SIPs Framing Update 2023 - Extreme Panel System Install w/ Will King

what's up guys I'm Matt Reisinger and I'm will King and in the build show today framing everybody loves framing but this is a very specific type of framing we're going to be getting into the Weeds on this sips construction now what is sips sips structural insulated panels and we got a display but not only that we went out to a job site we got all kinds of nerdy info this is a long video guys we're going to get into the weeds here today's build show is sponsored by extreme panel Technologies let's get going foreign [Music] will as we start this video let's break down what the system is and what is sips involved so explain to us in your mind what is sips so sips is a layer of expanded polystyrene foam that you're seeing as the core and it's as simple as two layers of OSB creating the inside and outside sheathing if you will to give it both its strength that we're looking for in a sips panel and just the ease of putting it up into speed that really makes sips special got it so the Builder basically starts with the foundation and that can vary depending on where you're building because this company extreme panel in particular we're talking about today based in Minnesota shipping all over the U.S even Alaska and Canada that sort of thing but these panels come out in a truck they come to a finished ready to go job site uh Foundation I should say and then these panels go together kind of like a penalized frame set but what's cool here is we've got a structural panel not just an insulator panel that's where the name comes from and tell me about panel sizes you were actually at a job last week will in Kansas that we're going to cut to in a little bit but the sizes that you saw on that job site what were you looking at so all the panels are going to be eight foot long or eight foot wide I guess it's kind of their Max width because that's what they're buying these sheets in for their Factory but then they vary in length so if you got 10 foot walls you're going to see 10 foot panels but I actually saw a 22 foot panel get flown in for the roof so that's a really big panel eight by Twenty twenty two yeah so you can get some very large panels and that's what really speeds up the process and I think makes sips special you know it's it's a very fast operation when you're moving that kind of square footage at one time and and so speed obviously is one of the big benefits what did you hear speed Wise from the framer on that website so basically just I asked that framer there Eric and we're going to talk to him a little later in the video but he said about half the time that it would have taken him to stick frame it he can put together a sips house time in half and it's not just framing it's also insulation so you gotta if we were gonna compare apples to apples we'd have to add the insulation time in to our stick built houses to really compare time to time so and I would throw in it's framing its insulation and you've got this kind of built-in air sealing benefit it's huge in sips which I think is really difficult for you and I we've been using all kinds of systems to get our houses more and more airtight and this system it's kind of built in but this is not really a new type of framing right this has been around for a while yeah it's a basically 100 year old technology I mean sips is not new to I guess our Market or the us but over time it has definitely evolved and became more efficient I think and they and they're able to I guess engineer it to all of our specs and jobs that we're needing so it's been around for a long time but yeah the air sealing of it I mean as soon as it's erected or as soon as it's put together we're airtight that's pretty so you know like I mentioned to you that framing time at that job site in Kansas and I think we have a clip of this but basically in six days they were completely in the dry completely framed and air sealed and he had a little windy unit air conditioner cooling the whole job holy cow and what size house was that about 2200 heated I think okay so so five six days to be totally dried in that's a big deal slab Foundation yeah so when I think sips I think of this big uh kind of thick block of insulation that's continuous do you know some of the numbers involved like these walls on the job site you were at were pretty similar to this mock-up they were a mimicking a traditional 2x6 wall right same thickness that's right meaning the top plate here is basically a two by six with a half inch and half inch OSB sheathing on both sides but they use a wider top and bottom plate so they can kind of slide those down in and structurally attach those and that means that EPS is pretty High r value isn't it yeah that foam is so I think the expanded polystyrene foam in this wall assembly is like an r26 holy cow yes and continuously and continuous there's no studs so you have no thermal bridging we have a continuous r26 all the way around the house and then how about that roof this baby here is 12 and a quarter inches thick so that's R51 holy roof assembly so you have a really big insulated cap and again no thermal bridging right no two by twelves in the way to bridge that heat one way or another right yep it makes it very insulated envelope for us that's a pretty big deal a couple things I want to mention about extreme panel they obviously sponsored the video but this is really more than a panel manufacturer I've actually done a sips house before I did a video on that years ago and that was really a just a panel manufacturer I didn't get any support from them on finding a framer they had nobody on the job site they could come visit me and I had to gather a bunch of materials for that job ahead of time on the other hand extreme panel you're going to find out here in a minute they've got some really good support and I think the Builder on site mentioned to you that was a