Over­view

Why is the am-cor Ferrocement Construction System con­sidered Green & Sus­tain­able?

1. Ferrocement = truly sus­tain­able & low-car­bon foot­print con­struc­tion ma­ter­i­al pro­duces ap­prox. 70% less carbon than stand­ard re­in­forced con­crete ma­sonry
2. Ap­prox­im­ately 70% less ma­ter­i­al = 70% of con­struc­tion value as Car­bon Cred­it
3. Steel & ce­ment ma­ter­i­als = 100% re­cyc­lable (95% of the steel con­tent is cur­rently re­cycled)
4. No scraps or con­struc­tion waste with an am‑cor struc­ture = Less en­vir­on­ment­al im­pact
5. Less site dis­turb­ance de­creases en­vir­on­ment­al im­pact
6. Lower trans­port­a­tion cost: 70% lower ma­ter­i­al re­quire­ment re­duces fossil fuel con­sump­tion
7. am‑cor pan­el­ized struc­ture cre­ates no site waste or trans­port­a­tion to re­move and dis­pose of waste
8. The am‑cor Sys­tem's Disaster Resistance vir­tu­ally elim­in­ates re­place­ment cost
9. am‑cor ex­treme dur­ab­il­ity ex­tends build­ing shell life cycle, re­du­cing unit life cycle cost
10. No VOCs (Volat­ile Or­gan­ic Com­pounds) ex­ist in am‑cor struc­tures = elim­in­a­tion of VOC health con­cerns
11. Ant, termite & ver­min res­ist­ance elim­in­ates need for termite soil treat­ment and use of oth­er pois­ons
12. am‑cor hol­low cav­ity wall & roof con­struc­tion al­lows for easy in­su­la­tion = high en­ergy ef­fi­ciency
13. Fer­ro­ce­ment base ma­ter­i­als: ce­ment & steel, are widely avail­able both in raw and man­u­fac­tured form world­wide

Re­sources

• am-cor Ferrocement System Overview
• Code Compliance
• Inventor's Story
• FAQs
• Construction Sequence
• Fer­ro­ce­ment Edu­ca­tion­al Net­work (FEN)

Dur­able

There are 3 reas­ons for the am‑cor Sys­tem's ex­treme dur­ab­il­ity:

• Gal­van­ized steel and ce­ment are two of the strongest, most dur­able ma­ter­i­als known.
• The am‑cor Sys­tem's com­pos­ite & in­teg­rated Fer­ro­ce­ment design com­bines gal­van­ized steel and ce­ment to­geth­er struc­tur­ally, uni­fy­ing them to make them even stronger: this ex­tra strength con­trib­utes to the am‑cor Sys­tem's life-sav­ing disaster resistance & durability comparisons.
• Most struc­tur­al de­teri­or­a­tion is due to wa­ter pen­et­ra­tion; the seam­less am­cor­ite Ferrocement skin pro­viders strength & lifelong pro­tec­tion from de­teri­or­a­tion.

Sus­tain­able

The ba­sic ma­ter­i­als used in the am‑cor  Uni­fied Steel & Ce­ment Sys­tem are cre­ated from two of the most pre­val­ent min­er­als on earth: Iron and Sil­ic­on. These min­er­als are avail­able world­wide.

However, it takes high heat to man­u­fac­ture steel and ce­ment from Iron and Sil­ic­on. Struc­tures built with the am‑cor System re­quire ap­prox­im­ately 70% less steel and cement than stand­ard con­struc­tion; there­fore, use of the Fer­ro­ce­ment am‑cor Sys­tem re­duces Car­bon emis­sion as­so­ci­ated with con­crete and steel con­struc­tion by at least 70%.

Wide­spread use of am‑cor Fer­ro­ce­ment tech­no­logy would sig­ni­fic­antly re­duce man's over­all Car­bon foot­print and help mit­ig­ate glob­al warm­ing.

LEED

The am‑cor Sys­tem provides the fol­low­ing LEED points for your con­struc­tion pro­ject:

