Can ICFs Be Cheaper Than Frame?
(Updated 2025 Edition)
By Robert Klob, CPBD
For as long as the ICF industry has existed, there’s always been one persistent question: How much more does it cost to build with ICFs? People throw around numbers—2 percent, 5 percent, 10 percent—depending on who they’re trying to convince. Historically, those percentages often held true, and that alone has scared off many homeowners before they ever understood what they were comparing.
The irony is that the question itself is pointed in the wrong direction.
The better question is the one that actually impacts project decisions:
Can ICFs ever be less expensive than wood framing?
The answer—then and now—is still a confident yes.
And not just for a simple square house with four straight walls and no architectural personality. ICFs can outperform frame even on a large, custom, feature-rich home. I’ve seen it happen. And the story of one particular project remains the clearest example of how misunderstood the cost conversation really is.
A Real Project With Real Numbers
In 2012, a Battalion Chief and his executive-professional wife approached me to design their dream home. They were familiar with ICFs because many new fire stations were being built with them, and they liked the idea of that same durability, comfort, and resilience for their own home.
Together, we developed a design shaped around their lifestyle, family needs, and long-term vision. When it was complete, the home was nearly 6,000 square feet of livable space and roughly 10,000 square feet under roof. It had generous entertaining areas, a strong indoor–outdoor connection—critical in Arizona—and architectural character throughout.
The ICF design wasn’t basic or simplistic. It used nearly 7,000 square feet of ICF walls, all at 12 feet tall. It included:
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42 corners
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Multiple angles, curves, and T-intersections
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Over 30 windows
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Eight exterior doors, including three multi-panel sliders ranging 12 to 18 feet wide
If you’ve ever needed a design to show off the versatility of ICFs, this was it.
When the conceptual design was complete, we sent it out for preliminary pricing. The bids came back competitive and aligned with the clients’ budget expectations.
Everything was on track
—until the framer arrived.
Article reprinted & updated from
ICF Builder Magazine, Jan/Feb 2014
by Robert Klob
Home mentioned in the Article
Home mentioned in the Article
Home mentioned in the Article
Home mentioned in the Article
Home mentioned in the Article
The 5% Temptation
A wood framer told the owners he could reduce their budget by “at least $40,000”—roughly 5 percent—if they switched to 2x6 framing.
The owners wanted to meet with me right away.
I explained what they would be giving up—energy performance, structural strength, fire resistance, comfort, long-term savings. I reminded them that the 5 percent premium was exactly what I mentioned during our initial discussions. I fought hard to keep ICFs in the design, even playing the fire-safety card, hoping it would resonate with the Battalion Chief.
But after several meetings and email rounds, the owners decided that $40K felt like meaningful savings. “That pays for a lot of electric bills,” they said. So they chose to switch.
As always, my role is to deliver the best service possible, even when clients make decisions I don’t agree with. So we restructured the design in wood frame.
And that’s when the hidden problems started to surface.
The Cost of Complexity—In Full View
All those doors, windows, tall walls, and slender wall segments that were effortless in an ICF structure became serious obstacles in wood framing.
The structural engineer immediately struggled with the lateral-load path. Shear walls became nearly impossible without compromising the design—something the owners refused outright.
The framer’s solution? Simpson Strong-Wall® panels.
Thirteen of them.
He claimed they were “not too expensive” and “easy to install,” but the engineer warned the owners that Strong-Walls were neither cheap nor simple—especially at this scale.
He was right.
Four of the Strong-Wall panels required massive footings:
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9 feet long
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5 feet wide
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30 inches deep
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Heavily reinforced with rebar
Each footing consumed more than 4 yards of concrete.
Just the concrete and reinforcing steel for those footings added roughly $25,000.
Then came the panels themselves: more than $18,000.
Layer on the extra sheathing, bracing, beams, posts, engineered connections, labor overruns, inspection steps, and—because the owners still wanted a highly efficient home—expensive spray foam insulation.
That added another $42,000.
The Bottom-Line Reality
By the time the structure was completed, the project cost had increased by $45,000 beyond what the original ICF design would have cost. And in 2025 dollars, that number would easily be 3x that amount.
In other words, sticking with ICFs would have saved the owners more than 5 percent on the build.
And that calculation doesn’t include monthly savings from energy efficiency, reduced maintenance, or improved performance. That’s just raw construction math.
Throughout the process, I heard the same sentence more times than I can count—from the owners, the GC, and even the framer:
“We should have never switched from ICF.”
The delays, unexpected costs, engineering complications, and stress wore the owners down. They loved the finished home, and I’m proud of the design—but I knew it could have been stronger, faster, better, and cheaper with ICFs.
Why This Keeps Happening
Over the years, I’ve told this story to countless homeowners. It has prevented more than a few from making the same mistake.
Today, with hundreds of additional ICF projects behind me, the reasons for cost confusion are clearer than ever:
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Inexperienced subcontractors charge extra for their learning curve.
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Architects and engineers unfamiliar with ICF create unnecessarily expensive details.
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People compare stud costs instead of full wall systems—ignoring build-time savings, eliminated materials, and reduced labor.
These issues became so common that I created a separate professional service—ICF Plan Review—using a 100+ point checklist to evaluate ICF plans for best practices, cost efficiency, and constructability.
Just recently, we completed a review where the owners kept their exact design—but correcting unnecessary engineering will save them around $250,000.
That’s not hypothetical. That’s factual.
Home mentioned in the Article
Home mentioned in the Article
Home mentioned in the Article
So—Can ICFs Be Cheaper Than Frame?
Yes. Not just in theory, but in practice.
It’s happening across the country in projects large and small.
When a design is done correctly, the engineering is appropriate, and the bids come from experienced ICF subs, the system often outperforms wood—not just in comfort and durability, but in cost.
The mistake is assuming ICFs are automatically more expensive. The reality is that wood framing hides its true costs in ways ICF never has.
And the homeowners who learn that early never look back.
