ICF Pools with Manny Sanchez

In this episode of the Talking Pools podcast, Natalie Hood and Manny Sanchez delve into the world of Insulated Concrete Form (ICF) pools, addressing common misconceptions, cost comparisons, and the advantages of ICF over traditional pool construction methods. They explore the strength, energy efficiency, and design flexibility of ICF pools, while also discussing the building process and maintenance requirements. The conversation highlights the growing popularity of ICF pools as a modern solution for pool construction, emphasizing their benefits in various climates and conditions.


Takeaways

ICF pools are misunderstood but offer significant advantages.
Cost factors for ICF pools are often misrepresented.
ICF provides superior insulation and structural integrity.
Design flexibility is a key benefit of ICF pools.
ICF pools can be built faster and with less waste.
Energy efficiency is a major advantage of ICF pools.
ICF pools require less maintenance than traditional pools.
Modern finishes can be effectively applied to ICF pools.
ICF pools are suitable for various climates and conditions.
The future of pool construction is leaning towards ICF technology.

Sound bites

"ICF pools deliver strength, efficiency, speed."
"ICF is the gold standard for basements."
"ICF pools provide superior thermal insulation."


Chapters

00:00 Introduction to ICF Pools
02:52 Understanding ICF: Myths and Realities
05:33 Cost Comparisons: ICF vs Traditional Pools
08:05 ICF Pools: Strength and Durability
11:04 Design Flexibility and Applications of ICF Pools
13:49 Energy Efficiency and Maintenance of ICF Pools
16:21 Building Process: ICF vs Shotcrete
19:02 Environmental Impact and Waste Reduction
22:12 Modern Finishes for ICF Pools
24:32 Conclusion and Future of ICF Pools

The Grit Game
The Grit Game, is not just playing the game, we’re changing it. 500+ years industry experience,

Revdup Apparel
a custom apparel company built for the pool industry. Founded by pool professionals

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:53

Welcome back to the Talking Pools Podcast, your go-to source for everything wet, wild, and wonderfully misunderstood in the pool world. I'm Natalie Hood, Director of Education Network Development for The Grit Game. And today we're diving into one of the most talked-about and I think one of the most misunderstood construction methods in the industry, ICF pools. Now, before all of my listeners are like, what? What are ICF pools? We're going to get into that. ICF pools, you know, they spark a lot of curiosity and even more confusion. Some builders think, well, they're only for specialty projects, or others assume they're too complex, and plenty still believe they're just a trend. So, but in reality, ICF pools deliver strength, efficiency, speed, and design flexibility in ways traditional methods simply can't match. And they're rapidly becoming a go-to solution for modern pool construction. And today I have the pleasure of sitting down with someone who brings both expertise and a little bit of magic to the job site, Manny Sanchez, also known as Magic Manny. He is the national building materials manager with the Grit Game. Manny has been in the trenches with ICF pool builds across the region, training teams, troubleshooting challenges, and showing builders how to unlock full potential of this system. Manny, before we jump into myths and get into all of your magic, if you will, can you give our listeners kind of like your background, how you came about with the grit game?

SPEAKER_03 2:19

Well, hi. Thanks for having me today. My name is Manny Sanchez. I'm currently the National Building Materials Manager for the Grit Game. I've been in the industry for over 25 years, uh, going on 30. My time in the pool industry started with pool core. Uh, worked there, did everything I need there. And um, in that time, I've worked directly with builders, distributors, manufacturers, helping to bring better products and better systems to the field.

SPEAKER_02 2:45

So before we dive into ICF pools, can you kind of give our listeners an idea of what ICF pools mean, what they are?

SPEAKER_03 2:53

Well, the first question is probably what in the world is an ICF? Yes. I so yeah, so what ICF means is insulated concrete form. Sounds like a construction product. Well, yes, it is. It's predominantly used in building of homes, buildings. It's everything aside from pool, but now it's kind of plot on and uh we're excited to be working with it.

SPEAKER_02 3:15

Well, I appreciate you giving myself and our listeners kind of a background of what ICF pools are. And you know, here on Wednesdays, we like to bust the myths, and so we have quite a few myths we we're gonna go through today. So I'm just gonna kind of dive deep into it if that's fine with you. Absolutely. Okay, so the first myth I want to discuss is ICF pools are are more expensive than traditional concrete pools.

