Press Releases
100th Omaha Habitat for Humanity home built for strength
Released: September 01, 1999
100th Omaha Habitat for Humanity home built for strength
Omaha, Nebraska September, 1999—Omaha's newest Habitat for Humanity house is also one of the strongest and most durable ever built. Located at 2559 Spaulding Street, the 100th Habitat home in the Omaha area features walls built using Reward insulating concrete forms (ICFs).
All the forms for the house were donated by Omaha-based Reward Wall Systems, Inc., one of the country's oldest and most well established ICF manufacturers and distributors. The Reward building system is made up of individual hollow foam blocks of expanded polystyrene that are stacked like building blocks and braced. Vertical and horizontal steel reinforcement bars are placed into the hollow core and concrete is pumped into the core. The forms stay in place after the concrete cures to create a solid, continuous, airtight, steel-reinforced super-insulated concrete wall.
Habitat for Humanity's construction manager, Bob Pickeral, said, "With our amateur builders it is important that we have a building system that is easy to use, and Reward is even easier to build with than wood. This type of home has the added advantage for the homeowner of saving money on heating and cooling costs." He added, "A steel-reinforced concrete home will require less upkeep and offers better interior air quality and much more security and safety than a regular wood frame house would." According to company officials, when a Reward house is built to specifications, the homeowners can save between 50 and 80 percent on their heating and cooling costs. Savings should also be realized in homeowners insurance, because ICF houses are considered masonry construction.
Henry E. Pfeiffer, chief operating officer at Reward sees the company's involvement with Habitat for Humanity as a good match. "We are very pleased to be able to contribute to the community in this way," he said. "Our forms are extremely easy to build with, yet they produce superior housing for those who need it most. That makes Reward and Habitat for Humanity a very good fit."
The house on Spaulding is the second Habitat house to be built entirely with Reward. The first is currently in the final stages of construction at 3431 "V" Street.
Habitat for Humanity International is a nonprofit ecumenical Christian organization dedicated to eliminating poverty housing worldwide. Habitat works in partnership with people in need to build simple, decent shelter that is sold at no profit, through no-interest loans. To date, Habitat has built over 55,000 homes worldwide with 1,365 affiliates in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and 52 other countries.