181. Building A Thriving Business With Dave Phelps
2 Dec 2025 · 33 min
Dave Phelps, owner of ICF Homes, builds custom homes using insulated concrete forms. His houses cost 5-10% more upfront but use about one-third the energy of conventional homes. He won Best Concrete Home in North America in 2017 and advises new builders to start with a test house and work closely with manufacturers.
Questions this episode answers
April 10, 2025.
About 5–10% higher up-front cost.
About one-third the energy requirement per square foot.
Central Virginia.
A dense, off-grid/redundant-systems ICF house finished ~2017 that won Best Concrete Home in North America.
Chapters
Welcome to another episode of Professional Builder Secrets. We recorded this one live at the International Builders show in Las Vegas, but the content is still highly relevant for builders around the world today. We also actually have a celebrity host for this one. Andy Scarlet, our head coach, interviewed one of his clients, Dave Felt, from ICF Homes. They go into Dave's story and some of the biggest challenges he faced in his building company. They also talk about the strategies he used to to overcome those challenges and have great success. I hope you enjoy the episode.
Let's talk about your second project then.
Yeah.
The first one you built for somebody.
Else to actually take that knowledge that I had gained and then to work with someone else to work with their vision, their creativity. So it is such again, that's my creative side that's fun that I get excited about. You know, in 20 years, we've never built the same house twice, which is kind of crazy to think that's.
That's real custom building.
You know, I joke. I say we build. We build snowflakes. We build one of client snowflakes. I don't call my clients snowflakes. They don't like that.
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It's Professional Builder Secrets live here at RBS 2025 and I'm very, very glad to have Dave Phelps.
Thank you.
The owner and leader of ICF Building in with me. How's the show been for you so far?
It's been a lot of fun. I come regularly and it's just. It's good to see some familiar faces and also to see products and vendors that we use and. Or looking at. Yeah, it's really just. It's a very fun experience. It can be overwhelming at the size of it and the sheer volume of information.
Yeah, absolutely. All right, well, let's try and share some of your. Maybe just for people that don't know who you are, bit of an origin story. Who are you? How did you get into this? What do you do?
Sure.
And just take us through a bit of your background.
Sure. So my name is Dave Phelps. I'm the owner of ICF homes, we design and build unique insulated concrete form concrete houses. About 20 years now we've been doing this and we, we kind of. I started 20 years ago looking at all the different ways you can possibly build a house. Yep. And two by four, two by six post and beam, sip steel frame. And it came across the insulated concrete forms. And my. I have a degree in physics and so I looked at that methodology and immediately saw both the strength and the thermodynamics of that exterior envelope would be superior to anything else that I was looking at. So I said, okay, this is how I want to build. I looked around and there was really no one who knew much of anything about it. Definitely didn't know anyone. There weren't any builders who were offering that service. Turnkey. I've always been a kind of can do. I'll figure it out myself. If I put my mind to it, there's nothing I can't accomplish. And so I designed it. I got my contractor's license to get the financing and then I built my first ICF home.
So prior to that, had you built anything growing up? Were you the LEGO kids?
Yes.
Building huge towers.
Absolutely. So I was a great point. I was a Lego kid. I love Legos. To this day, I still occasionally.
Technics. Let me guess, Technics.
Yes, yes. And so that really was another kind of neat, fascinating thing. If you're not familiar with how the insulated concrete form blocks come together, they stack like Legos.
Okay.
And so, yeah, that's.
So just, just talk us through. For anybody that doesn't know what insulated concrete forms means, to break that down for us from a layman's perspective.
Sure, sure. So insulated concrete forms, they are your traditional poured concrete wall. But instead of a metal pan holding the concrete wall up, we stack Styrofoam blocks. And they typically run 4ft long, 16 inches tall, and they're integral tied from the inside to the outside. So we stack those blocks like Legos to the shape of a foundation or upper levels. Then we come back, we put our rebar in for the added strength, and then we literally pump concrete in from the top, filling it all the way up. And now we have a wall that's cast in place. It's encapsulated with insulation, so it doesn't see the outside environment, it doesn't see the effects of the inside environment. And so that the footer is at a steady temperature level. And that's where we actually get our passive geothermal heating and cooling capacity of An ICF that you can't get in any other building methodology. That energy, that footer. And you know, a lot of folks are familiar with geothermal heat pumps. Yeah. Well, we're building houses that are geothermal. They're massively geothermal. They will actually heat and cool themselves based upon earth temperature, regardless of what the air temperature is doing. So when it's you know, 80, 90 degrees outside, the footers are 60 degrees. That concrete wall is calling that earth temperature. When it's 10 degrees outside the footer, 60 degrees. So you've got a head start on heating and cooling your house. And again, so we just use a fraction of the energy to actually heat and cool a house. But we can make it look beautiful. It doesn't look like a cinder block.
