What is a Full Concrete Home?
A full concrete home is a home built with a concrete floor, concrete block walls and a concrete roof, with no wood used for any part of the structure of the home.
What is the cost of a full concrete home versus a typical wood trussed roof home?
The cost is slightly higher averaging 15% to 20% higher of the typical wood trussed roofs. But said higher cost could be offset with the faster method of construction of a concrete roof versus the typical installation of wood trusses, over which will be installed the plywood panels than the tar rolls nailed at every 6 inches in both ways over which are installed the finishing clay tiles or shingles.
Faster methods or systems of construction for a full concrete home will be discussed in future articles.
What are the advantages of a full concrete home?
- Hurricane resistant.
- Cyclone resistant.
- Fire resistant – in case of a fire the roof structure will not suffer any structural damage. It will only be blackened with the black soot of the flames which can be removed by regular cleaning and the repairs to the gypsum/drywall ceiling as required.
- Longevity – you will never have to replace the roof. If proper maintained, the roof will last for hundreds of years as opposed to the wood trussed roofs which have to be replaced every 20 years approximately. The proper maintenance required is applying a waterproofing or concrete sealing coating every 2 or 3 years as a preventive measure.
- 30% reduction in Insurance payments – Insurance companies reduce up to 30% of yearly payments to clients with full concrete homes.
Are their builders in South Florida and Miami capable of building a full concrete home?
There are not many builders in South Florida and Miami that have had experience with building full concrete homes but that is changing. More and more I find people are willing to build a full concrete home even if it means spending a little more money for its construction. And that means that more General Contractors are getting interested in training themselves and their employees in building full concrete homes. There are also some companies that are establishing themselves in Miami which offer various systems of building concrete roofs and which offer basic training in the use of its products.
ETR architectural workshop has as its goal to meet with these companies and to analyze their products and specify them (if deemed reliable) to our future clients and work together with our clients, the concrete companies and the General Contractors so that at the end we have a finished beautiful and functional full concrete home for all our clients.
At this moment we in ETR architectural workshop are working in various designs for affordable full concrete homes which we will offer our clients soon.