Midwesterners Give Concrete Homes a Try

Tornadoes, energy savings spur residential concrete interest.

Two home builders in northwest Ohio are finding some customers are receptive to giving concrete homes a try, marking a departure from the wood-framed homes typical in the region.

According to a report in the Toledo (Ohio) Blade, two different contractors are building concrete homes in two different villages about 20 miles west of Toledo.

One of the Toledo area contractors cites energy savings as one motivator to enter the concrete home market, while another cites the safety factor of a sturdy concrete home in a flatland area that experiences tornadoes.

Despite the two concrete homes being constructed at the same time, other builders contacted for the Blade report note that they are not seeing customer demand for concrete at this time.

But Jim Niehoff of the Portland Cement Association (PCA), Skokie, Ill., says the residential building method is growing, which could ultimately affect the C&D materials stream.

According to Niehoff and the PCA, while just three percent of homes in the U.S. were built with concrete walls in 1996, that number reached 14 percent in 2001 and could reach 25 percent by 2005. In Southern states, resistance to termites is one key driver of concrete’s popularity.

Northern builders say the gray exterior appearance of concrete is tough to sell in a region accustomed to seeing wood or siding-clad structures. One of the Toledo area builders, Sam Witt of Delta, Ohio, is affixing a decorative veneer to the concrete home he is building to make it more marketable and to appear more consistent with surrounding residences.

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