Well, I mean that's, that's the, I think the picture that pops into everybody's mind when you say concrete house, no design, boring gray. Like I don't really want to live in a warehouse.
Right. So that's one of.
How do you overcome that side of it?
Yeah, so that's, that's where we, we really push our marketing side. So we have kind of a three legged approach. We, we show the, the beautiful finished houses that are gorgeous but we also show in process. So we talk about the technical side of how we get build certain things and how they're unique to our concrete homes. And our third leg is the educational where we actually I do a whiteboard series where I talk about either the physics of the houses, I will talk about best practices with heating and cooling systems. And so it's a more technical. So we go from a very technical to mid level how to the finished beautiful product.
What is your catchphrase from concept, concept to key concept to key. Love it.
Yep. Yep.
All right, so, so for anybody doesn't understand the benefits, the advantages of concrete as, as the building material, what are the main advantages in, in this, this type of home?
Sure.
Why, why should I have one of these rather than a traditional stick build?
Yeah, great question. I like to ask why are we still building out of wood? But, so why would you build out of a concrete house? So we have a house that doesn't rotate. It doesn't. I mean it will age. It doesn't really age because it will last for. We're building houses that last for hundreds of years, not 50 years. It doesn't burn. And so we have had some examples in California where you have entire neighborhoods wiped out. These houses don't burn and so they will survive wildfires. We Also have examples of these houses in very high hurricane areas where the entire neighborhood is wiped out from a storm surge. Then the only house that's left is the ICF house. Same example with tornadoes. The only houses that are left. So we're building houses that are sustainable in the sense that it can survive whatever nature wants to throw out it, it's going to survive. We're not going to rebuild it every season. When there is some kind of event natural.
Is that, is that common to all ICF stroke concrete houses or is part of the way you design them going to play into their ability to withstand those natural disasters?
Absolutely. So there is a fundamental core strength to it with certain aspects. If you're designing for flame resistant, you're not going to put wood siding on the outside of the house. If you're designing for wind resistance, you're going to, you're going to have the walls that are strength, but you're going to look at your windows. Your windows are going to be needed for a different level of protection. So yes, the fundamental walls themselves give you the basic structure of the house, your peripherals. How you attach certain things to the house will be unique to the environment you're trying to protect.
Okay, now the big question I think for anybody is going to be if I build a traditional house versus a concrete house, what's the cost implication?
Sure, it's a great question. We get asked all the time that question. What I say is when you look at custom home to custom home, we run about 5 to 10% price more for this equivalent house. The benefit to that, and we use the term operational cost of the house. So if you take your mortgage and your utility bills and you add those together and that's the operational cost of the house. It costs the same to live in an ICF house as it does a wooden house. The difference is the mortgage is smaller, but your utilities are bigger. So your return on investment for an ICF house is day one.
Okay. And I guess the longevity that comes naturally from building with concrete, you look at a lot less maintenance.
Yes.
And I would imagine that heating and cooling, there's a lower energy requirement because of the natural properties, etc. Etc.
A lot of our clients want to build net zero or be off grid. Okay. So we're going to provide them with a structure that requires about the third the energy requirement per square foot as a conventional wood built house. So now you're going to use less solar panels to actually heat and cool your or not heat to power your house. We build a Structure that can use less.
Okay. All right. So if I remember correctly, the first one you built was your own one.
Yes. Yes. So that's why. Why? Because no one else could do it. I wanted. I looked at as a, as a. Someone with my background looked at it as a scientific approach. I wanted to be able to build a house that met my needs, what I wanted in a house, and so no one else could do it. And I said, beginning, I'm kind of a bootstrap kind of guy. I can figure out do it myself. So I designed and built my own. At that point I realized, ha, no one else can do this. I just did it. I understand the why, I understand the what. Now I know the how.
The how.
Right. So I got the big three. I'm going to build a business around this.
Okay.
And so over the next few years, I built the business around it to the point where I could resign from what I was doing primarily at that stage of my life to focus solely on the custom one of a kind homes.
So. So you were a science nerd.
I was a science. And. And I still am proud science nerd.