SPEAKER_03 3:40

Well, the biggest cost factor with ICF pool is labor. You don't necessarily require an experienced gunner shocker pool, shocky crews to build your walls because the the blocks assemble like a set of Legos. Generally, even the least experienced individuals can stack a wall. The knowledge for the job site is needed for bracing and make sure you have a plumbed and level wall before pour. That's the biggest thing, right? The next thing is where are you at regionally? Right. That's a big question. Big question. So if you're in a sunbelt, pool, an ICF pool is gonna be very similar in cost to concrete. Whereas if you're somewhere in the Midwest or somewhere colder, right? Snowbelt, as I like to say, the cost to an ICF pool is gonna range somewhere in the in the market of like what a vinyl liner pool would cost you, which it'd be significantly less than a shock creek build in those climates.

SPEAKER_02 4:38

And you know, I you talk about costs, you know, retail cost factors, labor, steep, material efficiency, long-term savings. And you're saying some of the biggest cost savings is labor. Okay. And so when so what about when ICF may cost the same, or is it less than concrete pools?

SPEAKER_03 4:57

So generally, material-wise, and and here's the misconception. Typically, when you go in and you build a normal gunite or shock creek pool, you have a crew coming in, an experienced crew who you're paying for the knowledge to be able to uh work a shock creep rig or uh you uh work a gunite crew. Um ICF blocks are sold individually. And there's a significant cost with an ICF block, right? Because we're typically using it for insulation, we're using it for structural endurance, things of that nature. So when you look at an ICF block, you don't necessarily see when the regular, I don't have to invest in that in a regular pool. I just shoot my concrete against the wall, right? The excavation, and I have a pool. Why do I need to buy this block? And so that's where the cost, I guess, for material, where that gets offset, is somebody like you or myself could go out there, stack the walls, call a contractor, come in with the pump, pump the walls, and we have a wall. There's no necessarily special expertise that's needed to do so.

SPEAKER_02 6:01

Got it. Okay, so it sounds like I say pools, they're not more expensive than traditional concrete pools.

SPEAKER_03 6:07

Absolutely not.

SPEAKER_04 6:07

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SPEAKER_02 8:46

You know, another thing that I've heard is that ICF is really only suitable for basement or underground structures.

SPEAKER_03 8:53

Well ICF is the gold standard for basements. ICF acts as a continuous vapor barrier, provides superior insulation. It's also mold and pest resistant, making it the perfect product for a basement. So, yes, you need all those things when building a basement, right? You know, you need to keep out the pests, you need to keep out the moisture where you have a high water table. An ICF wall does that for you.

SPEAKER_02 9:19

Well, and I feel like too, when you do a lot of the anytime I do can I've done construction in my house or I've seen neighbors do construction, anytime there's any type of movement of the land, all of those little pests, they go scurrying and they kind of come into your house and they like they're just everywhere. Yes, go ahead. I apologize.

SPEAKER_03 9:36

Go ahead. The thing about an ICF wall in the basement is it is a continuously poured concrete wall. So a pest would have to go through your primary waterproofing, then have to go through an ICF block, then get through a solid concrete wall before it gets into your home. Well, this is the same thing with moisture, this is the same thing with roots or anything that would find a way through a crack in the wall. You just don't get that in an ICF basement. And that's kind of where we we take more or less the same sort of construction method and thought process into a swimming pool. If it can't get in, it can't get out.

SPEAKER_02 10:17

Right, right. Well, I think, like you said, as historical use, ICF was really done in vertical construction, right? In like the olden days. Well, in the dark ages. Yes, the dark ages, if you will.

SPEAKER_03 10:31

So this is kind of how it came to be, right? In the old days, you used ICF for superior thermal insulation. Meaning it kept stuff warm, right? It kept the cold out. Predominantly it was found and developed in cold climates. Developed in Europe, where, you know, in the northern part of Europe, um, there was a gentleman there who said, like, hey, what if we use the foam to create a form for the concrete walls? Hence where ICF was created.

