimated 700 times stronger than wood and oh yeah, speaking of wood, termites hate it.
“They agreed,” recalls Kluzniok of his eventual triumph in the inspector’s office. “They said ‘if you guys stand behind it, we’ll do it.’ ” The Santa Cruz Community Credit Union gave Kluzniok his equity loan. “It was not difficult to work with them at all,” he says. And his insurance company now actually charges him less than they did for his old house, smitten as they are with ICF’s aforementioned qualities.
With the city’s go-ahead, Kluzniok began construction, using the ICF blocks along with reinforcing bar (rebar) and poured cement to form load-bearing walls. To see a picture of the blocks, they have about all the sex appeal of the heavy, coarse material known as cinderblock. But to the touch, ICF material is surprisingly light, like pumice stone, and extremely malleable, thanks to its unique composition of 15 percent cement mixed with 85 percent expanded polystyrene foam.
Yes, that’s right, expanded polystyrene (EPS), a.k.a., to planet lovers everywhere, Satan’s preferred packing material. But, and here’s where the eco-friendly part comes in, the EPS is all recycled.
Each year, millions of tons of post consumer (that’s us) EPS waste (that’s the petroleum-based, gleaming white packing material that hugs our newly purchased flat screen TVs, computers, toasters, furniture, etc.) are hauled off to landfills worldwide. The three companies that currently produce ICF blocks, ETERNA, Perform Wall Panel Systems and RASTRA, are now repurposing huge amounts of this EPS waste that otherwise would’ve faced a fate of what some call eternal landfill damnation and what others optimistically describe as a cool five centuries of degradation.
ETERNA has a plant in Pima, Arizona that gets the majority of its EPS from the Sony Corporation, while RASTRA shuttles EPS from New Mexico’s schools to its plant in Albuquerque. Just last month, RASTRA broke ground on another plant in Columbus, Ohio, this one with the government’s help.
Today, for all of its green leadership, there are no ICF block-production plants in California. Kluzniok, however, is hot on that trail, and admits that he is “talking with investors.”
For Kluzniok, one word comes to mind in considering his new abode in terms of the old: “incomparable.” My gas/heating bill is almost non-existent,” he says, “It’s less than 40 dollars a month in the cold months of the year.”
He also speaks highly of ICF’s excellent reputation for sound insulation and absorption. “I had a full-on funk party inside the house and traditional music playing outside. People didn’t even know it was happening,” he says, proudly. “It feels warm, it feels calm. It just feels like a little castle.”
But, you ask, how much more does this “castle” cost to build? And why wouldn’t we be wary when so many green products and options bear exorbitant price tags? Such is not the case with ICF; these homes can actually be built, by Kluzniok’s estimation, 20 to 25 percent cheaper than the current cost for a standard home. You don’t need sheet rock or plywood or fiberglass insulation, he explains. You also save on the labor needed to install these extra steps. As a result, ICF houses can be built in roughly half the time.
To hear Kluzniok talk about the potential for this material, he expresses nothing but excitement. He can’t find a single negative thing to say about it. The German-born builder who immigrated here in 1985, says he first heard about ICF in Europe where it’s been used to great effect for more than 30 years. Kluzniok was reminded of the material when he came across it at a trade show here in the U.S. five years ago and says it has been, hands down, his material of choice ever since. He only hopes that in using his own home as the ultimate endorsement for ICF, Santa Cruz homebuilders will have all the proof they need.
“If a contractor builds his house for his family and lives in it, then he has to believe in it and that’s exactly what I did,” he says. “Once people saw it and touched it and experienced it, they changed their minds. It’s the more enlightened people who build with this material right now. It’s the people who are already aware of the environment, who already know that this is a good product; it’s cheaper, it’s healthier, it’s greener, it’s more energy efficient. It makes all the sense in the world.”
To find out more about ICF homes and other green building practices, visit Georg Kluzniok’s website at www.integralconstruction.net .