big deal especially in a remote job site right that's right yeah so they do they're they're completely supporting their Builders and their customers and that's something that really spoke to that framer that I met with in Kansas but in regards to what all they ship out to the job site it's it's really all-inclusive so it's not just the panels they're actually sending all the tools that you need to put them together including the battery operated nailers and the sausage gun they use for their sip sealer that we can talk about in a little while okay so all that's included all the Fasteners Nails what about Like Glue Lambs or Ridge beams yeah so you talk about the roof assemblies they do they engineer their own glue land beams to go underneath them and they're having they're going to be pre-cut engineered and ready to set when they arrive at your job site so that's legit that's neat that's impressive yeah and I understand they've got support for Manuel J days because when you build a house like this that's extremely airtight and has really high R values in the walls you're not going to want to use traditional HVAC equipment sizing you're definitely not going to want to use any rules of thumb those are out the window so they've got a great person to link you up with so you can figure out hey what do I actually need to heat and cool this because very likely it's going to be half the size of a traditional build house that's right the other thing that was interesting about these guys is they've got a network of Builders and frame contractors in fact some of them travel like Eric that you're going to meet with here in a minute who will go from town to town to help erect these buildings not help to to frame these buildings and when you talk about that five-day cycle time on a job like that that makes it doable for somebody to come in who's from out of town to do that that's a really big deal I didn't have that one I built a sips house several years ago and I think that kind of all-in-one Solutions type contractor from extreme panel really makes me want want to build a house with them compared to maybe somebody that's more like a panel distributor and if you're going to use your own framer they also have the ability to bring out their experts and install team just to help train the framers that way they can be educated and put it together it's really not hard to do they're just a few simple steps they have to learn yeah and then they're off the races yeah it's really just kind of learning a slightly new process educating your subs yeah that's all it is that being said well why don't we go out to that Kansas job site you kind of acted as my remote reporter so let's go see what will found interesting out of that job site all right so I'm here with Perry from extreme panel we're inside the garage of the sips house that they've been building and I want to ask some questions because I'm seeing some things behind me that I don't know what they are I'm being honest so let's talk through some of these details all right so we've got two bottom plates right and and that's not too abnormal seeing ones that abnormally with stick frame but we got two yeah so and that I'm assuming that's that's obviously just to lock that panel in it's it's kind of the inlet for the panel to sit down on top job so every part around the panel has an inch and a half recess to it that's our standard recess and that bottom plate is no different so we see the treated plate and then we put beads of glue between the the top board the white board on top and that seal plate so we can stop air from migrating right from inside out outside to in and then we do the same thing on top of that panel on top of that plate we'll put another bead of glue so everything we do gets sealed air sealed and the sealant we used it's sip seal it's made for what we do and it is simply air tightening we are we are sealing it as we're building it by sending out the automated gun right we're speeding up construction by three to four times rather than a one you have to pull by hand I can imagine as much tall because I've seen you'd have some massive oil massive forearms in an hour and a half your hands just gonna be hurting so we send that out on bigger projects we'll send two of them out yep because it's getting utilized all the time right and getting the feel for that gun is a big deal so we'll typically have one guy on the site that's you that's their job you don't even notice like the roof panels and they were flying those in this morning they were actually you know I thought it was really smart while I was on the ground everybody's nice and safe yeah go ahead and reuse that sausage gun yeah put all the adhesive on it that you need before it even leaves the ground yeah you're doing everything you can do at a safe safe spot on the ground when it goes up it's getting first of all you're getting a better beat on it than they're going to put on up there yeah and and it that's the thing let's get a good bead so that we know that there's a good seal so the bottom of this wall is recessed we talked about that and it sits on top of that double top double bottom plate so that's not that's not a big deal yep so let's talk about Fasteners so I know that the OSB at the bottom I mean I'm seeing screws here correct but I've also seen nails and yeah they're kind of using both yeah so what what they did was they screwed a few in together just to start it and get I like putting a few screws in because this wall once you set it up it's not going to go anyplace I mean unless we we have a win today but you're gonna hold it but it takes a couple little screws to just get things going and then all of a sudden when they're done and they know that wall is good you can nail it off and we Supply the nails there will be six inches on Center we Supply the nailer so that you have that right there that's right now it's a special nail that's