SPEAKER_02 11:00

Got it. Okay, that makes sense. You know, I grew up in California and lived in Colorado for 11 years, and I didn't see a a whole lot of pools outside in Colorado, but you know, we always had the gyms, and so I guess ICF would probably be suitable for Colorado, it kind of sounds like.

SPEAKER_03 11:18

Absolutely. Um, I get a lot of calls from Colorado because a lot of the hype behind an ICF pool or ICF. ICF homes, for example, is they're gonna save significantly on heating and cooling their home. ICFs are also engineered in a way where they're disaster resistant. It'll withstand tornadoes, hurricanes, it'll withstand seismic activity. There's a lot of that things some ICF is even fire resistant. So in in areas such as Colorado, California with forest fires, things of that sort, ICF is becoming a popular product just because that because of that. Whereas, you know, if you're building a home out of lumber, obviously you're susceptible to all those natural occurrences.

SPEAKER_02 12:00

Got it. That makes sense. You know, I have been, I have to admit, I have been watching a show. Oh God, I think it's like an MGM, and it's called From. And it's about these people that got stuck in a um, I'm not sure if you've seen it, but it's about these people that got stuck in this just like random location and they're trying to find their way out. It's kind of like um walking dead, but advanced walking dead. It's kind of funny. But a lot of it is I'll see them out in like, you know, wood wooden homes or what have you, or you know, um uh cabins, if you will, and they're freezing at night, and I'm like, hmm. So I thought it was kind of interesting. I don't know why I thought of that, just probably because I'm like binge watching that darn show. Um they built that home, they wouldn't be cold. Yeah, there you go. And so I guess what are some examples of above ground and hybrid ICF pool applications?

SPEAKER_03 12:53

So examples of above ground and hybrid pool applications. It doesn't matter whether we install the pool in ground or above ground. Manufacture spectral ICS foam is the same regardless. Because when we're building these walls, we're building these walls, they're solid concrete, they're rebar, reinforced. It's it it typically exceeds what you would normally require for a swimming pool. So these walls, when we build them, whether it's in ground, above ground, some of the engineering might change, which you should refer to engineering um recommendations at any time, right? But in most situations, our walls are exactly the same. So a really good applic uh uh I guess example is if we if we're building a pole on a hillside, for example, and we need to excavate a ton of soil, right? Because we got a hillside kind of sloping like this. Well, normally, if we were doing a shock tree vessel, we would form up the side, dig an enormous footer, shoot the concrete against the wall, right, form it, and and then we have a wall. Where with an ICF vessel, we simply build a retaining wall. We simply build a retaining wall. Right? And with that retaining wall, is then we go in, you know, hopefully we do a monolithic pour, it's all combined and it's together, waterproof it, and you essentially have a swimming pool. Yeah. So the biggest advantage with ICF, and this is what I tell a lot of my builders that I work with, is if you have something that's above grade, it works great because you got to form a wall anyways. You might as well control whatever you can do with the wall. And with an ICF wall, you're stacking it up, you're bracing it, you're making sure it's straight. If you're cutting a negative edge, it's simply easy to just go in and cut the negative edge on the wall. You pour your concrete and you just more or less form the bombing. It's an ingenious concept.

SPEAKER_02 14:47

It is. That's really cool. Well, and that kind of goes to our next myth where we talk about where ICF pools are weaker than shot creek or traditional concrete pools. I think you're gonna have fun with that one.

SPEAKER_03 14:59

This answer is certainly going to create debate. If you ask me, I would say an ICF vessel is superior to a traditional concrete application. Don't get me wrong. There's nothing wrong with how we build pools now. ICF pools are typically engineered very similar to concrete vessels. In most cases, the rebar is exactly the same. The only difference is you have foam forming it. So think of your traditional Shock Creek engineering with number four, number three, number five rebar, right? Double lap or however it is, an ICF pool will more or less have the same engineering. Right? The biggest advantage of it is hey, we have forms, right? The biggest difference if you utilize ICF in that capacity, you're gonna get thermal efficiency, structural resilience, and a moisture barrier all in one. And you don't get that with traditional concrete building.

SPEAKER_02 15:53

Okay. So with that, what are some of the strength comparisons?

