For most of my career, I’ve been working with concrete in some way or another. In my early career, I worked for heavy civil contractors on sewage and water treatment projects, midrise concrete framed commercial projects, and similar projects. At an early point in my career I became very interested in conventional concrete formwork, and shoring design, and as a result I found that became the focus of my engineering endeavors.

I came to the USA in 1983, with Peri Formwork Systems, and I came here to set up their west coast engineering department.

Having come from a European background, I was astonished when first arrived in the USA to see so much wood frame construction in both residential and commercial construction. In Europe, and the UK, buildings were at that time predominately constructed with brick, masonry, or concrete. Woodframe construction was, and still is, the predominate building system in the western United States, and especially so in California. Yet it has been proven over and over again to be an inappropriate building method, which has been tested to its limits, and beyond, as a result of every major earthquake.

I was living in S California in 1994, so experienced firsthand the devastation caused by the Richter 6.9 Northridge Earthquake. Dave Gowers Engineering, LLC had been formed in 1990, and whilst most of my workload involved the design of concrete forming and shoring solutions, I was also engaged in forensic engineering. This frequently required the investigation of structural defects and/or failures. In the aftermath of the Northridge earthquake, I performed approximately 650 structural inspections of earthquake-damaged structures, both residential and commercial.

In almost all the cases of residential structures, the construction method was woodframe, and the same defects appears over and over again. Splintered wood members and failed fastening and connector systems. Clearly these structures, albeit designed to current code (the Unified Building Code, or UBC), had failed miserably in their performance to resist seismic forces.

I kept telling myself there had to be a more robust building method out there, and one that was especially needed in “earthquake  country”, which embraced the entire Pacific seaboard, from the most southern tip of California to the most northern tip of Washington, almost 1400 miles!!

I acquired my primary PE in California, and for several years did all my work in that state.

But that all changed when my wife and I relocated to Oregon in 1999. I added an Oregon PE license, and shortly after a Washington PE license, and expanded my forming and shoring design services to the Pacific Northwest in addition to California. Those early years were somewhat challenging, for while California designs had to be compliant with the UBC, Oregon and Washington had each adopted the International Building Code, or IBC. The difference between the two codes was significant, particularly with regard to both the seismic and wind analysis methods.

It was somewhere around 2003 that I stumbled across ICF construction for the first time, and I was immediately hooked, as the saying goes. Not only did this construction method utilize concrete as its primary strength element, producing shear resistance close to 10x that of single shear wood frame, but it simultaneously provided an incredible increase in the R-value of a wall assembly. At that time, the code requirement was R-13 for walls, and the calculated value for an ICF wall was typically around R-23. Taking into account the tremendous advantage of the concrete thermal mass, the performance R-value of a 6” core ICF wall was closer to R-50!!

It seemed very obvious to me that this construction method had enormous potential, and whilst I had engineered some wood framed projects, I immediately embraced ICF as my primary focus. But how to get the word out there? And how to attract inquiries for engineering?

It transpired that both of these questions were answered very simply. I attended the World of Concrete Show in 2004, and armed with a quantity of business card, visited every ICF exhibitor that year. There were around 8 – 10 booths for different manufacturers that year, and with very little exception, I was well received by all. In talking with the exhibitors, it became evident there were very few ICF experience engineers available, so to find an engineering referral was challenging. I left several business cards at each booth, and within a very short period of time, started receiving ICF engineering enquiries.

I immediately invested in concrete analysis software, and absolute essential for concrete design. After reviewing the available packages, I decided to commit to Enercalc Structural Engineering Library, and that has proven to be an excellent decision.

As the ICF inquiries increased, it became evident that this should become the primary focus of Dave Gowers Engineering, and as a result, for the past 10 years, 80% of my workload other than concrete formwork and shoring assignments has been ICF projects. As a result, over the past 18 years, I’ve had the privilege to develop engineering solutions for 170 ICF projects, embracing both residential and commercial projects.

As the journey progressed, I’ve added more licenses to accommodate inquiries for projects located west of the Rockies, plus Maryland and Florida. That has culminated with 13 licenses within the USA, and Guam, which is a US Territory, making a total of 14 active licenses.

Throughout this time, I’ve received comments such as this – “Checked the outside temp today in the late afternoon, 104 degrees F, but inside it was only 76 degrees F. We have no air conditioning running! It’s all due to the energy efficiency of the ICF – opening the windows at night and closing them in the morning is all we need to do to maintain a comfortable interior temperature.” – This was from a satisfied homeowner in Grants Pass, Oregon.

Similar comments come from homeowners in S. California and Arizona.

At the other temperature extreme, I’ve heard from a contractor client in Iowa that an ICF built pumphouse needed no heating throughout winter, the ICF energy efficiency allowing the heat generated from the pumps to be sufficient to keep the interior temperature of the pumphouse above freezing.

And from another client in Iowa, this time a homeowner, who reported that when they moved in to their new ICF home in late summer, they didn’t need to run their heating system until Christmas due to the high energy efficiency of the ICF building envelope.

In conclusion, my quest and my passion is to promote ICF construction to the max, to continue to offer efficient engineering solutions, and to generally spread the word about the long term cost savings and security of living in an ICF built home.

It’s been quite a journey, and has required a lot of explanation to many prospective clients regarding the merits of ICF construction compared to wood frame construction. Many time what starts as an idea, develops into an intent, and culminates in a very satisfied client living in a highly energy efficient home. It doesn’t get any better than this!