Colorado
Concrete Home > Local Resources > Colorado

For information about residential concrete construction in Colorado, call:

Rocky Mountain Cement Council at (303) 751-0900
Colorado Ready-Mixed Concrete Association at (303) 290-0303

Concrete Homebuilders making an impact in Colorado

In recent years, there has been explosive growth in the number of homes built in Colorado with exterior concrete wall systems. Much of this growth can be attributed to innovative builders using energy efficient building systems such as insulating concrete forms (ICFs) and concrete panel systems.

Denver

In 1997 and 1998, Denver builder and developer John Kurowski built ICF homes for the Denver area Parade of Homes. In each year, over 100,000 visitors toured the homes and learned about the beauty, energy efficiency, disaster resistance and soundproofing qualities of a home built with ICFs.

The 1997 entry, the "Belhaven" was the winner of the BUILT GREEN Home of the Year Award. There are a number of other ICF builders within the state. The Colorado Ready-Mixed Concrete Association has taken the leading role in promoting ICF construction and identifying Colorado ICF builders.

Contact John Kurowski at (303) 972-8680.

Ft. Collins

Scot Smyth of Smyth Builders in Colorado is a builder setting out to build responsibly. Scot challenged himself and his associates to build a unique home that complemented its surroundings. In his quest to build creatively and responsibly, Scot chose Quad-Lock’s ICF system. He met, and some might say exceeded that challenge, by building ‘House at Empyrean Ridge’ which won the Home Builders Association of Northern Colorado’s Innovative Builder of the Year Award.

“Deciding to use ICFs was an easy choice for me. Because of the rising fuel costs, I knew I needed to take steps to keeps energy costs down. Upfront planning and investment can save you money or even pay dividends in the long run. By ensuring that I was using the highest R-value available to me, I saved money on the heating and cooling equipment I installed and now I will save money on heating and cooling my house for years to come.” As an added benefit, Scot saves about 20% annually on his house insurance.

Scot now lives in his award-winning home and he’s been impressed with how solid his house feels. “My exterior walls are 16.5” inches thick — that’s a lot of wall protecting me from, among other things, the harshness of Mother Nature”. Further, Scot states “a couple nights ago the wind was apparently blowing around 80 mph, we didn’t even know it was windy until we looked outside the windows. Inside, we couldn’t detect the wind — it was that quiet. That same night, the interior temperature dropped 1 degree, considering that it was –8 degrees outside and all the windows we have, that ’s pretty incredible.”

“We had a lot of wind during construction, too. We’d go home with 12 foot high ICF walls stacked waiting to be poured and come back the next morning and they were still standing. Even Mother Nature couldn ’t put us behind schedule.”

For more information, please contact John Hatfield at (303) 932-9172.

Pueblo

Pueblo-based builder, Tierra Concrete Homes, combines pre-cast concrete panels with passive solar design to create structures that are incredibly energy efficient. One of the homes built by Tierra, the Dickman residence, won an "Energy Value Housing Award" from the National Association of Homebuilders Research Center. Based on actual energy bills and estimated bills for a reference house, the Dickman home uses about 50 percent less energy for heating than a comparable home in the Pueblo area. The cooling load for the home is zero, which eliminates the need for air conditioning.

Contact Judy Niemeyer of Tierra Concrete Homes at (719) 947-3040.

> Return to top | Return to Local Contacts