Concrete Construction: Is It Really the Mold-Free Solution? | Ep. 23

0:00Welcome back to the Holistic Homes podcast. I'm Christine, your host, licensed general contractor and Holistic Home expert, and I'm here to help guide you through one of these big conversations that I hear come up and put some myths to rest. Today's episode is all about concrete construction and why that may or may not be the best answer for your home. And it's going to really depend on a big factor and that has to do with your climate. But I don't want to focus on, you know, the elements of concrete building because that might not apply to you. I want to rather focus on is concrete construction really the answer to building a home that's free of mold and water defects. Because I see that come up quite a bit. I see especially homeowners that have gone through really

1:03traumatic instances in their home that had damaged lumber and drywall that had mold on the backside of it. And it's really turned them off from building a traditional home that's really referred to as like stick framed home or wood framed home. I see a lot of people that have just been battered by having a ton of mold in their home that they've just veered the complete opposite direction and almost making fear based decisions. And I'm just going to build a concrete home or I'm just going to use lightweight steel to build my home. I'm going to use rammed earth to build my home because they're just so fearful of building with traditional lumber. So we're going to touch on concrete construction today. Why it may or may not be a good choice for you depending on the climate that you're in. But also I want to put some of your fears around traditional home building. I want

2:06to help answer some of those fears. And hopefully at the end of this episode for you to be making decisions about your home as informed decisions and not fear based decisions. So the first thing I want to touch on is concrete construction. And when it may or may not be a good idea. The most common area that concrete construction is going to be built today is in the Florida region. And that's because it's a part of their building code. In some regions it's a requirement. And rightfully so there's a lot of hurricanes that come through Florida. There's been a lot of flooding. Also their climate it it makes sense to do homes built today in concrete construction. Their climate is going to be a hot humid climate. They're not in a cold freezing climate. But in Florida where concrete construction is going to be most common. It's also designed around

3:09being hurricane resistant and have the structural integrity needed to withstand those rains and winds and potential flooding. So concrete construction comes with its own challenges. That's why I encourage you if you're coming from a mold damage home to not automatically just veer that course and go all the way to alternative building materials that might not be right for your climate. But in Florida you know it's part of their building code in many areas and it makes sense. Things to be wary of when it comes to concrete construction is that it's referred to as you know thermal mass. Concrete performs entirely different than wood framing. So concrete is going to absorb thermal mass. It's going to absorb when it's hot outside in Florida. It's going to absorb that heat. If it doesn't have the proper layers of exterior rigid on the exterior

4:13exterior rigid insulation is what I'm referring to. But if that concrete comes in contact with heat it's going to hold on to that heat and then slowly release it over time. Just like if you were outside and you see a concrete bench and it's a hot sunny day that concrete is hot and it will slowly release that heat. So this can be problematic on concrete homes where there are not proper control layers. If there are not proper control layers in place that is stopping the transfer of that heat to the interior of your home you could end up with some condensation issues because on a hot hot sunny day in Florida you are likely inside your cozy home with the air conditioning on. So what happens when that heat from the concrete comes in contact with cold air on the interior of your home that could create a condensation point. So building with concrete

5:15yes although more hydrophobic than stick framing it does come with its own potential challenges. Depending on the region. So you really need to have thermal control layers and air control layers dialed in if you are doing concrete construction. Something to be aware of is also concrete construction is not suitable for all regions. It is almost a big red flag warning to do concrete home construction, residential construction in cold freezing regions. It is going to end up in big catastrophic issues because it also holds on to moisture and in cold regions, rains, snow, there's potential for that concrete to spiral into a whole host of issues. Holding on to moisture, condensation issues, you're going to need incredible insulation

6:17just to keep that home comfortable. So concrete construction is not suitable for all regions and concrete construction is not the answer to problematic stick framed homes. If you are coming from a home that had water damage in it and the lumber had mold, the answer is not to then go and build in steel framing or concrete construction. The problem is that that home had a defect. That is why that lumber came in contact with moisture and thus led to mold. So I am more of the approach of building right for the climate, not building based off of history and defects and problematic builds. I like to close that chapter and correct the issues going forward. Like taking what you experienced from your prior project and correcting that issue and layering

7:17and quality control to make sure that that issue is not also carrying over into your new build. I'll give you an example of when a concrete construction project failed and this was not a client of mine but they had reached out to us to see if we could help with their project. They had a host of issues within their family just health wise that really sparked their heightened awareness around complete mold avoidance. They had some severe sensitivities that they just could not have any mold within their home and they came from a prior home traditionally built home with stick framing that did have mold. So their solution was to build a concrete structure in this was in a very humid climate not completely similar to Florida but it had a lot of high

8:19temperatures and it had high humidity. The problem was that this region also did experience snow from time to time. So a little bit of a mixed climate going on but what was happening is that they were experiencing condensation within their home and they could not nip it in the butt. This home had already been built. They actually had what was supposed to be a waterproofing consultant and building science expert on their home but the fail in this construction project was that there was no thermal control layer and the air control layer was not consistent from the roof line down to the exterior walls. So this home was problematic and it was leading to condensation on the interior side and you know we didn't get into the project after it had been built to really get into where the failure points were but the assumption was that it was just not built right for their climate

