Hear longtime BuildBlock ICF Installer, Jay Ladwig, discuss the incredible possibilities of restoring old buildings with Insulating Concrete Forms.

We also met with Richard Simunek, who chose BuildBlock ICFs to restore an old gas station, turning it into a beautiful Airbnb.

Video Transcript:

“We’re in Hennessey, Oklahoma and the project we’re on is the Hike project. The project is a 4,200 square feet processing facility that we’re building. Total ICF enclosure for processing beef cattle, generally considered to be a farm-how farmers market their own beef direct.

Tradition, as we always knew, is the enemy in construction. You know when I grew up in the 70s and was working around my grandfather, who was a carpenter, and I started working with a framer and framing houses, the tradition of studs 16 on center, we built it this way. We built it this way because that’s how we’ve done it for 100 years. We don’t vary. When you’re outside the norm with ICFs, you’re already opening up the box to say what are the possibilities. If you had an old building in any downtown building, on any main street in America, where the brick walls are getting questionable then ICF has a valuable application because if we can clean up and get a secure footing on an interior of a building we can stack a brand new concrete wall we can drill and dow the old existing brick wall, and when we pour that ICF wall, we have now clad the old building to the new, and all you’ve lost inside is essentially this each lineal foot of wall you’ve lost a square foot of interior space. But it is possible to save any building using ICF but you have to think outside the box.” – Jay Ladwig, Ladwig Construction

“In 1921, when this-this used to be the opera house, so that disappeared and the gas station appeared in 1921. It was called Farmers Oil Supply and they used Champlin products. Mr. Champlin was from Enid, Oklahoma, about 20 miles north. Well, you know in this little town, they tore down one block of buildings for a large bank, that just dismayed me, and I told the town I’m going to put up a building and you guys are not going to tear it down. I wanted to be able to put up a building that’s going to stay here for centuries, and I told the town council, you’re not going to tear down this building, it’s going to cost you too much because it’s going to be too strong, and that’s why I work with BuildBlock.” – Richard Simunek, Owner of Champlin Air BnB

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