SPEAKER_03 15:57

Well, so chakri, because that's what most people do, chakri typically cures to a higher PSI because they are pneumatically applied. Chakri gently relies on nozzle and skill. Things like poor technique can lead to shadowing, cold joints, or rebound. All these things could lead to cracks and leaks. Whereas an ICF ICF utilizes a cast and place method. The concrete is poured into a solid form. The process virtually eliminates voids and air pockets. Now, of course, there's recommended consolidation processes when you're pouring anything that is solid concrete, but if if done correctly, it's a great process. And it should be stronger.

SPEAKER_02 16:42

Okay. So what about with engineering standards and load performance?

SPEAKER_03 16:47

So again, shock cre is gonna win in raw PSI, right? Over the course of over time, Shock Cre's gonna continuously increase in PSI strength, right? Whereas ICF will win in lateral flexibility, uniformity, and environmental load. These are all things that traditional concrete doesn't really apply to.

SPEAKER_02 17:08

So then why does why why wouldn't, you know, I foam, let's say foam for example, why does that lead people to underestimate the system, if you will?

SPEAKER_03 17:19

Well, let's look at this. Foam is perceived as an inferior product because it can be brittle. The thing to remember is not all foam is the same. There's low density foam, like what you would find in an ice chest that you buy at Circle K, right? Yes. You know, people look at that, it breaks, or the foam that you get in like in a new appliance you buy trumbles, then you know that that's what people perceive as foam because that's just cheap packing material, right? It's made like when you buy something new and it has foam in it, it's to prevent damage, right? Because there's a cushioning effect. Right? The foam didn't get damaged before my appliance or my good does, right? Um, where when you use a high density foam, right, which is what all our we keep calling it foam. The proper name is polystyrene. There you go. Right. So that's but we'll call it foam just to make it easy. Right? Yep. There's high density polystyrene foam. We use this to fill for fill on highways, right? So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:19

So like I've no idea, really. Yeah, so like if you things you're learning.

SPEAKER_03 18:24

Yeah, so if you're in an area where like there's not a lot of material, right? Yeah, probably like on the on the Gulf Coast or something like that, you know, you'll you'll you'll see somebody is building an overpass, you'll see these huge blocks of foam. They'll stack them together, and then they'll build a roll over it. Another example of what they use high density foam, and and when I guess it what one thing that really got my mind thinking about this years ago is I was meeting the with the builder in New Mexico, and we were talking about insulating these pools and finding another way to do so. And he goes, you know, like and we talked about the tarmac at the airport in these colder climates. One thing I learned that that day was typically they will apply foam underneath the concrete, under the tarmac, right, to keep it from frosting.

SPEAKER_02 19:16

That actually makes a whole lot of sense.

SPEAKER_03 19:18

So think of it like this. If it can hold a plane, right? Yeah, or if it or if it can hold, you know, the amount of trucks that go over an overpass or drive over a highway on currents of a day, imagine what it can do in other applications, such as your home or even your swimming pool.

SPEAKER_02 19:34

Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. I mean, I'm flying out uh early next week to go out to the Atlantic City show. So this episode will air w well after that. But one of the big concerns is everyone's like, oh, we're gonna get a ton of snow in Tennessee. And you know, I lived in California, um, obviously grew up in California, but I lived in Colorado Springs for 11 years, and everyone's like, oh, there's snow coming, and the supermarkets are so busy. And I'm just like, you guys, the weather's like 40 to 50. It's probably not gonna snow. Yes, it's gonna get icy towards the night, but it's probably not gonna snow because it's not cold enough. But I never thought about it from that, from that perspective. Is you know, I just thought it was concrete out there that the planes were sitting on. So, huh, learn something new every day.

SPEAKER_03 20:22

Pretty cool, huh? I thought that I was I was from that point on, I was kind of fascinated by it. And back when I worked with Pool Corp. I was like, imagine if we can take this foam and put it in swimming pools, extend these swim seasons, give people another reason to buy a swimming pool, extend the pool season without having to expend all this additional capital and just to keep a vessel warm. I mean, you know, we we got our yetis, right? Right? They they keep water warm, right? We got ice chests. What we're doing with ice up is we're basically building a giant yeti. Right? And right, and and it's keeping the heat from and I know this is probably part of the conversation down the you know, down our our podcast here, but we'll we'll we'll get into it a little bit. The biggest benefit of ICF is insulation, right? Insulation won't anything. And yeah, it's just it sounds like it. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 21:20

So let's kind of shift gears a little bit. And when I think of ICF, construction it doesn't offer meaningful benefits over standard pool builds. You know, is it does it have energy efficiency? You know, what's the temperature retention? What does all that look like?

