{"id":25747,"date":"2024-09-07T20:14:54","date_gmt":"2024-09-08T02:14:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/this-new-cortez-home-is-made-of-foam\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T23:26:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:26:21","slug":"this-new-cortez-home-is-made-of-foam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/this-new-cortez-home-is-made-of-foam\/","title":{"rendered":"This new Cortez home is made of foam"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The
The Trailwood Foundation\u2019s EPS foam block construction project on Juniper Place. (Cameryn Cass\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a 1,400-square-foot home on Juniper Place in Cortez that is being built with expanded polystyrene foam blocks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt reminded me of a giant YETI cooler,\u201d said Rachael Marchbanks, Cortez\u2019s community and economic development director.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s reinforced with concrete cores at each corner, around every door and window that secure it from the roof down to the foundation, said city building inspector Sean Canada.<\/p>\n

\"Here
Here is a look inside the home on Juniper Place. (Cameryn Cass\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Since foam is considered a flammable product, it\u2019s encapsulated with stucco on the outside and modified stucco inside, Canada said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t look like what most people think it\u2019s going to look like. It looks like most every other house around,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The nontraditional new build has additionally passed all building inspections and is up to code.<\/p>\n

The home will withstand the 115-mph wind gusts and 30-pound snow load per square foot. The blocks also have a fire retardant in them. Between that and the stucco coating, it\u2019s nearly impossible to melt, said Randy Feuilly, the director of The Trailwood Foundation<\/a>, the company building the home.<\/p>\n

So why build with foam?<\/p>\n

Put simply, it costs less.<\/p>\n

Building this two-bedroom, two-bathroom home with foam costs about $60,000 less than its stick-built counterpart, Feuilly said.<\/p>\n

The goal\u2019s to help address the lack of affordable and workforce housing in the area<\/a> with this kind of construction.<\/p>\n

A big reason for reduced costs is the speed at which it\u2019s constructed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just a slab Aug. 1, and now we almost have the roof on,\u201d said Feuilly. \u201cIt\u2019s going really quick.\u201d<\/p>\n

Builders can skip a lot of steps they\u2019d take in traditional construction, Canada said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have the extra insulation requirements because the insulation is built into the structural materials,\u201d said Canada. \u201cWiring, plumbing are essentially easier too (because) you\u2019re not drilling through all the studs to run your wiring. They\u2019re just channels cut into the foam.\u201d<\/p>\n

The home already sold. It was on the market for less than 72 hours, which says something about demand in the area, said Frank Elge, a business development director at The Trailwood Foundation.<\/p>\n

Next door, they plan to build another foam block home, which also sold.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a new build and in my price range, which is hard to find these days,\u201d said Gina Nelson, the homebuyer. \u201cIt\u2019s different, but worth giving a try. I\u2019ve heard it\u2019s super energy efficient and it\u2019s looking great.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Department of Energy calls insulation with R-values of 13 to 23 sufficient in cooler climates. These foam blocks have an R-60 insulation value.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like a furnace,\u201d Elge said. \u201cIt knows when you need to be cold or hot.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to savings on the initial cost of the home, the energy efficient foam blocks make heating and cooling more affordable down the road, Elge said.<\/p>\n

Also, they don\u2019t mold and insects don\u2019t like them, Elge said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you go point by point, it just beats the other,\u201d Elge said. \u201cWe try not to go there, though. We simply say it\u2019s less expensive to create and build.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Juniper Place project is working out to cost well under $200 per square foot, Feuilly said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the city\u2019s perspective, we want to help bring in and facilitate other potential methods that could decrease the cost of building and yet allow for high quality homes in our city,\u201d Marchbanks said.<\/p>\n

A few years ago, Feuilly and Elge reached out to show the city of Cortez what they were doing, Marchbanks said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt looked really solid, so we went ahead and asked our city engineer and our building officials to go and talk with them,\u201d Marchbanks said.<\/p>\n

Feuilly has a patent for something he named Jiffy Block, which is essentially the EPS foam blocks they\u2019re constructing with now. Jiffy Blocks are grooved and better for building smaller houses.<\/p>\n

So instead of using Jiffy Blocks for this build, they partnered with Phoenix-based Green Rhino Building Systems<\/a>, whose foam blocks are approved nationwide and are engineered to build things up to 30 feet tall.<\/p>\n

Green Rhino Building Systems has been building homes of foam for nearly 20 years. The house on Juniper Place is the first of its kind in the Cortez area, Feuilly said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s nontraditional, but it has been around for a while in different, various forms,\u201d Canada said.<\/p>\n

Elge said that after Hurricane Charley hit Sarasota, Fl., the city rebuilt a number of its homes with EPS foam technology because they\u2019re cheaper to build with and can withstand winds of up to 200 mph. That hurricane was a category 4 storm, with winds up to 150 mph.<\/p>\n

Feuilly and Elge hope builders will be receptive and add this kind of construction to their tool belt.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t cannibalize what you already have, but add this because of the short production time and all of the benefits,\u201d said Elge. \u201cIt\u2019s not all or nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The biggest drawback to building homes with foam is \u201cprobably just public conception,\u201d Canada said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat people think of it doesn\u2019t necessarily match what is actually being built,\u201d said Canada. \u201cSo I think it may take a while for that to catch on.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

nontraditional build will be move-in ready by the end of the month<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25748,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,28,453,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-25747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-headlines","tag-housing-and-urban-planning","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25747"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25747\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79078,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25747\/revisions\/79078"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25747"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=25747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}