5 Ultra-Insulated Framed Walls

on the build show today we're going to talk about some standard stick framed assemblies that can go really high on the insulation and the performance factor on my last video i showed you some 2x4 assemblies that would meet or exceed code but today we're going really high performance today's build show all about high performance assemblies let's get going [Music] okay guys so the genesis of this video was me walking a standard production builder job site that had this a terrible way to build a house cardboard sheathing and it got me thinking you know we can build a much better house by just changing a few components and if you watched the last video i talked about five framing assemblies and what their r values were of the whole wall the effective r value and really how to use basically two by four standard framing but really taking it to a much higher level now in today's video though we're going to even go to the next degree we're basically going to get close to doubling what code requirements are for insulation let's talk about our first assembly so if you were watching the last video i did one through five i'm going to show you six through ten now on some standard framing so this assembly right here we're gonna step it up to two by six framing and we're going to use some zip r sheathing on the outside now if you're looking at your table of values insulation values necessary this is now an assembly that's really going to work in every climate zone in america and what i like about this assembly is it's still basically standard framing with standard sheathing on the outside nothing different when the siding contractor shows up all right now if we're going to meet code and we're going to frame with 2x6 walls all we need to do is go to zip r6 and now we're going to meet code all the way up to alaska and have a pretty darn good assembly as i've mentioned before one of the things i really like about zip system sheathing is not only we're going to get a good water barrier but we can get a really tight blower door score and not just meat code but far exceeded and that's what i like about this assembly is there's not a whole lot of crazy things going on here standard framing really standard insulation but we've got really high performance now let's look at the lowest assembly on this if we would have used zip r 3 on there with two by six walls that means that we can use rockwell r23 bat insulation in the cavities with that the effective r value of the wall is an r22 that's really good guys and again that will meet code in most places until we get up to climate zone 6 or 7 and then by code we're going to have to go to that r6 now of course bigger is always better when it comes to r value and your chance to do this is while the house is under construction so let's look at some other assemblies oh i forgot to mention though let's talk about price per square foot so on the wall square footage not including all the accessories not including your windows that sort of thing just for framing the zip system sheathing which is r3 and the insulation which in this case is that rockwool r23 bat i'm calculating this as 3.62 per wall square foot okay next assembly i'm going to call this assembly number seven now we're going to step it up to some even better and possibly some slightly more expensive materials in this case we're going to frame this with two by sixes but now we're gonna go to a standard plywood on the outside and then we're gonna put a delta vent sa this is a vapor permeable house wrap that has some great accessories like some really high performance tape so we can tape where the house wrap meets the foundation and then we're going to use rockwool on the outside as well there's a lot of places where this would be a preferred assembly if you're really in a cold climate i like this assembly because now i've got a sweater on the outside of my building i've put that rockwool comfort board on the outside to keep my framing really warm and i've got standard plywood which is always a good thing and i've got delta vent sa which is a vapor permeable peel and stick house wrap on the outside so if you're in canada if you're in a northern climate zone in america this is a really nice assembly now this assembly though will work in a southern climate as well in fact i built a house with basically this exact same assembly here in austin texas for a very smart homeowner of mine that wanted these materials on his house and i've got to say i really like this assembly let's take a look at the numbers on this assembly so two by six with plywood delta van sa and rockwool we're talking about five dollars and 82 cents per square foot this is a little bit more than our last assembly it's about 60 percent uh more expensive our effective r value is r 25 but what isn't quite shown there is that this assembly with that real plywood means i've got a little extra high grip buffer capacity that's a nerdy way of saying i've got a little bit more real wood that could soak up some moisture if we had a problem let's say we had a hose bib that leaked or some other issue and it's also going to be able to absorb a little bit of moisture that might be moving through our wall assembly and then give that off over time this is a more expensive but certainly a very nice assembly that's why i'm calling it number seven on my list okay