ICF houses and Walking sticks (Austin, Bastrop: how much, scorpions, construction)

[DO2TX]

I have two questions for Y'All (that's how I spell it). We looked at a "concrete home" in Bastrop. It was a very nice house that we might have bought but the master bedroom was too small for a king size bed (my husband is 6'7"). After trying to get through a section 1 inspection on our current house (with wood siding) an ICF - Insulated Concrete Form - house is sounding VERY attractive to us. Does anyone have experience with living is a concrete house? What are the pluses and minuses? I have heard that the utility bills are much lower? Is this true? How much more does it cost to build with ICF?
The house we looked at had several walking sticks (the bugs not a cane) hanging on the front and back porch. I honestly did not realize that walking sticks could grow that big - they were at least 8 inches long! I thought they were just a curiousity until I watched the show "Dirty Jobs" and Mike picked up walking sticks that sprayed a foul chemical on his hands. He was warned quite sternly to not get this near his eyes. Is this an issue in Austin -do the walking sticks spray stuff at you? I am not certain I can deal with scorpions and giant walking sticks spraying stuff at me.
Thanks for input!

[d.h.badger]

No first hand experience with ICF, but I've handled several walking sticks here in South Austin, and have never been sprayed. That's a new one to me.

[Driftwood1]

This is true, they spray, and it could be very bad if you get it in the eyes. We saw a piece Jeff Corwin did on it, and also Snopes comfirms it also ( Urban Legends Reference Pages: Walking Stick )

I used to play with them as a kid though, so I dont think they spray unless they are really agitated..

G

G

[DO2TX]

Thanks - I'm still not certain if I should worry about the sticks or not but it's nice to know that a kid could touch them and not get hurt.
The ICF house is also still a question - if we decide to build perhaps I can get some builder references. Thanks again!

[Trainwreck20]

My wife has a friend whose husband built an ICF house for them to live in just off SoCo. He is an architect/builder, so he built it in their spare time while living in the small house on the front of the property. Of course, once he finished it and they moved in, it was appraised at some ungodly value and (I exaggerate a bit) they could not afford to live there. Actually, they could not afford not to sell it, since SoCo had gone up so much over those years.

Anyway, they live there a short while and I visted a couple of times. The thing I noticed is the wiring - building code requires outlets ever 'x' feet, so he had to run conduit along the wall, which was visible in the room. It looked very 'modern', but was a bit odd to me.

As for construction costs, I am not sure. The people he had do the initial wall construction screwed up, and he spent quite a bit of time getting them to fix it (or coming up with a work around). I don't know how serious it really was, he is a bit of a perfectionist, and it may have been nothing big. I will say that the people that are able to build ICF are limited, so while materials/time may be a saving (or may not), you will probably have to pay more in labor.

[DO2TX]

Having to make any changes to an ICF house would be my main concern too. If you didn't get the light fixture or outlet exactly where you wanted it the fix is pretty ugly and we constantly make changes to our house.
Most of the houses we are looking at are masonry on at least 3 sides with Hardy-board on the fourth side - I'm assuming termites can still be a problem in the framing but hopefully no more wet/dry rot. Thanks!