Interior

• Flooring
• Drywalls
  TM, to be covered with a minimum 1/2" non-fire rated gypsum board. Fire testing designed to simulate a typical developing home interior fire has shown that gypsum board will perform acceptably if held in place using standard drywall screws set into the Pinkform Xtra
• Framing
  Explanation: In general, exterior walls of a house must be designed to resist a combination of axial and bending forces. Axial forces are large vertical loads, such as the weight of the floors and roof. In a multi-story home, the axial load on the first floor exterior wall is often greater than in a single-story home. Bending forces are horizontal loads such as strong winds generated by tornadoes and hurricanes, or seismic vibrations generated by earthquakes. Exterior walls made of concrete, due to their mass and rigidity, have more strength to resist these forces than do exterior walls made of wood framing.

Construction

• New Construction
  These two forces are also related to each other. Axial load strength varies as bending forces vary. For a wood wall, the bending strength decreases as the axial load increases. Conversely, the bending strength of a concrete wall increases as the axial load increases for the range of loading in residential construction.

Exterior

• Window Installation/Replacement
• Siding
  TM wall with interior gypsum and vinyl siding has an approximate STC of at least 47 (up to 53 for a 8" wall). An increase of 10 STC is equivalent to a 50% reduction in perceived sound volume.

General

• Insulation
  TM exterior walls use 9% less energy(nationally averaged) in heating and cooling versus typical wood-framed construction. The energy savings are due to increased insulation (7%) and thermal mass of concrete (2%). These savings are based upon currently accepted thermal modeling techniques. Additional energy savings, over the 9% mentioned above, are to be expected due to reduced air infiltration (see Air Infiltration Statement). Energy studies of 27 existing homes built with this type of exterior wall (called ICF for short) concluded that ICF homes require an estimated 44% less energy to heat and 32% less energy to cool than comparable wood-framed homes. Work is underway to understand the differences between this study and accepted thermal modeling techniques.
• Masonry