Unique Features and Benefits of PolySteel ICF's

UNIQUE FEATURES AND BENEFITS OF POLYSTEEL ICF’s

Probably The Strongest, Biggest and Easiest in the Business

Large form dimensions
The PolySteel standard form height is 600mm and is 1200mm in length. They come in two widths:
• The PSI-4600 series have a 150mm wide cavity for the concrete (280mm overall width) and is used for most walls, unless specified otherwise by your structural engineer.
• The PSI-4800 series have a 200mm wide cavity for the concrete (330mm overall width) and is used where extra strength or wall mass is required such as retaining walls, basements, tall structures or as advised by your structural engineer.
The large size of form means that there are fewer forms to manhandle into position and walls get built faster than with smaller profile forms.

Tongue and Groove design
The PolySteel forms have a tongue and groove design that allows each form to move against its neighbouring form without restriction of castellation that some forms have.  Also the tongue and groove design does not trap spilled or excess concrete, saving time on clean up before the next course of forms can be laid.

Steel fixing strips
PolySteel has Steel fixing strips every 150mm on a vertical plane that will accommodate heavy loads and can be safely used to fix radiators, wall cupboards etc. this saves considerable time for follow on trades. With a wood frame house there has to be a certain amount of luck in the studwork accommodating your needs.  With brick or block drilling and plugging is necessary. With plastic ties/fixing strips the bearing weight is more limited and is not recommended for fixing of radiators because of the heat involved.

Fast delivery
PolySteel holds a large stock of forms ready to dispatch at a days notice; This stock is refreshed each week from our two manufacturing outlets based in Northampton and Livingston (Scotland).  If it is important to your site operation (due to space restrictions) to have ‘Just In Time’ deliveries or immediate start is required the order to delivery time of PolySteel forms is second to none.  It is quite usual to have to wait for months for SIPS panels, thus eating into project time and costing you extra money.

Steel ties verses plastic ties
The patented design of the PolySteel fixing strips and ties are engineered to maximise strength, allow for good concrete consolidation and provide the thermal bridging needed to maximise the effects of the concrete thermal mass inside the forms, while minimising the effects of unwanted heat transfer through the walls.  The tensile strength and high strength to size ratio of steel gives PolySteel a cross tie that is often more than twice as strong as plastic cross ties found in other insulating concrete forms.
With PolySteel, during a fire situation, the dry wall remains in place, unlike with plastic ties. The plastic form ties used in most ICF’s add an additional 50,000 BTU’s of fuel value per square metre of wall which means there is more fuel to burn and prolong a fire when one occurs.
Steel ties have for many years, and continue to be, the preferred choice in standard masonry walls for probably the same reasons. See also thermally efficient walls below.

Cradle to Cradle Silver certification
There is much hype about sustainability which sometimes make it difficult for the customer to select the right product.
PolySteel have proved and continue to demonstrate the sustainability of this building method against all other methods. We believe that whole lifetime costs, in terms of carbon reduction (heating and cooling costs) and monetary value, is what is important and demonstrates true sustainability.

Safer on site working
The health and safety risks associated with making large pre panelised buildings or constructing heavy weight brick, block or stone walls are numerous as well as the risks inherent with delivery and storage with the associated materials. PolySteel is lightweight and is easy to manhandle and store.

The Professionals choice
The reliability of PolySteel forms, speed of build and cost are very important factors when you are dealing with a building system week after week, year after year in order to build your own business and gain your customers’ respect.
The ‘Professional Builder Tips’ magazine ranked PolySteel as the preferred Insulating Concrete Form used by builders in a professional builder brand study.

Best Fire Protection
PolySteel walls give a minimum 3 hour fire protection with steel ties and fixing strips that will not fail with intense heat.

Non surround sound
A PolySteel wall with the polystyrene and high density concrete infill helps to prevent unwanted noise from entering your home. A typical PolySteel plastered wall can easily provide an excellent 50dB noise reduction as a minimum.

Lightweight construction
Forget about paying for people to hump heavy building materials around a hazardous building site.  The forms weigh around 6kg each (8.33kg/mtr2 of wall area) compared to the equivalent weight of brick and block, insulation and mortar of 435kg/mtr2.   (bricks 2.7kg x 72, blocks 20kg x 9.88, Mortar 34kg/mtr2, Insulation and ties 6.5kg/mtr2).
By comparison the weight of a PolySteel form with the concrete is 371kg/mtr2, however there is no man handling of the concrete which is delivered by pump.

