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Coming to Middle Tennessee
Common Block

The product

One block. A whole wall system.

What Common Block is, how it goes from foam to wall, and how the finished wall performs.

The block

Five feet long. Stacks in seconds.

One Common Block replaces several standard concrete blocks. Its open, hexagonal cores line up course over course, so rebar drops straight through and concrete flows into a continuous grid.

Rendered Common Block shown from the side, the end and in perspective: 5 feet long, 10 inches wide, 12 inches tall, with 6-inch hexagonal cores
Design renders.
Length
5 ft
Width
10 in
Height
12 in
Hex cores
6 in
  • Interlocking top and bottom edges keep courses aligned without mortar.
  • Webs between the cores taper, so concrete bonds across the whole wall.
  • Light enough for one person to place; cut with an ordinary saw.
  • Common Blocks stacked on a wooden pallet
    Delivered on pallets
  • Cutaway of a stacked block wall showing rebar and poured concrete in the cores
    Rebar and concrete fill the cores
  • A long block foundation wall under construction with rebar standing up from the cores
    A finished course, ready to pour

How it works

From waste stream to wall in five steps.

  1. 01

    Collect

    Clean EPS from retail and appliance packaging, construction and demolition sites, and city collection points.

  2. 02

    Grind

    Foam is ground into beads that become the lightweight, insulating aggregate.

  3. 03

    Mix & cast

    Beads are bound with Portland cement and our own binders, then cast and cured into hollow-core blocks.

  4. 04

    Stack

    On site, crews dry-stack the blocks like oversized bricks and set steel rebar in the cores. No skilled masonry required.

  5. 05

    Fill

    The cores are filled with concrete. The blocks stay in place for good as both the form and the insulation of a solid concrete wall.

Performance

A concrete wall at about the cost of wood frame.

Insulated composite concrete forms (ICCF) are a proven way to build. Each wall is a reinforced, cast-in-place concrete core wrapped in a cement-bonded insulating shell. Build costs are comparable to wood frame. Ownership costs less, because the building takes less energy to run and lasts longer.

  • Fire

    Cement-bonded and non-combustible, with a target 4-hour fire rating.

  • Energy

    Targeting R-40 whole-wall performance, which means smaller HVAC systems and lower bills.

  • Strength

    Reinforced concrete walls up to 5× stronger than conventional wood framing.

  • Durability

    Mold, rot and termite resistant. Nothing in the wall for pests to eat.

  • Less concrete

    The block shell replaces roughly 30% of the concrete a solid wall would need.

  • Simple install

    Dry-stacked by general crews, cut with ordinary tools, finished with standard stucco or plaster.

Figures are typical of ICCF wall systems and are our design targets. Common Block's mix design and block system are in development and will be validated by independent testing before we sell.