• SS Pre­re­quis­ite 1: Con­struc­tion act­iv­ity pol­lu­tion pre­ven­tion
  • Pre­vent loss of soil dur­ing con­struc­tion by storm­wa­ter run­off and/or wind erosion, in­clud­ing pro­tect­ing top­soil by stock­pil­ing for re­use.
    am‑cor Sys­tem con­struc­tion does not re­quire ex­tens­ive site dis­turb­ance, thereby re­du­cing run­off, as op­posed to nor­mal ma­sonry and steel con­struc­tion.
  • Pre­vent sed­i­ment­a­tion of storm sew­er or re­ceiv­ing streams.
    The am‑cor Sys­tem pre­vents sed­i­ment­a­tion by re­du­cing site dis­turb­ance dur­ing con­struc­tion.
  • Pre­vent pol­lut­ing the air with dust and par­tic­u­late mat­ter.
    The am‑cor Sys­tem does not out­gas or pol­lute the air; am­cor­ite ce­ment products are wet-mixed to re­duce heat is­land ef­fects.
• SS Cred­it 7.2: Heat Is­land Ef­fect
  • Use roof­ing ma­ter­i­als hav­ing a Sol­ar Re­flect­ance In­dex (SRI) equal to or great­er than the val­ues in the table be­low for a min­im­um of 75% of the roof sur­face.
    The am‑cor Sys­tem's Fer­ro­ce­ment roof skin al­lows for easy in­stall­a­tion of highly re­flect­ive roof­ing to re­duce the heat is­land ef­fect.
• EA Cred­it 1: Op­tim­ize En­ergy Per­form­ance
  • Achieve in­creas­ing levels of en­ergy per­form­ance above the baseline in the pre­re­quis­ite stand­ard to re­duce en­vir­on­ment­al and eco­nom­ic im­pacts as­so­ci­ated with ex­cess­ive en­ergy use...De­mon­strate a per­cent­age im­prove­ment in the pro­posed build­ing per­form­ance rat­ing com­pared to the baseline build­ing per­form­ance rat­ing per ASHRAE/ IESNA Stand­ard 90.1-2004 (without amend­ments) by a whole build­ing pro­ject sim­u­la­tion us­ing the Build­ing Per­form­ance Rat­ing Meth­od in Ap­pendix G of the Stand­ard.
    The am‑cor Sys­tem's am­cor­ite seam­less Ferrocement skin elim­in­ates air in­filt­ra­tion. Oth­er sys­tems such as ICF, SIPS, etc., are tied to a single type of in­su­la­tion product; in com­par­is­on, the am‑cor Sys­tem is flex­ible, and al­lows for easy in­stall­a­tion of high per­form­ance, en­vir­on­ment­ally-friendly in­su­la­tion & thermal breaks for lower en­ergy con­sump­tion: see our Insulation sec­tion.
• EA Pre­re­quis­ite 2: Min­im­um En­ergy Per­form­ance:
  • Es­tab­lish the min­im­um level of en­ergy ef­fi­ciency for the pro­posed build­ing and sys­tems.
    In con­trast with oth­er sys­tems such as ICF or SIPS, the am‑cor Sys­tem's cav­ity walls and de­coup­ling of in­su­la­tion products from the build­ing's struc­ture al­lows for flex­ible & low-cost in­su­la­tion solu­tions, res­ult­ing in high R value en­vel­opes.
• MR Cred­it 2.2: Con­struc­tion Waste Man­age­ment: Di­vert 75% From Dis­pos­al
  • Di­vert con­struc­tion and de­moli­tion debris from dis­pos­al in land­fills and in­cin­er­at­ors. Re­dir­ect re­cyc­lable re­covered re­sources back to the man­u­fac­tur­ing pro­cess. Re­dir­ect re­us­able ma­ter­i­als to ap­pro­pri­ate sites...Con­sider re­cyc­ling card­board, met­al, brick, acous­tic­al tile, con­crete, plastic, clean wood, glass, gypsum wall­board, car­pet and in­su­la­tion.
    The am‑cor Sys­tem's pre­cut, pre-en­gin­eered, and pre­fab­ric­ated Fer­ro­ce­ment Kits pro­duce no on-site waste nor scraps; any ex­cess ma­ter­i­al from ons-ite modi­fic­a­tions is in­ert and eas­ily re­cycled (met­al, ce­ment, etc.).
• MR Cred­it 3 & MR Cred­it 4.2: Ma­ter­i­als re­use & re­cycle con­tent
  • Re­use build­ing ma­ter­i­als and products in or­der to re­duce de­mand for vir­gin ma­ter­i­als and to re­duce waste, thereby re­du­cing im­pacts as­so­ci­ated with the ex­trac­tion and pro­cess­ing of vir­gin re­sources.
    The am‑cor Sys­tem is com­posed of 95% re­cycled ma­ter­i­als.
• MR Cred­it 5.2: Re­gion­al Ma­ter­i­als Man­u­fac­tured Re­gion­ally
  • In­crease de­mand for build­ing ma­ter­i­als and products that are ex­trac­ted and man­u­fac­tured with­in the re­gion, thereby sup­port­ing the use of in­di­gen­ous re­sources and re­du­cing the en­vir­on­ment­al im­pacts res­ult­ing from trans­port­a­tion.
    Use of the am‑cor Sys­tem max­im­izes use of loc­al ma­ter­i­als: sand, wa­ter, Port­land ce­ment.
• EQ Cred­its 4.1 & 4.2: Low Emit­ting Ma­ter­i­als
  • Re­duce the quant­ity of in­door air con­tam­in­ants that are odor­ous, ir­rit­at­ing and/or harm­ful to the com­fort and well-be­ing of in­stallers and oc­cu­pants.
    The am‑cor Sys­tem uses zero-emit­ting, non-tox­ic and zero-out­gass­ing ad­hes­ives and seal­ants.
• EQ Cred­it 5: In­door Chem­ic­al & Pol­lut­ant Source Con­trol
  • Min­im­ize ex­pos­ure of build­ing oc­cu­pants to po­ten­tially haz­ard­ous par­tic­u­lates and chem­ic­al pol­lut­ants.
    The am‑cor Sys­tem con­tains min­im­al po­ten­tially haz­ard­ous par­tic­u­lates and chem­ic­al pol­lut­ants.
• ID Cred­it 1-1.4: In­nov­a­tion in Design (ex­cep­tion­al per­form­ance)
  • To provide design teams and pro­jects the op­por­tun­ity to be awar­ded points for ex­cep­tion­al per­form­ance above the re­quire­ments set by the LEED-CS Green Build­ing Rat­ing Sys­tem and/or in­nov­at­ive per­form­ance in Green Build­ing cat­egor­ies not spe­cif­ic­ally ad­dressed by the LEED-CS Green Build­ing Rat­ing Sys­tem.
    The am‑cor Sys­tem qual­i­fies as an in­nov­at­ive use of dur­able green ma­ter­i­als.