Framing : OSB vs. Plywood - Whats the difference in COST AND PERFORMANCE

on the build show today we're gonna be talking about the differences between plywood and OSB sheathing when you're framing a new home one of the beauties of building a new custom home is that you can make all the decisions on the house you're not bound by the production builders that only let you choose countertops or maybe fixtures and tile you can choose everything including the type of framing that you want to use on today's video we're going to take a deep dive into the differences probably between the two most popular sheathing choices for framing on the outside of the house that's oriented strand board or OSB versus plywood but before we get into that let me tell you one of the choices that I'm not going to recommend most production builders not all but most in this country are sheathing their houses with this this is a cardboard product I don't want to tell you the name just to keep the innocent honest but this product is not what you want to use to sheath your house I find this to be very err leaky very hard to waterproof correctly and certainly it meets code but it is not your best choice if you're building a custom home you're probably like-minded to me you want to build a durable product that's gonna be around for a long time that's well-built that you're proud of and that you want to drive by someday with your grandchildren and say that's the house I built look how good it looks it probably had the kitchen remodeled but the structure is in great shape and that's why what we're talking about today I think is so important because you're gonna remodel that house likely in 20 or 30 years you're probably not going to remodel your sheathing it's gonna be there for a long time okay now before we get into these two choices let's talk about the history of construction in America prior to either one of these coming on the scene houses in America were built with solid sheathing that's that shiplap that you've seen chip and Joanna Gaines made popular on their show it's used typically on their show inside and it's for looks but shiplap started as a sheathing product houses built prior to World War two we're using shiplap on the outside of the house the builders were bringing them up one board at a time and nailing those on and that gave sheer value to the house that's that racking strength and the wind blows against the house to make sure it's not moving or shaking now our round World War - that's when plywood came onto the scene and we had a huge housing boom in America and plywood was typically used and I don't know the couple decades or so after world war two was really the only choice and certainly the most popular choice this is half-inch plywood right here and this happens to be three ply plywood you can also buy plywood in five-eighths and you're gonna see this vary between maybe three to five plies for half-inch and four to seven plies for five-eighths inch plywood now oriented strand board this is a newer choice orange strand board was invented in the 60s but didn't really become popular in American houses I would say until about the 80s my understanding this is actually about three-quarters of the marketplace in America today for custom homes that are using a solid sheathing on the outside of the house now this is a product is made from small strands of actual wood but this is typically fast-growth wood that's been glued and oriented and pressed to make this board right here you ought to go to the Wikipedia page about oriented strand board I'll put it in the link below very interesting to find out how this is manufactured this half-inch board started as a mat of these strands of wood that's about six inches thick and glue and these little chips are actually pressed with heat together to form this half-inch sheet I build a lot of houses with OS be a very good structural product I like how we can solid sheet the house now so we've got a nail base we've got the ability to put our waterproofing in it'll take a staple a very good product I would consider always be a minimum for a custom home being built okay next let's talk about cost OSB is the most used for a reason and it's really cost this particular sheet in today's dollars this is being published around the beginning of 2018 it's about $12 a sheet for what I would call commodity OSB now there are certainly better grades of OSB I'm not going to get into that today but one of my sponsors Huber makes some really impressive grades of OSB but this is the lowest grade this is the the least cost at $12 now plywood this is CDX plywood which is typically used for sheeting this is about $18.00 for that same nominal 1/2 inch thickness this is actually 7/16 and this is 15 30 seconds in total thickness so we've got about 50% more to go to 1/2 inch plywood compared to 1/2 inch OSB now how does that translate into real dollars on a house you might be building this house being built here by my company this is about a 7,000 square foot framed house when I say framed house I'm including the garage the porches all the unheated spaces not just the heating cooled so 7,000 square feet of frame space and we needed about 200 sheets of exterior sheathing on this house now if you relate that to a cost per square foot basis we're talking about 17 cents per square foot not a lot when we're talking about these two choices but $1,200 that's not nothing you know that's that's more than half my mortgage payment every month so