Truckee, California
The four unit Town and Country mixed use commercial buildings at Truckee Airport have to be designed to handle the extreme tempera-tures of this more than mile-high airport. Project architects se-lected innovative and techno-logically cutting-edge building systems for the building enve-lope that combine Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) foam insula-tion with a solid infill of poured-in-place concrete. The system selected is Insulated Concrete Forms (ICF) by Amvic Building Systems. Headquartered in To-ronto, Ontario, Amvic has eight manufacturing plants in North America. This first commercial project in California for Amvic is being erected by ICF specialty contractor Evans Construction of El Dorado Hills California. President Mike Evans said “while our residential construction activity continues stronger than ever, this year we’re starting to see ICF used in commercial projects in growing numbers. We have several such projects on the schedule for this year which is a shift from our prior experi-ence. We like it, because it delivers an out-standing solution for our customers, and we can be even more efficient than in residential due to the scale of operations”. Evans has specialized in ICF construction for the last six years and is a leading ICF installer in Northern California with more than 100 custom homes.
Amvic Pacific, Inc. of Nevada City California provided the ICF forms for this project. A specialty dis-tributor focused on alternative en-ergy-conserving building products, Amvic Pacific is the regional rep-resentative of Amvic Building Sys-tems. According to Bill Juhl, Am-vic Pacific President, “the Town and Country commercial buildings with an effective performance R-value of about 50 can expect re-duced operating costs for heating and air conditioning from 30 to 50% annually when compared to conventional frame construction.” According to Juhl these high ther-mal mass walls ICF buildings are a significant element of building Green. ICF foam/concrete walls use a high percentage of recycled materials, have as little as 1-2% waste, and substantially reduce the carbon emissions of any building, commercial or residential. Over the lifecycle of these buildings they will create substantially less CO2 due to their reduced need to consume fossil fuels. Reductions of several tons of carbon dioxide per year are typi-cal. Project manager Reuben Hills said that “With the Amvic ICF wall system we expect not only lower operating costs for utilities, but substantially re-duced long term maintenance.” Another factor Hills points out is that “with a short building sea-son that doesn’t start until June, the speed of ICF construction works in our favor to get these build-ings closed in before the high altitude early winter starts. This was our first ICF project, and it was important to us to select a builder with substantial experience. So far, our expectations have been more than met. We’re very pleased. Evans’s crews have been outstanding and we’re nicely moving ahead on schedule.”
For more information: Evans Construction
Mike Evans PO Box 5099 El Dorado Hills CA 95762 916/939-1854
Amvic ICF Amvic Pacific Inc. Bill Juhl
12531 Lowhills Rd, Nevada City CA 95959 530/265-9085
