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Economist for Portland Cement Association is pessimistic about job growth and foreclosure activity.
Concrete specialist Fu-Tung Cheng tells builders how to easily and economically fabricate their own countertops.
New building code standard, ACI 332, offers builders a better alternative for building concrete basement foundations.
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This video illustrates how Superior Walls are manufactured under roof, transported to the jobsite by trucks and installed on-site, usually in less than one day!
At the Apex. Simply put, the manufacturer claims that the APEX Block is the most energy-efficient construction material on the planet. That's up for debate, but the product--made from recycled polystyrene and cement--is pretty cool. An average home built with the block keeps 2,830 pounds of...
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The New American Home would not be possible without the support of the members of the National Council of the Housing Industry (NCHI)/Supplier 100, as well as a legion of local and regional suppliers and installers. More than 40 NCHI members contributed products to this year's house and provided...
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Designing a house “by committee” is, as any architect or builder will tell you, a patently insane notion. Yet every year since 1984, The New American Home has done it in spectacular fashion, bringing together the world's leading suppliers and a host of consultants and valued trade partners to...
WHEN TEMPERATURES dip toward freezing, building officials routinely shut down foundation work
IN COMMERCIAL CONSTRUCTION, THE USE OF SITE-POURED, TILT-UP concrete walls is growing at record speed. But residential builders, for the most part, haven't joined the tilt-up revolution. It's still primarily a commercial construction tool.
Take three very tight lots, three distinct buyer profiles, and strict architectural guidelines, and give them to three world-class architects. What do you get? Three small servings of perfection.The response from the architects to the New Urban Challenge was intensely personal. They designed houses...
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THE NEW AMERICAN HOME 2005 WOULD NOT BE POSSIBLE without the generous support and contribution of products and services by the members of the NAHB's National Council of the Housing Industry (NCHI)/Supplier 100 and other consultants, contributors, installers, suppliers, and trade partners.
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Manufactured stone has been around for several decades now, but in recent years, the cement-based material has come of age, both in terms of technology and in its warm reception by residential designers and builders.
If some builders and sales professionals view The New American Home 2004 as a tough sell to the mainstream, they're probably right. But for a narrow niche of mature, affluent, and sophisticated couples in Las Vegas (or any major market), Borsanyi and the design/build team are convinced that demand...
Hypochondriac homeowners. Turn-tail insurance agencies. Opportunistic attorneys. Have construction-defect lawsuits made your world seem like a hostile place? Here's hope: Most litigation springs from a handful of easily avoidable construction errors. So put on your hard hat and grab your moisture...
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A recent cradle-to-grave study from the Portland Cement Association (PCA) compares the long-term environmental impact of lightweight concrete houses with conventional, 2x4 wood-framed houses, and finds a close race.Their results found that 99 percent of all life-cycle energy usage over that time...
When Allan Anderson, a Petersburg, Ill., builder heard that a local family had contacted the University of Illinois looking for affordable housing help, he became a man with a mission.The builder had just learned about a new program created by the Portland Cement Association called Team Concrete.
By Stephani L. Miller. Decorative concrete floors offer a wide range of design flexibility. Decorative concrete floors allow homeowners to make design statements, and they allow designers to exercise their talents in new and different ways.
At the recent meeting of the National Concrete Masonry Association (NCMA) in Baltimore, the guys (and they're pretty much all guys) who make concrete blocks voiced their frustration about selling their time-honored system to home builders. "It's not fair to compare a stick-framed building to...
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The Portland Cement Association, in conjunction with the Concrete Foundation Association, has released Thermal Mass Comparison of Wall Systems (#CD 026), which proves that insulation and concrete combine well to save energy. Laboratories tested 12 wall systems, including various types of wood frame...