Electrical and Mechanical

It is not recommended to bury electrical and plumbing in concrete walls and roofs because of the difficulty of making conduit connections and extra cost of installing buried electrical conduit. Instead, shortly after concrete is placed, they can quickly and economically be installed directly into the rigid foam insulation boards affixed to the interior faces of concrete walls and roof planks as is demonstrated in Figure 9.

The technology for electrical installation has by today been well developed and is standard practice in the ICF industry. No conduit is needed. Neither is it necessary to bury conduit in concrete elements. Wiring and outlets are installed directly into the foam board insulation, and not into the concrete, the latter being an expensive time-consuming process.

Cutting electrical channel in foamboard

Figure 10. Chainsaw cutting channels in interior foam insulating boards for installation of electrical wiring and outlets. Openings for outlet boxes are cut with hot wire knives. Shown here is the use of a chain saw to cut the wire raceways. Water and drain pipes may also be installed in a similar manner. Inset shows an example of an electrical outlet box manufactured specifically for installation in insulating foam board forms. The same technique is used for the ceiling electrical installation.
(Photo courtesy of Inexco)

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