Okay. But you've brought that into, into home building to the benefit of the homeowner eventually, because they're getting the best of both worlds.
So, you know, that goes back to our marketing messaging and to show that we are an expert in our area of the world. We are an expert in what we do. And so we utilize that in both our educational content on our marketing platforms to show what we know and what we can do. And again, the what, the why and the how.
Sure. And I mean, you've done a lot on the educational side, haven't you?
Yes.
Tell us a bit about what that entails.
Yeah. So we've done a lot of. Of educational video content. And again, from anywhere from as technical as what I call about our whiteboard series where we're looking at basically Physics 101 on how these houses perform and why they perform this way, to how we build it, how we run the electrical wires through the exterior walls, to how we connect the floor systems to these walls, you know, to the how of what makes these slightly different than a conventional wooden house, to the finished product. So it doesn't look like some drab cinder block concrete warehouse that's ugly that nobody wants to actually call home.
Yeah. So let's, let's move a little bit. I was going to ask you about your first project, but obviously your first one was your own.
Yes.
Let's talk about your second project. Then, yeah, the first one you built for somebody else, that was fun. Tell us about that one.
So much fun to actually take that knowledge that I had gained and then to work with someone else, to work with their vision, their creativity. Because what we. Again, we start with a concept, an idea, and then we develop the plans, and then we develop into the engineering, and then we develop into the interior designs, and then we go through permitting, and then we build it. So it is such. Again, that's my creative side. That's fun that I get excited about. You know, in 20 years, we've never built the same house twice, which is kind of crazy to think that's.
That's real custom building.
And, you know, I joke. I said we built. We built snowflakes. We built one of Klein Snowflakes. Yeah. Call my clients Snowflakes. They don't like that.
Strange, that. For some reason.
Very strange.
Okay. All right. And. And did that. Did building for somebody else bring with it some challenges that you didn't expect or that were. You had to navigate where it wasn't your own house?
Oh, absolutely. Because your expectation as the designer and builder, you have this vision of the house, the client may not have that same vision. And what I've learned is it. It doesn't really matter what my vision is. It has to be their vision. And so that drives the communication from, again, the concept to key. We work with, you know, what's their vision, getting their ideas out and then still staying within budget. Because, you know, we live in a real world. We have budgets we have to live with.
Yeah.
And to meet some visions and still maintain budgets.
Is there a. Is there a particular type of client? I mean, if you think about all of the homes that you've built over the time that you've been doing this commercially, can you identify a particular type of person that gets it? Do you find people come to you to learn, or have they already learned? And because they've learned, they come to you?
So they're coming to me as informed consumers. They already know about the technology. They already know about it. Lots of times I hear they've watched every single one of my videos, which I'm very happy because.
How many do you have? Do you know?
Oh, I don't know. I. Probably 40 or 50 videos. I mean, really, there's. I mean, between what goes on social media, which are shorts.
Yep.
And what we have, our long videos and our short videos on YouTube, there's. There's quite a bit.
Right.
Um, and I'm thrilled that they've Watched that because one, they're, they're educating, learning more, and they're also getting to know me.
Yeah.
At a distance. Yeah. And so that's very helpful.
But I mean, we, we know from a sales perspective that people buy from people they know, like and trust.
Exactly.
And I'm sure we get it to some degree because we do a fair amount of video content. I will have people who I've never met walk up to me and say to me, I know you very well. And it's like, but I've never met you. Well, no, But I've watched 30 of your videos.
I know, That's. I've gotten that. And it's, it's very flattering. I mean, it's, it's.
I mean, sure, it's flattering on one level, but what it really means is that, that educational content is delivering you. People that are educated have realistic expectations and understand what they're getting into. You know, I think for most builders, they spend an inordinate amount of time in their sales process trying to educate while they're selling.
Right.
Where the beauty with what you've done is you've set up that library of education which you very cleverly turned into a marketing process, I guess. And what does it do? It spits out people at the other end that are ready to move and. And realistic in their expectations.
Absolutely.
Well done, sir.
All that. And then the really fun thing is that my clients come to me with really technical, educated questions.
Right.
And we can push. What I like to do is be able to push the envelope of technology and what we can do in a house, and we come to clients who are willing to invest in the. In the project house and either new technology or pushing the envelope of what we can do.
Right.
And then sometimes I have to be the naysayer that we don't have the budget to do some of these.
You're the handbrake.