these are real dollars next let's talk 5/8 inch prices 5/8 inch OSB is about $20 a sheet in today's market in 5/8 CDX which is actually what we used on this house is about $22 so only $2 in difference between these two products again these are real dollars and it does add up but I want you to know what are the real differences why are you gonna pay more for plywood versus just using standard OSB all right next let's get into long-term performance you know remodeled a lot of houses over the years and I've seen problems in houses with both of these neither one of these is a panacea to a well-built house especially if you've got leaks that are happening in your house now for instance I've reminded a lot of houses that were post-world War two houses those houses no insulation very air leaky I often found big leaks around windows and doors lots of stains from our water was getting in but there's old houses because they were very leaky with air they were energy pigs they were super energy inefficient they were also very durable that's solid sheathing and solid two-by-fours in the house were able to absorb the water and because air was flowing and heat was flowing through that they dried out and they didn't have any rot or mold issues now on the other hand a new house if you're watching this in you're building a new home you got to build that house to today's building cards and today's codes require a very airtight house that's very well air sealed and very well insulated so if one of these two gets wet they're not going to dry very well the big reason why you want to choose a really good weather barrier or waterproofing system for the outside of your house now let's talk about small amounts of water now if you're using OSB OSB is less susceptible to small amounts of water and not having problems over time a famous building scientists David Nicastro has a saying if it can't dry it's gonna die and that's the case with OSB there's a lot of builders that won't use OSB because they've seen problems and remodels now on the other hand the pole I wood has a little bit more ability to absorb some water now we're talking small amounts of water and as long as that small amount of water can dry plywood we'll be okay on the other hand I've also seen some massive failures on not very old buildings because they get a lot of water on the plywood and that plywood couldn't dry out so it rotted out so neither one of these choices means that you can just use whatever you want on the outside for waterproofing you really need to pay attention to those details okay so which choice is the right one for you you can use really either choice the difference is you've got a little bit in my mind more buffer capacity on plywood than you do an OSP which means that small amounts of leaks may be around an unsealed hose bib or a small leak that only happens during a huge storm event but doesn't happen during the rest of year you've got a little bit more capacity in that plywood for a small amount of water to get in and not have a problem than you do in OSB but for either choice what I've found over the years is that most of the problems happen underneath windows and at the bottom one to two feet of the house windows no matter how good a window you buy have a tendency to leak over the years and it's usually the first floor that has the most problems because that you've got the least overhang the most exposure so no matter which choice you make you got to put a seal paint in for your windows and you got a waterproof those windows correctly similarly at the bottom of the house I really think you need to take extra precautions where whichever choice you meet meets your foundation there's several ways you can waterproof that bottom foot of the house look for a couple of those in the description below for some links and videos I've made there but ultimately either one of these is a great choice for a custom home it really boils down to how much risk do you want to take can you afford to spend a little bit more on plywood and are you willing to waterproof that house correctly to make sure that if you choose OSB that it's going to stay nice and dry for the lifetime this OSB if I leave it inside my dining room it's gonna look beautiful in a hundred years from now the same true with plywood if we keep them dry they're gonna be in great shape for the lifetime of the house but if we don't do a great job on those details that's when the problems occur guys thanks for joining me stay tuned for a future video where actually I'm going to get into a couple of different options besides these to our friends at huber make some higher grades of oriented strand board that really have some neat properties and we're going to talk about water absorption and what you need to know with water and houses under construction specifically in the framing stage look for that video in 2018 thanks for joining me guys Happy New Year's Merry Christmas and we'll see you next time on the build show [Music]

Channel: Matt Risinger

Views: 1,349,361

Rating: 4.8319745 out of 5

Keywords: oriented strand board, OSB vs plywood, framing a house, framing a house with plywood, framing a house with osb, best wood to buy, cheap wood to buy, expensive wood to buy, cheap lumber, expensive lumber, picking lumber, custom home building, matt risinger, build with matt risinger, build with jordan smith, youtube builder

Id: -Mg6HA8qyzc

Length: 10min 26sec (626 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 22 2017