that's not clipped that way it'll go into the OSB not too far so it's all about little details that we know and no clip tab nails with the right shank I actually did a thing recently where I had to look this up but ring Shanks are actually double the holding strength of a sushank now we talk about the strength of your panel which I want to get to because you mentioned earlier that this wall is about two and a half times or three times stronger and this is our this is our engineer telling us this right that when we take our six inch wall we could compare that to a two by ten at 16 inch on Center axial load bearing so that's that's a big deal it can take a lot more load than what you would think it does now in this wall there's no studs it is solid foam except for in the corner the bottom plate top plate and then like around the doors here yeah where that will get infield with Lumber so we can fasten the door to it right right but literally zero studs which is great yeah and I was talking earlier having all this OSB behind your sheetrock yeah you never have to worry about hitting the stove and you're hanging a mirror you never have to worry about it or Ada bars or toilet paper holders anything in a house right so I think that's a little point to bring up and and people have asked you know sheetrock do I have to sheetrock it yes you're still going to shock it to get your but a benefit of this is not having the cavity right away so the Fire gets through a sheetrock then what do we get we get into a cavity here we get through the sheetrock we get into another layer of heating then we get into foam that has flame retardant in it so if that flame is if it's still going yeah it's going to burn but right it can extinguish itself if there's no Oxygen right so it's a good point yeah the first thing I'll be honest when I look at a sips panel wall when as a new Builder coming in to Sips how do my electricians get in here because I'm thinking that I'm probably going to get a little talking to you by my electrician if I say hey I'm gonna build a sip South correct and I'll show him that yeah every box goes in OSB right but you guys got that figured out so tell me about it what we've done is we've tried to create uh a channel system through the panels that can be utilized for any wall it doesn't matter where you're building it like here in the garage we just put a chase at the switch height right yeah so we know that at this red line there's a Chase going all the way across okay we have a red line down there there's a Chase going up right there and it's real simple this is an eight foot wide panel and that chase is two feet from that edge and two feet from this Edge and then it's always this 44 40 whatever inches off the ground um but creating that makes our our wiring actually quite simple so they're going to cut out their box yeah their light switches they're going to cut that out pull the foam out to get to the chase you said it's about two inches from the face two inches from the back of the back of the face and then they can use like a remodel box right they work with really well um there's there's a rectangle box that has a two inch metal tab on it that it actually mounts right to the OSB that works well and in this build Eric or counts the Builder was smart enough to know that hey we have some wiring up in the ceiling that the electrician's going to struggle with right so he did it and it took him roughly half an hour to run the wire get it from point A to point B where it needed to go right unless he'll say the electricity makes a lot of sense and and for us we're looking at a panel system that has a grid system in it but if we know where the lighting is going to go we can we can take that grid system and change it according to how they want to wire it and give them chases to accommodate the lighting the best that we can okay so they have a real lighting plan and everything you guys could accommodate that we can accommodate it as much as possible and then you know a conversation with the electrician 10 minutes is really what it takes okay and they don't have to double charge or overcharge it's really not pocket science it's just you can't see it so it makes them nervous so how about drains and and like pecs Plumbing lines I'm assuming ideally it's gonna have to be in the slab right that's gonna be the best case so you're stubbed up so stub it up and you know we're from Minnesota we don't put any vents um Plumbing we leave that out and then we remind people in Texas hey didn't we have some freezing situations so we try to say okay can we move those vents to an interior walls can we move that plumbing to an interior wall how can we accommodate things to make that smarter and not have a vent that could possibly freeze or water you have to have certain things that go through it but in the most part let's try to take out what we don't have something anytime you can get water out next to your wall it makes sense right I mean because either I guess a non-northern climate like you guys I mean it gets cold in Alabama oh yeah even where I live at Christmas this year we were like zero two degrees for like an entire week which we were all about to die because we didn't know what to do but lots of water leaks lots lots of issues in houses when we get cold like that so especially with power outages you know that's the right that's the thing so um let's move on to the roof yeah so so I think that that's a big um something I wasn't expecting when I got here I was I was I was I had this visualized but talking about these big I mean this is 22 feet 22 to 24 feet I'm not quite sure the length of this but it's one it's one roof panel here we have a main ridge beam and then what we call a mid-beam in between and then actually on the other side here we have a 10 foot wall plus we have a couple more plates to get us up a little higher because that 10 foot's a critical point for