Product Comparison
Polycrete® Big Block™ -- Radical Innovation On Proven Construction Technology!
Insulating Concrete Forms (ICF) have been used successfully in residential construction for many years. Polycrete has now shaken up the industry with the first truly Commercial Grade ICF.
What makes Polycrete Big Block™ Commercial Grade? It's a robust solution that simplifies green commercial construction. Here are the significant differences between Big BlockTM and all of those residential grade ICFs:
Size of the form: Big Block™ measures 2’ x 8’, so it’s absolutely the largest ICF available.
Width of the form: Four standard widths, and any width from 5” up to 12” of concrete is available. Need 6-1/2”? We can give it to you. 9-1/4”? We can give you that, too. Any width you want. No other ICF offers this option.
Big Block™ folds flat and is delivered to the jobsite ready to install; no on-site assembly is required – Over 12,000 square feet of forms per truckload.
Big Block 1600™ will not blow out. It is held together with STEEL. Steel connectors tie the panels together (galvanized option is available), and a web of .16” welded steel wire is embedded in the foam so it can withstand 1,600 lbs. of lateral pressure per square foot. No other ICF comes close!
Pour in eight foot lifts, so your building goes up faster and pumping costs are lower.
No pea gravel. Those big plastic cross ties that the other guys use require the use of pea gravel and concrete additives to assist the concrete to flow around the ties. Big Block’s™ .16” steel cross ties won't impede the flow of concrete, so you use less costly 5/8” aggregate and no additives are required..
Steel cross ties and embedded fastening system reduce the chance of even the smallest voids making Big Block™ the superior air barrier.
Less jobsite waste saves money. Steel ties and steel mesh allow cut-offs to be used elsewhere in the job.
A concrete wall must be vibrated to eliminate voids and honeycombing. Use a mechanical vibrator on a Polycrete® wall. It will not break the form or the cross ties. The other guys’ plastic ties and unreinforced foam blocks can blow out if you hit them with a vibrator.
Eliminate scalloping and prevent wall movement during the pour. Thanks to our steel ties and embedded steel mesh, a Polycrete wall is straight and FLAT. The other guys can get to straight and flat, but it takes a whole lot more work and a really good installer.
No need to line up vertical plastic studs like all the others. Big Block’s™ 22 gauge steel fastening strips are horizontal, not vertical. This simplifies the attachment of partition walls and interior and exterior finishes. This means faster installation, lower labor costs, and less waste.
No molded corners! Big Block’s™ inherent structural integrity and proprietary corner guides ensure perfectly plumb corners every time, effortlessly. This also means fewer items to order. And what happens if you don’t order enough of the other guys’ molded corners? Or if you get too many “lefts” and not enough “rights”? Forget about it.
Ship-lapped profiles on top and bottom simplify stacking – no need to fit those little Lego-like nubs into little holes.
Don’t glue or tie successive courses together. Big Block’s™ ship-lap design, great strength, and steel cross ties use the weight of the concrete to lock successive courses together. And braces are screwed into the steel fastening strip every 12 inches up the wall anyway. This means that two braces fasten at four points on each Big Block™. Gluing is not only unnecessary, it is undesirable.
Recycled Raw Material -- Big Block™ contains 66% recycled raw materials -- it's the steel. Others are no more than 40% and it's their plastic ties.
The money is in the labor. An experienced installer knows that ALL traditional ICFs install in .09 to .14 man hours per square foot of wall. That is the standard in the industry. But an average trained crew can install Big Block™ in .05 man hours per square foot of wall – two to three times faster. The more experienced the crew, the faster they go. This past winter, a Polycrete® project was completed in .034 man hours per square foot of wall. That included installation, bracing, corners, door & window bucks, placing concrete and even clean-up – all in winter conditions. Picture is right here.