9:25and it's really catastrophic to see something like that happen and I'm going to give you one thing that we do on just about every project that really helps to nip issues like that in the bud before they're ever even like breaking ground in construction. So the moral of that story with doing concrete construction in that mixed climate is that those decisions were made based out of fear that the client had said we cannot have you know stick frame we cannot have mold we want to completely avoid it but what the team did that failed that homeowner there was they didn't strategize on how they could take preventative measures to you know still build a stick frame home potentially without being riddled with issues. So one thing that we like to do on just about every project when we can is have a formal engineering analysis done on the enclosure. So if the client is adamant

10:32about doing concrete construction or anything else for that matter if they're adamant they want to do their home build a certain way that might be out of the norm for that region it is a very very smart investment to consider a formal high-growth thermal analysis that is a big fancy word for taking the proposed building enclosure and having a formal engineering analysis of each of the individual layers. It gets real technical really quick we work with an engineer that does all of these analysis for us on the projects that we need them on and that the client is really you know wanting to fully understand how their home is going to perform. This high-growth thermal analysis takes each of the layers it's going to be brick or it's going to be stone or if the exterior's stucco whatever the finished layers are as well as the air control layers the moisture control layers

11:34the thermal layers it is taking each and every layer even all the way down to the plywood if that's being used it's looking at how vapor is moving through each of those layers and it will spit out the report will spit out quite literally a green or red of where there's potential failure points where it is looking like the the home is performing really well it's also even looking at all faces of of the homes orientation so north east southwest you may have one side of your home where a particular type of construction will pass and not have vapor control issues or condensation issues and there may be another orientation the north side of your home it might be problematic there so this is an analysis that I think is so incredibly valuable yes it's absolutely an investment into your home and another engineer and team member

12:38brought into your home but this is what we emphasize in healthy home building it is not about demonizing other ways of construction or demonizing you know particular building materials it's about if we're going to build a home in this way we need to know with a verifiable evidence that each of those strategies are going to result in meeting you as the client your expectations so it's something to consider going down it's a it's an investment I would say you know you'd probably be looking at 10,000 plus in doing that type of analysis it's going to very wildly depending on how many building enclosure and roof details are exterior wall details how many of these actual architectural details are being analyzed but it's the peace of mind and actual evidence

13:40that could be really valuable for you in your build and it could also be a very wise investment to understand what you can and cannot do feasibly within your project because concrete construction is costly it is far more costly than than doing a traditional stick frame wood framed home construction project so it's intended as a tool doing this high-growth thermal analysis it's intended as a tool to understand where there might be failure points within your home and we'll also look at how we can reduce insulation but still gain very similar performance which in doing that that's that's referred to as like a value engineering process in your home how can we reduce the cost of things but still hit client expectations still hit the mark and still

14:40get those great performance requirements so it's a process all of this is a process and it does take you know additional team members to your project but you know I wanted to touch on the topic of concrete construction and alternative building methods because I see oftentimes those decisions are not made based off of data and climate analysis and you know cost of construction oftentimes I see concrete construction the result of fear of traditional you know stick frame building and I understand it but I also want to help anyone you know go through this type of analysis that could get you out of some hot water potentially but also more importantly really help you make decisions from an informed place not from a fear long green place of you know all

15:45framing is riddled with mold and it's gonna lead to mold and there's no possible way to build a home with lumber without it being riddled with water damage and getting rained on during construction arriving to the job site with mold those are all things that are you know coming from a fear-based place so concrete construction is not the solution for every home it's not the solution and you know a bullet bulletproof way to getting to a healthy home and it's not the solution for every single climate for every single project budget I do think it's a great consideration when it is needed when it is you know driven by the climate and driven by if it's a code requirement that's obviously a requirement in that case but don't make decisions about your home out of fear consider layering in additional engineers and consultants to really make decisions

16:49about what's best for your project from a data driven place and concrete does come with issues does it's definitely not easy to renovate a home that has been built with concrete and it's not easy to completely waterproof and control all of the layers of a concrete built home and in some cases even if the concrete walls are in place you may still end up with some framing within your home so be fully aware of what you are getting if it makes sense for your climate and you know make decisions from an informed place and a high-growth thermal analysis done by an actual engineer could be a really great place to start that's something that we help facilitate for any of our clients that want to go down that path and I will tell you the

17:49information is incredibly valuable and everyone on your team should be thoroughly excited about something like that because it's another kind of step in the verification process of hey we are going down the right path of building we do actually have this type of data that says yes the way that we're proposing to build this home is going to perform as the homeowner intent so have the conversation with your architect you know if it's something that you want to consider your architect might have resources for that or you could you know do some searching online it's not incredibly easy because everything that we talk about is not typically a part of standard home construction so you'll have to do a little digging if it's something you're taking on your own but my hope is that this episode was helpful for you to understand that everything comes with risks yes framing a home during the rainy season of the year is going to come with risks in potential having

18:54you know water damage on your framing yes concrete construction can be great for summary regions but it comes with risks as well and that I hope that you are making decisions about your home from you know a data driven place so that's what I have for you on today's episode please follow us on Instagram if you wanted to get even more free content you can always reach out to us there at holistic homes by Christine so you can reach out to us if there's anything that we can do to help you in your custom new build journey we would love to see if that's something that we can help guide you through you know exactly what we've talked about on this episode today so until next time I am so grateful that you're here with us on this episode