Mission message

MERIDIAN — Daniel Keeslar is on a mission of life and death: to get other builders, homebuyers, appraisers, city leaders, lawmakers if need be and others to see the value of enhanced safety in new homes, paid for with improved energy efficiency.

It’s his business, Insulated Concrete Forms & More, in Oklahoma City. But it’s his cause, as well. It’s not overstating it to say that lives are in the balance when tornadoes and strong straight winds come up against traditional construction versus a house built like a giant safe room.

That’s what energy executive Kurt Swanson and his wife, Joyce, are counting on and it’s what they paid extra for with their new twostory, 5,000-square-foot home built on a bluff overlooking the virtual ghost town of Meridian, 12 miles east of Guthrie.

“We were moving up from Houston, and we were going to build a new house on this piece of property, and wanted something that was low maintenance but also extremely safe, moving into Oklahoma,” Kurt Swanson said.

He’d done his own research on ICF systems before finding Keeslar’s company at 7500 W Reno Ave., Suite 200. Insulated concrete forms — into which steel rebar is inserted and 4,000-pound-per-squareinch concrete is poured — fit the bill for the Swansons:

A mortgage payment a little higher because ICF costs more, and an electric bill a lot lower thanks to the insulating qualities of ICF and geothermal air conditioning. It requires less than half the tonnage of a traditional system, resulting in “a wash” or better over time — plus there’s the extra safety.

Touts system benefits

Trying to get people to see the benefits of the ICF system, and what he might term the immorality of ignoring it, is an important part of Keeslar’s long-term business plan. He’s been at it for nearly 10 years now, since 2011 in Oklahoma City.

He has customers, but he is not seeing the general movement away from tradition to innovation he believes is necessary for homebuilding — especially in Tornado Alley.

He has written to city code officials and lawmakers, hobnobbed with other builders and developers,

Kurt Swanson’s home by Insulated Concrete Forms & More is perched on a rise overlooking the virtual ghost town of Meridian in Logan County, 40 miles northeast of Oklahoma City.

Daniel Keeslar, owner of Insulated Concrete Forms & More in Oklahoma City, has made a mission out of spreading the word about the superior safety of the ICF building system and the energy efficiency of homes and commercial buildings built with it....