A Kentucky school district turns to insulated concrete forms for energy-efficient elementary school.
Meeting the educational needs of today’s student is a prime objective for school boards across the United States. Record-breaking enrollment and increasing staffing to meet the rise require improved educational facilities. School districts in the United States spent more than $20 billion on completed construction projects during the 2006 calendar year, including $12.3 billion on new schools — which accounts for 61.3 percent — as reported by Market Data Retrieval. This level was the highest since 1979. A growing demand for new facilities throughout the nation means the demand to build these facilities with sustainable materials also needs to grow.
When Robert Rogers and Charles Rector of the Warren County, Ky., school district set out to replace their aging school, they looked for alternative green products to use. One of those chosen was Insulated Concrete Forms (ICF). In late 2004, they sourced out and began working with the team at ICF manufacturer NUDURA Corp. With the support of Dale Brown, Warren County Schools Superintendent, they began the lengthy process of incorporating NUDURA’s ICFs into the highly energy-efficient design of the 77,000- square-foot Alvaton Elementary School.
The Alvaton School was already using a variety of other highly energy-efficient products, such as:
- A geothermal heat pump system;
- Innovative R-32 sandwich panel roofing materials; and
- Lighting and HVAC occupancy sensors.
It was the reported energy efficiency of NUDURA’s product, which generated the initial interest in ICFs. Other potential advantages to using ICFs also presented themselves, such as:
- Cost of construction
- Speed of construction
- Sound attenuation
- Disaster resistant strength
- Resistance to mold growth
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Alvaton Elementary School earned an ENERGY STAR award, photo courtesy of the Warren County, Ky., school district.
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Once the decision had been made to pursue the use of NUDURA’s ICFs for the construction of Alvaton Elementary, Rector and Rogers enlisted the support of Kenny Stanfield of Sherman, Carter and Barnhart Architects. Initially, the firm was hesitant to support such a significant undertaking: the cost savings of designing with a new product could be outweighed by the risk factors involved with being the first architectural firm to design an ICF school in the state.
To help overcome the objection, Martin Clark of NUDURA and Dan Hilty of HOLDFAST Technologies, a local NUDURA distributor, arranged to visit a school in Arkansas. Several weeks later, they made a trip to visit a private school constructed with ICFs that had been in operation for several years. After viewing the surprisingly low monthly energy costs, and hearing of the construction speed, they left with a renewed respect for the product, they said.
In December 2005, the Alvaton School was bid and approved for a January/February start. Warren County School officials were about to make history and become the first school board to build a school using NUDURA in the state of Kentucky. Although the project was delayed until May due to site preparation, by August the NUDURA exterior walls were fully complete four months ahead of expectations. The sub trades were also highly supportive as they received unexpected advantages in the form of time and labor savings.
In August 2006, the Alvaton school opened its doors to a history-making school year. In September 2007, Alvaton Elementary was awarded an ENERGY STAR award, and Alvaton Elementary has ranked among the most energy-efficient schools in the country. Even though energy savings drove this project, the outstanding occupant safety of the design used in this school is one of the biggest sources of pride for two leaders in school innovation, Robert Rogers and Charles Rector.
Kentucky now provides tours of its facilities to school boards across the U.S., proving why building green has so many advantages — not only for costs, but also for the students and faculty which occupy these facilities.
The state of Kentucky currently has 12 schools under construction with NUDURA. For more information on NUDURA’s ICF products, visit www.nudura.com or circle Reader Service No. 170.