SPEAKER_03 21:36

Well, that's a load of questions, because we can go to four or five different podcasts, you know, and kind of chatting about that. But let's let's let's talk about energy efficiency because that's what most people can relate to, right? It's like if I'm spending less energy, I'm spending less money, right? With some of the examples that we've done in colder climates, we've tested pools in Colorado, which is I think it gets pretty cold there. A little chilly. We we've had side-by-side pools because that's always a comparison, right? One of my favorites is uh I I had a client in in Grand Junction. His neighbor had a vinyl liner pool next door, right? With a cover, right? And we built our foam pool on his property with the cover. And we did some other things. We like we insulated the trenches, right? Okay, both pools had a heat pump and a heater because we like use it utilizing heat pumps, you know, and with ICF because it it helps regulate the heat and it's a cheap way to do it. Less expensive way to do it. Well, the first thing we notice is his neighbor's pool froze over six inches during this during this harsh winter. Okay, this pool here, our phone pool, we never winterized it. Okay, we ran it year round. Okay, now he he Did keep the heat pump and the heater at a very low level just in case, but it never got there. Right? Wow. It never got there. I was fascinated by it. And you know, I asked them to get me, I was like, Well, hey, what is um what's your neighbor's electricity? What's your normal electricity bill and gas bill versus you know heating this pool the next year? Right? He heated his 20 by 40 pool that has a gas heater and a heat pump. His bill, the the difference on his bill from one year to the next was only a thousand dollars. So it's it's estimated that we can save anywhere between 60 to 80 percent on the energy cost of heating your vessel by utilizing ICF. That's well, yeah, there's variables. Do I put a cover on it how long it is off, right? But you know, if you're religious about doing those things, that's the kind of money you could save. If you're an individual who's looking to heat their pool year round, right? Yeah, the next thing you asked me was about um strength, right? Yes. Okay, so back to the engineering. There's something I like to look at um with ICF foam vessels. It's it's the tensile strength, right? So like when you when you're when you're pouring in an ICF pool, you got a wall, right? And you have all these plastic ties in there that center your rebar, right? Okay, so so our rebar is always in the spot it is supposed to be, right? So depending on your shoot, and if you've ever been at a job site where they're shooting a plastic pool, there's the rebar cage. Once you get concrete on it, you don't know if it's two inches thick, you don't know if it's six inches thick. Right. I've I've personally been out on remodels, and you know, we're we're we're we're you know, in some of my experiences and trying to learn stuff about the industry, we're we're chipping out a pool, right? And we blow through the hole of the floor because there's only two inches of concrete. Right? You know, or or you know, or or on the wall where you know you start to get rebar staining because you know it we didn't know until three or four years down the road that the rebar was only sitting an inch behind the shocker, behind the plaster, right? Well, you know, we have the moisture that goes in, right? It's it starts to rot out the rebar, the rebar starts to bleed, you see it. That is something you never get with an ICF vessel. A, because again, the rebar is centered. B is we know how much concrete is on each side of that bar, whether vertically or horizontally. On top of that, we have an ICF wall that, for the most part, in most circumstances, they'll send outside, it's water resistant. But in a swimming pool, we're just gonna call it it's a vapor guard, right? It's gonna prevent matrimony. But then on top of that, we put a waterproof barrier. So it doesn't come in. And strength-wise, that's why I believe even though rebar and concrete spec and engineering might be the same as a traditional concrete pool, we do all these other things are essentially included when you build an ICF pool. So back to your perceived cost, right? If it cost me exactly the same to do it, why wouldn't I do it if I get all these other things? Right?

SPEAKER_02 26:11

But it sounds like there's a lot of reduced material waste too.