I have to be the handbrake. But I tell everyone, don't let me be, you know, because I will talk all day long about pushing technology and what we can do in homes, and then the reality comes back to the budget. But no, it's super exciting when clients come to me and they. And they have great ideas and can you do this? And can you. And have you seen this? And I have clients regularly sending me messages. Did you see this? Did you see this? Did you see? Can we do this?
So they've become part of your tribe?
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
And so that second house that you built.
Yes.
Are they still friends with you?
Yes.
There you go.
They still live in the house.
That's the key.
I will say this to the best of my knowledge. I don't know of anyone who has sold a house we've built for them.
They're happy to the point they've stayed.
Yep.
Okay.
They, they knew what they wanted. And most of my clients are building their last house so that other than like some kind of lifestyle event change.
Yep.
But they know that maintenance is an issue. They don't want to deal with maintenance. They don't want to deal with utility bills. They want to. They want to live in a house that is structurally sound and safe for the duration of their life. Okay.
Have you ever had anybody come to you and ask you for something you just couldn't do was impossible?
That's a good question.
So have you ever had to say no, not, not no, there's not budget, but no, it's not possible?
Yeah. You know, sometimes we deal with some designs that we have to deal with something called gravity. And gravity can be kind of ugly sometimes.
I've heard gravity sucks, actually.
Gravity can take you right to the ground sometime. And so sometimes our nos are the structural limitations of what they are trying to do. And we have to be that and. Or I have to say this is possible, but you're going to spend an exorbitant amount to actually obtain that style of look where if we do it this way we can get closer and still be a very reasonable budget. But we've been asked for some pretty creative things. One that was really, I was all on board on was to use. We're going to. We do fair amount of elevated concrete floors and then we'll put hot water through it. Radiant concrete floors. But what the client wanted to do was put solar thermal collector, so hot water on the roof, run it through the floors. So we were doing the math, looking all this and it looked fascinating. And I was all on board. It was really fun as a client who had the means to actually do some really cool things. But when we looked at it, because in Virginia, where we are in the wintertime, when we need the heat, the sun is lower in the horizon.
Right.
So we needed more panels to get the BTUs we needed. Now when we go to summertime, we don't need radiated floors.
Exactly.
We have the sun is higher in the horizon. We're going to create excess BTUs where we're actually going to have to send the loop into the ground, cool it off before we could bring it back into the house. By the time we looked at all that, it just didn't make sense. It was really cool. I was really excited about doing it. But then the reality was we're sending all this energy just into the ground.
And there was no way that you could convert that into electricity and store it or put it back in the grid.
So we would have to turn it to steam and it could be done. But now you're creating possible.
But it's crazy.
It's crazy.
All right, so tell us about the most exciting thing you have been able to do. What was the one that you got excited about? That this is a really cool innovation or a different spin on things.
So we built a project, designed it back in. I guess it was finished up in 2017, and it was a client who had the means. It wasn't a super large house, but it was what I call dense.
It.
It had everything in it. So it had the. You know, we literally. The owner was. The goal was to be off grid.
Yeah.
But he wanted redundancy in everything.
Right.
So we had redundant heating systems. So we had a. A. Just a regular air source heat pump.
Yeah.
We had a boiler. Radiant floors. And then we had a masonry wood stove till Akivi wood stove that would heat the entire house. We put our return system in right above it. So when it generated heat, we would pull the heat out and it could push it all the way through the house.
Fantastic.
So we had three heating systems. We had three water supplies. We had a gray water system. Now, again, you're not drinking that. We had a well system. And then we had a cistern, rainwater coming off. The owner wanted three. Triple redundancy and power. We had the commercial line power. We had a generator and solar.
Okay.
So.
So the lights were staying on. He was going to be cool in summer, warm in winter, and he'd never be thirsty.
Never. And then the crazy thing was. And then we had triple pane glass. So again, most of the world, that's fairly common in North America. Not as common. So we had triple pane glass, which also made the house that much more quiet. He'd been in the house for about, I don't know, three or four months. And he called me up. He says, dave, I got a great story for you. He says, I heard this weird humming sound, and I didn't know what it was coming from. He's sitting across the room, 30ft from his kitchen. He had a rice steamer running and he could hear the electrical element turn on and off across the Room. That's how quiet the house was.
Quiet the house was.
The house also had a concrete ceiling, concrete floors, concrete deck. It was a 2,000 square foot house, a 2,000 square foot basement, but it had 10,000 square feet of concrete flooring in it.
Yeah, Love it.