Build a wall without a cavity
Bricks, being porous, will allow the cavity to become damp which then has to be vented. A PolySteel wall is designed not to allow moisture penetration and does not have a cavity.  Why have up to half of your wall exposed to the elements and only insulate the inside portion, having an often damp cavity in between which holds the insulation?  The quality of the insulation in the cavity is often suspect at allowing cold air in, where insulation joints occur.
PolySteel insulates the whole wall, both sides, reducing the chance of any damp getting into or through the wall structure with super efficient flame retardant EPS which is tongue and grooved together at the joints.

De-skilled
Constructing with PolySteel formwork does not require in-depth theoretical knowledge or any great degree of practical knowledge as would be learnt and deemed necessary by serving an apprenticeship for joinery or bricklaying.  Mistakes made when laying the forms are easily rectified and require only a basic understanding of general building; this allows wide latitude for learning whilst building. There’s gives plenty of opportunity to save on bought-in skills.

Thermally efficient walls
We believe that the thermal efficiency is one of the most important elements that a wall can offer. The thermal efficiency will determine how effective the wall is at keeping you warm in the winter and cool in the summer and doing that at best value.  Value being “pounds in your pocket” and less carbon being produced through energy wastage.  It can be argued that the building regulations put too much emphasis on the importance of ‘U values’ alone in achieving the goals stated above.
The exceptional insulation properties of polystyrene combined with the high thermal mass of concrete, together create a super efficient envelope protecting you from the large swings in temperature typical of our climate.  Through many years of feedback to PolySteel from customers in some of the most severe weather regions of Canada and the United States of America, it is reported that the PolySteel design accepts an 18% reduction in ‘U value’ (reported as 0.3 in the BRE Revised Thermal Assessment) in order to gain a 29% increase in effective thermal performance by utilising the thermal mass of the concrete wall. Plastic ties do not allow the transfer of heat energy into and out of the thermal mass. PolySteel’s steel ties/fixing strips are shown above to achieve an 11% net increase in ‘U value’ performance by enhancing the thermal mass of the concrete.
Based on the above, it is reasonable to argue that the PolySteel formed wall using steel ties/fixing strips performs to give a typical ‘U value’ of .1958 (.22-11%).
PolySteel are presently conducting thermal efficiency tests with The National Physical Laboratory in London to accurately determine its performance against other building methods.

Speed of build
It is through consensus of many PolySteel installers that it takes around eleven various builds to become fully proficient and competent with installing the PolySteel formwork. The speed of installation depends on the level of experience of the installer and the complexity of the build.  As an example for an inexperienced installer on a complex design (curved walls may take longer) expect 2 forms per man hour for the forms to be placed, braced and the concrete poured.  The installation rate for an experienced installer on a simple design can be as high as 7 forms per man hour.

Air infiltration
Because there are no joins in the concrete wall as there is in bricks or wood panels it is shown to provide very good air tightness.  This does not mean that the buildings are stuffy but does mean that the amount of air that you allow into the home is under your control and not out of your control as evident with draughts.  The second most important element that will save you energy is air changes because every unit of air that infiltrates your living space is replacing the same unit of air lost to outside, costing you money.  Mindful that there has to be a certain amount of air change to give a comfortable environment weighed against the cost of that air change, modern heat recovery units attached to a whole house ventilation system with PolySteel will provide very quick payback.

Pre panelising
Where there is repetition of wall design or there needs to be a speedy build due to fixed deadlines or because of natural constraints such as tides etc or where it is safer to work with larger panels eg. building a wall in a trench. 
It is possible to clip together the forms with a strong steel clip system unique to PolySteel, this will allow the walls to be built on or off site with or without reinforcing steel, before being placed into position.

Estimating
PolySteel provide an estimating service which is easy to follow and check against your project, very important at keeping costs within budget.  Cost estimating tools can be sent out to compare with other building methods or PolySteel can estimate from suitable drawings submitted.

Cost transparency
PolySteel is the first ICF company to publish its supply prices on its website. The aim of PolySteel is to be transparent with its pricing and the information that it provides so that the customer can make comparisons and informed decisions at the early stages or at the eleventh hour of their project.