now let's step up to number eight on my list and i'm doing this in order of effective r value not necessarily expense now we're going back to two by four studs here and then we're going to use zip system sheathing just standard sheathing right on the studs and then we're going to put an even thicker blanket of exterior insulation now on this one i made it with atlas energy shield and this is actually the exact same assembly i did on my house so i've got two inch poly iso with a foil facer on the outside then on the inside i'm going to put rockwell r15 batts so that assembly is actually an r27 effective r value of that wall and here's what i like on it it's a little bit less expensive we're talking about four dollars and five cents per square foot for this assembly and remember this would work in all climate zones and meet and actually exceed code even up in that climate zone six or seven that's that alaska canada band now depending on where you are in the country though you may decide uh what type of exterior insulation i'm in the hot humid south and i wanted that radiant barrier for my house i also wanted the thickest amount of r value without exceeding two inches on the outside when we go to thicker exterior insulation beyond two inches we end up needing thicker or pardon me longer screws and those long screws when we're installing our rain screen battens can get expensive so if you can stay in the inch and a half range you're going to be able to use typically a standard four inch screw to put your battens on two inch means you're going to jump up to a slightly more expensive screw but in my case i wanted to go two inch and i like the foil facing now if you're in the north however i would recommend not doing a foil face poly iso because now i've got a vapor barrier on the outside and i want to be able to drive through my assembly that's the big advantage of rockworld's comfort board on the outside it's a vapor permeable insulation which you're going to be able to drive through so if you're in a northern climate that'd be my recommendation would be to go to rockwool and another or two other big advantages of rockwell on the outside fire resistance you know it's not going to be able to burn a much higher fire rating than polyiso which is a spray foam polymer which will ignite so if you're in california if you're in a wildfire zone if you're building on some urban interface where you've got some issues with fire i would highly recommend rockwool on the outside of your house it's going to get you some extra fire resistance and lastly the other thing i like about rockwool is bugs will not turn will not tunnel through it their exoskeletons actually get torn apart as they try and tunnel through the rock wool so you won't see bugs nesting in it on the other hand polyiso is definitely going to have the ability for bugs to tunnel through it and potentially nest so you need to take some extra precautions things like in my case i added that 2x2 pressure treated bottom and i'm also using a bug screen so i'm going to really go to the nth degree to make sure i don't get bugs up into my assembly had i had comfort board on the outside i would have probably still taken some bug precautions but i wouldn't have been as worried about it there's pros and cons to both now let's look at pricing on this assembly as i mentioned earlier 4.05 cents per square foot which is actually about 30 percent less than that last assembly but again i like it because i'm using 2x4 walls which in my case my original foundation at my house was set up for that that made a lot of sense for me you're going to have to decide what's best for you but this is a good assembly i also like that i've got the standard zip sheathing which is going to give me both water and air resistance a really tight exterior envelope that's how i'm getting to those passive house numbers but then i've got that thick blanket of insulation on the outside of the sheathing again it makes it a little bit harder for siding i've got to add battens and then my siding stay tuned for some future videos on that but if you go to the standard zip r you'd have that insulation sandwiched now this is a good assembly and i really like this but it is in my opinion a little bit better to go standard zip and then put your insulation out board of that nuances to everything right let's talk cost 2 on the exterior insulation the 2 inch atlas energy shield poly iso around a dollar 20 per square foot the rockwool comfort board that's two inch slightly more expensive around a dollar 25 per square foot so it's really close in cost there's not enough cost difference there to really make a difference the difference for me was that i wanted that aluminum facer on the outside of mine okay next assembly number nine in this kind of top ten list that i've assembled now check this out we're actually going to two by eight studs that is a thick stud bay that we can put a lot of insulation on but again we really want to have some exterior insulation so on this one we're talking about zip system sheathing of at least r3 but again you could bump it up to r6 r9 or 12. now if we did two by eights with the r6 that's that one inch on the outside and then we add a rockwool r30 bat insulation on the inside of that cavity we're talking about an effective r value of 30 for that assembly that is really good and again the thing i