Amvic, now called Alleguard, was the ICF block of choice for this Penticton, British Columbia, Canada project named Garnet Way. This project won both the Unlimited Residential category and the People’s Choice Award in the 2023 ICF Builder Awards. The Unlimited Residential category includes homes that are over 6,000 square feet. The living area of Garnet Way is 7,072 square feet, the exterior patio is 2,750 square feet, and the pool is 550 square feet. A total of 16,330 square feet of Alleguard blocks were used in this $5.2 million project.

Challenging Job Site
This modern home overlooks Okanagan Lake and Skaha Lake, with spectacular views from the oversized windows and many decks. The home design features an 18-foot-deep ICF pool with an underwater 4-foot high glass viewing wall; the native rock is the floor of the pool. The pool also features an ICF and glass hot tub and swim-up bar. “Approximately 500 cubic meters of rock had to be blasted and removed to prep the job site,” says Czyrelle Talento, Alleguard’s marketing specialist. The next challenge was getting the foundation surveyed in order to drill and place the 520 rock dowels to anchor the ICF walls in place.” The next step was scribing the ICF block to the contours of the rock surface. The design followed the unusual terrain of the mountain to enhance the connection with the natural environment.
Walls varied from 3 feet to 27 feet in elevation and were completed within a 1/4-inch tolerance. The site required 600 linear feet of ICF-to-rock scribing. “Undulating rock with no constant elevation required extreme attention to detail, from surveying to getting to a constant elevation for a flat working surface,” says Talento. The builder, Jason Stutke with Okanagan Extreme Home Builders, has been using ICF for more than 20 years and he welcomed the challenge in this particular home.

Sustainability
ICF was used in every way possible to provide great energy efficiency and air tightness. No fiberglass insulation was used in the home. All floors and ceilings were insulated using 2-pound spray foam. All floor and ceiling R-values are 32 and 48 respectively. EnerGuide is the official Government of Canada mark associated with the labeling and rating of energy efficiency. The EnerGuide rating of this home is 73 G/J per year. That means that compared to a typical new house, this home built with ICF uses 62.9% less energy. It uses 72.1% less energy when excluding the estimated energy consumption of lighting appliances and electronics.
The home took only 82 weeks in total to complete, and only 91 days for the ICF portion of the project. The builder, Stutzke, estimates that the team saved 16 weeks by building with ICF. “The owner is amazed that this huge project was completed in 21 months, with the high standards of workmanship by all that spent many hours building this home,” says Talento. “Its soundproofing and quality level is beyond the homeowner’s expectations. The use of the ICF has provided the homeowner an exceptional build and a true beauty that they can call home for many years to come.”