Crazy. Really cool. And that project, I'm really proud of that project. We won for best concrete home in North America.
Oh, fantastic.
So we won for a national competition with that.
Now you based in. In Virginia?
I'm based in Virginia.
Do you only build in Virginia?
Only build in Virginia. Around central Virginia, yeah.
So if somebody from. This is unfair, but I'll do it. If somebody from Hong Kong.
How do you know?
Oh, well, somebody just popped into my mind. Choose Hong Kong. How do you deal with those kind of inquiries where you physically cannot they meet all of your criteria? They'd be the perfect client. But they 6,000 miles away.
So Hong Kong's an easy. Relatively speaking, we just. We can't. And that client actually wanted to build in Virginia, but it goes back to the. Our marketing messaging is getting all the way to Hong Kong.
Fantastic.
Which is kind of cool.
Yeah.
But we still get a lot of leads. And they even know that we only are in Virginia and they are in somewhere else and they're in California. California. We get fair amount leaves California. And they generally are. They check every box. They're enthusiastic. They have the budget, they have everything. We just can't. And then fortunate is there aren't a lot of builders who specialize in icf. And that's the unfortunate truth, because the first thing is, will you build here? And if not, who do you recommend? And I just can't right now.
So is there a central registry of ICF builders? Should Dave Phelps be starting an ICF building college? You've got the training material by the sounds of it.
We have the training material. Definitely would want to do that. So we are actively engaging in training the next generation of installers because that's the kind of the most unique aspect. You know, the from. From ground up is the. The labor, the trade that actually stacks the blocks right towards the walls that do that. That's the uniqueness of it. And we are working. We are working with our suppliers, our ICF suppliers to offer training programs in schools. And again, for me, it's just about trying to push that right skill set because it's a mixture of a mason and a carpenter to actually do the.
Work all in one.
Yeah.
So now, I mean, we've been very focused on icf. If we just Broaden it for a second. Do you think ICF gives you as a builder any advantages in the other business disciplines? Is it easier to market, easier to sell? Is it a better financial proposition than anything else?
Yes and no. So the yes is when the client wants to build that concrete house, my marketing is much easier. It's very fine tuned. They come in, they, they're informed. And when you're selling a, I believe when you're selling a product and you have an informed consumer, it makes the sales process easier and more understanding. For us, though, there's a limited market understanding of the technology. So the next phase and we've been doing for the last couple of years is proactively educating those who want to build a custom home, aren't aware of the technology. The biggest thing is, you know, we're a smaller business. We don't have a giant megaphone that we can push. So yes and no. Yes. When they're informed consumers, we're, it's great. Easy, not easy, focused marketing. The other idea is how do we reach those who aren't aware of the technology?
And do you have people that come to, you want a home that don't realize you only build icf? Do you get asked to build other types of homes?
Yes. So yes. Not anymore. Not anymore. In the early days of the earlier marketing programs, we got a little bit of, they just saw that we were a custom builder and they would reach out to us and I'd have to ask, do you know that we just do concrete homes? And they're like, what's that? So that told me my marketing message was off.
You said, well, let me tell you.
Let me tell you about it. But that told me my marketing message was off. When I have someone coming to me who didn't realize this is what we do.
Right. Right. Okay, we've got about five, six minutes to go, so I'm, I'm going to go a bit weird on you.
Okay.
I think we've covered what you do in a fair amount of detail. I think anybody that didn't know about ICF or what it means 20 minutes ago, I think they now know.
Yeah.
Which trade gives you the biggest headache in building an ICF home?
Great question. So I, it's, it is probably narrowed down to two trades, but I don't know so much the trade and what we've learned is the size of the business, which is a bigger indicator that headache quota.
I mean, is, is there anything on that side? So electrical plumbing that is different or more difficult in an ICF home.
So again, the two that come to mind are the electrician first and foremost. They're the most involved, particularly with the exterior walls. The outlets that go in the exterior walls. How do you run those outlets? It's very easy, but it's different than what they're used to. So we have a training learning curve to bring a new electrician on. It's an hour or less, very quick. Once they understand, they're like, oh, okay, it's not hard.
And I guess from a design perspective, you've got to be a little bit more fastidious about placement because you can't just go and nibble out a piece of drywall and move it if it's.
So we definitely want to make sure our outlets are in the right spot before we cover it up. So one of the biggest things with design building icfs is it takes so much more planning ahead of time. With a wooden house, you're kind of looking at one step, two steps ahead, where you have to look 10 steps ahead at all times. Because we are literally setting the house in concrete. There is no going back and taking some studs out and moving it. Yes, we are setting it in concrete. And you better know exactly. You better have it right. Something as simple as a dryer vent. Right. In a wooden house, you simply just pop that right through the band board. No brainer.