SPEAKER_03 26:14

There can be, right? Like it's as with everything. These blocks, most blocks are four foot long, 16 inches tall, some of them are 12 inches tall. So if you have a 20-foot pole, you're gonna use five blocks. But if it's 19, you're gonna have a foot worth of waste, right? Yeah. Right? And and it's it's and what what you're essentially disposing of is you're always gonna have some sort of waste on anything. Like if you're building a home, you're cutting it two by four, you're gonna have a foot of lumber you can't use, right? Well, same thing with ICF. If you measure your pool to ex exactly the length that where a corner or straight will take you, it's not gonna have any waste. But that's generally not the case. You have a little bit of waste, you might have three or four blocks. I mean, we're talking about the kind of material you would find in a washing machine, right? You can fit that in a trash can. In some instances, the guys are just kind of putting it back in the trench, and we've already talked about, you know, it how how dense it is. You can in a lot of cases just dairy it, right? Waste-wise, a question about waste. One thing example that kind of caught my attention on this as well. When you're there's a lot of variables when you're you're doing a gun out or shot creek pool, right? You can go out there and you can say, I got a 20 by 40 pool, you know, I got an eight-inch wall, right? You know, you figure out your area, your linear footage, whatever, whatever, whatever the builder needs to do to find out exactly the amount of material they need. Well, then you don't know when you're out there that there was an overdig, there was some erosion, all these things. It's like, well, now I had a I had to order an extra truck of concrete, right? But all I really needed was four yards of concrete, but I didn't need seven, right? You know, or you know, I think a truck is like 13 or something like that. But anyhow, all we do with that concrete is instead of finding another place to put it, we just pour it into the void on the overdig. So so the situation where you have over excess concrete, which you typically don't, because we know our wall is either gonna be six inches or eight inches all the way around, all the time, regardless of the dig. Hey, I you know what, it was a four-foot overdig. We we really we really messed up on that. Build your wall, your concrete's gonna be exactly the same. So we never miss on the amount of concrete that we need for a wall. We seldom we miss on the floor, right? Because the floor, you know, there's some variables there, but we we've been uh out at job sites where it the waste on concrete is almost nil, right? Where I've heard on other jobs from builders sometimes where you know concrete busted the budget, right? Because, you know, like in Arizona, monsoons, right? Monsoons come in, you know, basically you know, they flood the pool, they bury the rebar, walls cave. Well, you know, the easiest thing to do if a wall caves is just to shoot concrete over it. So that's cost. Yeah, it's expensive. Um you form the wall, right? But wait, wait, if we use ICF, we already formed a wall, right? So, you know, a thought of mine back then too was like, shoot, dude, like this is a fantastic product for when we know it's gonna rain, right? Nothing's gonna happen to my it doesn't matter what happens to my dig, right? I'm building a base. Yeah, that's a really good point. And it doesn't matter how bad your excavator is, right? If the kids want to go outside and dig a hole, who cares? Right? We're gonna build a wall and we're gonna pour the wall and we're gonna have a full. Right? Where you know there's a lot of other things that happen with shockries, a lot of things that we pay for because it has to be perfect, right? Right? It has to be perfect. So that's the thing. Like, hey, Chakri, Gun Eye, all fantastic products, right? We're just looking at a different way how you can build it and some potential opportunities for you to save time and money.

SPEAKER_02 30:16

So what I'm kind of hearing is that ICF pools are really they allow for faster, cleaner job sites. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 30:34

All right, pool people. That's the end of part one of our ICF myth busting ride with Magic Manny. We hit the big stuff. ICF isn't more expensive by default, it's not just for basements, it's not weaker, and it's definitely not some foam-floaty Burger King playland situation. We talked real-world labor, build speed, installation, cold climate performance, design flexibility, and why the foam isn't the structure. It's the form. The concrete is the muscle. But we're not done, because in part two, we keep going. And next week, you're getting the other half with Mythbusting Natalie, where we keep tearing down the assumptions, digging into the details, and finishing the conversation the right way. So if this episode just rewired your brain a little bit, good. Come back next week for part two. Same show, same energy, more myths getting body slammed. Until then, keep it tight, keep it plum, and for the love of all things waterproofed, don't let Mike in left field fix anything. See you next week with Myth Busting Natalie.