like about this standard framing really any framer can do it and we don't have to use battens on the outside or anything crazy or difficult when it comes to siding install the siding install contractor can just show up i still would recommend some kind of a gap between your siding but i do like that we've got standard zip facing on the outside it really makes it easy for a builder that has less experience earner who's starting to do high performance construction okay so cost 4.82 cents per square foot a little bit more about 20 percent more than our last assembly that number eight that had the two by four but again real thick insulation at r30 in the cavity plus we've got all of those thermal bridges taken care of with that r6 zip r on the outside okay and our last assembly the one that's going to be the most efficient in the group and also probably the most expensive is this one two by eight wall with plywood real plywood on the outside and then we're going to go to a fluid applied weather barrier on the outside this is going to allow us to get that same type of air tightness that we had with the zip r but we've got a continuous fluid plot on the outside big shout out to my friend lou varney did all these renderings for us he even nailed the details of showing how you're going to put prosciutto's joint and seam on all the seams of the plywood you're also going to detail the nail heads with prosco's joint and seam and then this particular assembly here is showing prosico's aur guard system which you can spray or roll apply now we've got atlas energy shield on the outside here you can also flip this out with comfort board depending on which part of the country you're in and again if you're in the south where it's okay to have a zero perm on the outside we're going to do two layers of atlas energy shield if you're in the north you might want to flip that out with rockwool comfort board okay so assembly number ten this is the top one two by eight with plywood prosigo rguard three inches of poly iso in two inch and a half layers and remember you want to offset that poly iso at the seams because anytime you have the seam that comes together you're going to have a little bit of shrinkage in that foam over time which means you're going to have less r value there if we overlap those seams we won't have that problem you could also use comfort board there and comfortable by the way won't shrink over time like exterior foam will but check this out an effective r value of the opaque assembly meaning the whole wall including studs and headers that sort of thing 45 r45 this is a bomber assembly really thick insulation value there it is more expensive though this is our top one when it comes to cost seven dollars and thirteen cents per square foot at about fifty percent more forty eight percent more than that previous assembly uh using two by eights and zip r six guys a lot to think about i gave you a lot of info here the bottom line is there's a lot you can do with standard stick framing by using some exterior insulation and that's really the point i wanted to make here was if you choose your assembly wisely if you frame it well if you do the air tightness details well we can get a really high performing house just like i'm building for my family and in fact you can get it to passive house standards without having to do anything super herculean in terms of walls we don't have to go to uh additional alternative insulation styles or additional building materials we can use what god's given us in north america which is trees that grow they sequester carbon we cut them down and then they grow back up and in 20 years we can cut them again that's what i like about these assemblies in north america we've been building with wood for hundreds of years it's a renewable resource we have lots of it and it's got a lot of benefits guys big thanks again to my friend lou who did all these renderings for me go give him some love on instagram he did a great job on this i'll put all these assemblies the costs all these things that that i talked about today in the show notes below so check that out and i do want to say a big thanks to andrew on my team who spent a bunch of time putting all this together for me he's recently been added to kind of my research arm of build productions and man these last two videos he did a ton of research to put all this together guys if you're not currently a subscriber hit that subscribe button below we've got new content here every tuesday and every friday and oh by the way we've got new content every day of the work week over on buildshownetwork.com so go check that out as well follow me on twitter instagram otherwise we'll see you next time on the build show [Music] you

Channel: Matt Risinger

Views: 140,855

Rating: 4.9516802 out of 5

Keywords: framing, insulation, production builder, custom home, frame carpentry, zip sheathing, rockwool, delta vent sa, climate zones, wall framing, how to build a good house, wall assemblies, contracting my own house, build show, matt risinger, the build show network, ultra insulation, the perfect wall, best wall framing, 2x6 vs 2x8, 2x4 vs 2x6, wall studs, exterior insulation, plywood sheathing, zip system vs plywood, zip vs tyvek, high performance walls, best wall assembly

Id: Gvd4NRHvmO8

Length: 16min 53sec (1013 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 11 2020