AAC House in Beaufort, SC

Gorgeous home under construction with SafeCrete autoclaved aerated concrete (AAC) blocks and panels.

AAC provides both structure and insulation for exterior and interior walls and floors of this home.

The walls will eventually be covered with finish materials.

AAC Floor Panels

Keyways between the panels make room for rebar. Concrete fills the gap. Many AAC panel floors are covered with a 2" concrete topping for smoothing and leveling. In other cases a floating floor may be constructed over the panels. Tile can be applied directly.

AAC columns

AAC blocks used to construct square columns. AAC lintels used above.

Wiring in AAC Wall

Another photo that answers the oft-asked question "How do you put the wiring in the wall?"

In this case a can of orange spray paint was used to draw the wiring before any cuts were made. Most plumbing is done the same way.

SafeCrete AAC blocks on CMU foundation

CMU is often the simplest, most cost-effective solution for the foundation. AAC is better for the walls of the actual home, because it provides insulation and a more comfortable living environment -- plus AAC makes a great substrate for stucco. But for spaces that will not be heated and cooled, like the crawlspace under a house, CMU works fine.

Guest House

This garage shot shows nice block coursing, beginning with corners. The blocks in the corner are cored (sometimes called o-blocks) to allow for vertical rebar/concrete cores that connect the foundation to the roof system.

Note the Cast-Crete lintels used as garage door headers. Smaller openings are spanned with AAC lintels.

Jumbo Blocks

Another photo of the airport project. Note how AAC blocks are used for interior and exterior walls, with AAC panels for the floors. Each room is a soundbox and firebox, protected not only from outside elements but also from the neighbors.

Jumbo Blocks

Jumbo blocks are a great product for those occasions when you want to install a lot of material quickly, but do not want to pay more for custom-manufactured panels. The small blue cranes in those photo (available at http://www.aactools.com/) are used to set the blocks in place.

This project is a hotel near an airport, where the sound-attenuating qualities of AAC will be greatly appreciated.

How to hang the lighting

Atlanta home-owner Frank Harms came up with this design for hanging lighting from an AAC panel ceiling without putting the wiring through the panel. Using fake beams, he created a path for his lighting and also a very attractive ceiling design in his kitchen.

SafeCrete blocks in platinum-rated Alberici building

Alberici Corporate Headquarters in St. Louis, MO (completed December 2004) was awarded the highest LEED® rating for any structure had ever received (60 points.) The Platinum-rated project is part adaptive reuse and part new construction. As one of St. Louis's largest and oldest construction companies, Alberici wanted to create a structure that would inspire and challenge the building industry. To Alberici, this meant providing spaces that were healthy, comfortable, energy-efficient and with minimal environmental impact.

SafeCrete (then under Babb Technologies, Inc.) was tapped for firewall blocks. Alberici needed a product with a high fire rating that could be used for very tall and long wall. They wanted to use reclaimed and recycled products wherever possible, and had heard that we produce autoclave aerated concrete based on fly ash, whereas other manufacturers use sand as a base for their blocks.

There are so many other unique attributes to this building (wind power, bamboo paneling, recycled flooring, no-water urinals) that the SafeCrete blocks sometimes miss being mentioned.

SafeCrete products are frequently used for firewalls. We sell 2" and 3" cladding panels for 1- and 2-hour fire walls, and 4" blocks for 4-hour fire walls. Thicker blocks are used when the design requires greater thickness because of the wall height. The blocks used on the Alberici project are 8" and 12" thick.

Jeannie Babb Taylor
www.SafeCrete.com

Little cabin in the woods

From the low-pitch roof to the AAC walls, this one-room cabin in Wisconsin is designed with energy efficiency in mind.

Bill writes: My wife Grace and I laid all the block in a couple of weeks of rainy weather. All in all things went great and we are very pleased with the results . . .Thanks to you and Derek for your support in making our dream come true.

Just in time for deer season

We shipped this small load of roof panels to a meatpacking plant adding onto their existing SafeCrete building. The expansion includes a room just for hanging deer. They built the walls with SafeCrete block and the roof with SafeCrete panels. The structure is essentially a giant cooler!

The floor panel clamp is on top of the floor panels, if you can see it. That's me in the photo.

Jeannie

SafeCrete Goes Gothic

Autoclaved aerated concrete blocks provide the structure for this breath-taking abbey in the mountains of Virginia.
















The exterior is finished with olde world stucco and limestone veneer. To read a detailed journal of the ongoing construction complete with gorgeous photos taken on less foggy days, see http://www.syonabbey.org/Building/building.html



Jeannie Babb Taylor

http://www.safecrete.com/

AAC perfect for Southwest architecture

This is just the guest house! I love how the southwest architecture emphasizes the versatility of autoclaved aerated concrete. The massiveness of the structure and the clean lines clearly distinguish this project.

Here in the East, upscale buildings tend to incorporate curves, so I tend to think SafeCrete buildings having arches and turrets. Of course SafeCrete is a wonderful building material for almost any type of architecture, as this photo clearly demonstrates.

We currently have dozens of jobs under construction all over the country, from California to the Carolinas, and from Oregon down to New Orleans. Send us your photo and we'll be happy to feature it on the SafeCrete blog!