VALUE ENGINEERING FOR CUSTOM HOMES
Send us your current deck drawings. We’ll run the numbers — cost, schedule, and structural comparison — and have it back to you within 24 hours.
Real plans. Real numbers. 24 hours. No cost, no obligation.
Free, no obligation. We’ll review your plans and get back to you within 24 hours.
Includes preliminary estimate based on typical Epicore® projects, not a bid. Your actual savings depend on your building’s specific design, spans, and site conditions.
We complete a detailed quantity takeoff of your specified system using current material and labor costs, including forming, shoring, rebar, concrete, stripping, finishing, and installation requirements.
Our engineers design an Epicore® system using the same structure, spans, loads, and code requirements. We then complete a detailed takeoff using the same pricing approach.
Within 24 hours, you'll receive a side-by-side comparison of square-foot and total installed costs, plus a structural analysis highlighting potential savings, shoring, load paths, and coordination considerations.
A 54,000-square-foot building came to SDS fully engineered with steel beams and a cast-in-place deck and roof. The plans were complete, and the project was ready to build.
It wasn’t too late.
SDS kept the existing beam layout and replaced the cast-in-place deck and roof with Epicore®. The steel framing, structure, and architecture stayed intact. The owner gave up nothing in the design.
The result: nearly $300,000 in savings and about a month saved per lift, with the savings coming from the deck system alone.
Cast-in-place requires crews to build and brace temporary forms, pour the concrete, then come back to strip the forms and grind the ceiling. That takes labor and time and adds another messy, higher-risk phase to the job.
With Epicore®, the steel panels stay in place and become part of the structure, eliminating much of that work.
| Cast-in-Place | Epicore® |
|---|---|
| Temporary forms built and braced | Steel panels form the deck and stay in place |
| Labor-intensive form stripping | No stripping. No form cleanup. |
| Additional safety risk and cleanup required after stripping | No labor, no risk, no mess |
| Ceiling requires grinding and prepping | Eliminates ceiling grinding |
| Longer deck construction time | Shorter deck construction time |
Savings with Epicore®: About $5–$10 less per square foot and two weeks faster per lift.
*Exact cost and schedule savings depend on the project.
With concrete plank, material costs can be close. The bigger difference is often what it takes to get the floor manufactured, delivered and installed.
| Concrete Plank | Epicore® |
|---|---|
| Multiple pours and inspections | Tie beams and deck can be inspected together and poured together |
| Longer manufacturing lead times | Typically available within 10 days of approved shop drawings |
| Heavy flatbed deliveries and crane installation | No crane or heavy flatbed deliveries required |
| Heavy loads can require routing around weight-restricted bridges and roads | No weight-restricted routing |
| Fixed camber that must be accommodated in the finished floor | No camber |
| Hollow cores can trap water | No hollow cores |
| Openings coordinated around precast | Openings placed before the pour |
| Precast pieces arrive at a fixed size | Epicore can be adapted to changing field conditions |
No crane. No flatbeds. No bridge-weight routing headaches. Epicore® can make the floor simpler to get on site and build.
Switching to Epicore® doesn’t mean starting the structural design over. Even if your plans are fully engineered, SDS can evaluate the existing design and determine where Epicore® could save money and construction time.
Our engineers handle the Epicore® deck design, calculations and PE-stamped shop drawings for your Engineer of Record to review and approve.
Your Engineer of Record can add a note to the plans allowing Epicore® as an alternative floor or roof system. SDS takes care of the Epicore® engineering, so your team can explore the savings without redesigning the entire building.
Epicore® works well for many custom home floor and roof designs, particularly where spans are around 30 feet or less. Longer spans may be possible depending on the design, but SDS can review your plans and determine whether Epicore® makes sense for the project.
Maybe it’s $20,000. Maybe it’s $100,000. On one project, it was nearly $300,000.
Send us your plans and we’ll show you what your current system costs, what Epicore® costs and what the change could mean for your schedule.