Yeah.
In a concrete house, you can't do that. You've got to put that sleeve in before your dryer vent, before you pour the concrete for your line set for your H vac system. Things that every builder just takes. Pop it through. Pop it through. Dryer vents. Hood vents. One of the things that you never really want to mess up is like your exhaust on your range hood. So a lot of the houses we're doing have like 10 inch exhaust lines. You better make sure because you don't want to be cutting a 10 inch hole through a 6 inch concrete wall. Because what you're inevitably going to do is you're going to get hit where the rebar is. And that is a world of hurt when you try to put a hole in.
Okay. Favorite snack on a building site, the one that keeps you going.
So I'm a protein bar guy.
Okay. Particular brand.
I'm a shout out to Quest protein bars.
Okay. And why.
For I. They have what they. It's in my opinion, it's. It's the healthiest of what you can do in the protein bar world.
Okay. All right. If you weren't building ICF homes, what else would you be doing. Do you have a. Do you. Do you have a. If I wasn't doing this, I'd love to be a.
If I wasn't doing this. The second half of my life is physical fitness, and so I enjoy physical fitness. And so I would probably spend my time being an amateur athlete.
Okay, why amateur?
Because I'm not going to be a professional.
All right, well, there we go. And is sport a part of your life or is it absolutely fitness? Is it.
As I'm aging, my athletic sports sides are kind of unwillingly going away from me.
I hear you.
And so now it's more kind of stationary gym stuff. But that is definitely my second half of my life.
And the first half of your life when you could still do it. What were your sporting interests? What?
So I was big into basketball, volleyball, and CrossFit.
Oh, okay. All right. So that's big into CrossFit and those ball sports, obviously. And competitive CrossFit or just from a training perspective?
I was amateur, competitive.
Okay.
Yeah. And couple of medals, awards, trophies, local regional events. Yeah, I, you know, but those days are by, you know, the will is there. The memories of what I used to be able to do are there. But. But aging has caught up to me.
I decided about four years ago that I should go back and play rugby again.
Oh, what made you do that?
I was a bit bored in the gym and I thought I needed a bit of. I needed something that I could be getting fit without thinking about getting fit. And I figured, always loved playing rugby, so why not go and, you know, I'll make sure I'm playing in the social end of the rugby club. But. And I remember clearly at the end of the first game that I went back and played in, my brain knew exactly where I was supposed to be, but my body could not get me there.
I know that's the worst failure.
I gave it up in the end more because of the frustration of saying, I know what I should be doing, but I just literally cannot do it.
And you remember what you could do, and you remember there time. Like, I can cover that distance and get to that point. And now you can. And you know how to get there. You just can't get there anymore. And then you used to be able to stop. Once you got to speed, you could stop. Now you're like, I need to extend my stopping distance.
Yeah.
And then fully appreciate that.
And the recovery time these days, a lot longer than what it used to.
Yeah. That's the other thing is you don't heal at all.
All Right. It's been fun. Let's wrap it up. Word of advice. If somebody wanted to get into ICF homes, they're not in Virginia because that's taken.
You can't have Virginia.
That's taken. They can't have Virginia, but they're in California where you get a lot of. What would your one piece of advice be to them to get into this as a. Would you ask them to do what you did? Go and build their own.
I would definitely think go build your own. Be your own learning curve that is very ideal. You don't want to make those mistakes with a client. Learn those. But as far as actually getting started, what I would always suggest to anyone is track down the manufacturers. There's really good ones out there. And then from there, find a local stocking distributor. That local stocking distributor is going to be your first and best resource for initial questions that you're going to come across. And also your first resource to find the trade. We're going to actually help stack the blocks.
Okay. And. And would you be okay with somebody listening to this, getting in touch with you to. To get some direct pointers?
As long as it's not in Virginia.
All right, well, I, I'll. I'll make sure that we put your contact details into the show notes.
Absolutely.
Just with a link to your website.
So, people, if you want to get bored, I'll talk all day about ICF houses.
Love it. Love it. All right, Dave, thank you so much for coming in. It's been fun for the rest of you, we do this on the hour, every hour. We'll be back in just over half an hour with the next one. Feel free to come back and enjoy the rest of ibs.
Thank you for having me.