our cut off of our panel we can make a 20-foot panel so we cut it in half we can make a 24 foot panel cut it in half so we try to utilize and maximize the yield of the product on the other side where we have an eight foot wall we actually bubble cut the wall so that we can have a better connection right but here a lot of guys like this because then they can kind of burrow out the wood to run a wire if they want to so there's there's pros and cons of both okay but like here we designed the ridge beams they got they were sized and specified according to this site right here and then and you guys handle that we handle all that your design teams and spacing right now underneath these beams we have a glue lamp within the wall so you can't even tell it's there right now okay but I know it's there and like here we have a garage door header yeah did that post come down that post will come it will come pre-labeled for that panel say that panel is 14 and 15 I would say 14 and 15 on it it's cut to length in between them essentially yes I guess and it's actually pre-cut two lengths so it's ready to fit in okay so all those things the headers that we make we make a two-ply insulated header so for the northern climate especially we're continual insulation right except for those bottom plates top plates and even the header has is an insulated header so those all those little details make a big difference and from a contractor standpoint to have this header put together cut to length oh it's even in the right situation instead of a 48 foot LVL coming out yeah you're dealing with a piece that's already just put it in exactly I just can't imagine any other way to get a fully framed house basically in the draw in five days with basically four guys and this is a you know it's only what 3 400 on the roof but even if you let's let's talk about two-story or let's talk about maybe five or six thousand square feet something that I'm used to building we're still talking two weeks yeah and they're out where it takes us anywhere from eight eight nine weeks to stick frame it so that's a that's a significant cost Savings in labor and we're already we're in the dry that fast if you catch weather right this thing never even gets rained on yep that's incredible you just you explained every bit of that and I'd love it you've been teaching me something because it's it's uh to have a house done and you know we were talking about houses that we've done in Alabama small small little affordable homes that we they were built in a day in three quarter right and it's to stick frame that they would be two weeks to three weeks and it's been raining so much on those job sites that they can't get to it yeah and then all the elements come into the building because now the floor is wet the studs are wet everything is soaked and by by getting it in the dry you're you're changing the game of the finish of this house we even have a period after we get ours finally in the dry and sealed off where we have to run dehumidifiers for an extended period of time to help dry out all the rain water and all the bolt water so that we don't have issues later on with trim cracking and that kind of thing so that's a big deal let's talk about you know one of the the naysayers out there right so sips panels the the thing that immediately comes to mind when I'm when I'm talking to somebody about sips and I did that quite a bit before I came to see you by the way yeah and people say well yeah you're good to your remodel you're good till you have to remodel something or you have to cut out a new opening or whatever but after what I've seen today that's not necessarily true no because I think that just like what I'm seeing here with this header that's just an engineering question with you guys get this back and you're and you're off the race we can design that header we'll figure out what's going on above it we'll get the header size get the support sized cut the opening right have one of the guys come out with their tools and cut it it's not a big deal you can even do it with normal construction tools drill Four Corners cut it on the inside cut it on the outside take a Sawzall and Notch it out so you definitely don't want to just hire a random company that's never cut sip so just come cut a hole that probably has happened well sure but the industry has evolved so you had all these companies that hey I just want to sell Rob link sips because it's a it's quick I don't have to have any liability it's just an easy answer well the more we got into pre-fabing and making everything exact it's it's almost like having a cabinet design where everything is exact and that's how this is and it takes so much time out of the process that it's paying for that extra that that we're doing in our Factory right so all those little things add up to a lot of time saved yeah absolutely well I'd say I'm impressed and I appreciate the hospitality so much fun thank you thanks again yeah so I'm here with Eric couch from Premier homes in Northwest Missouri is that right I live in Maryville Missouri so but this is tesscott Kansas where we are today so Eric and his guys have just built this house that we're at today this is about 3 400 square feet of sips panels sip walls and sip roofs so tell me about the man hour so like what are you uh you said this is going since Friday so how many man hours is that for you we started Friday about one o'clock with two guys uh we added a few guys throughout the week on some things but uh we had 160 hours in the panels wow and we had about 130 hours in the wall framing inside and the the porch overhang on the front so you're thinking that's probably about half of the time if you were going to probably leave this house probably half of what you do and you know that also includes you know the framing the sheeting and insulating the whole house it's true because it's already insulated when it's put up so I actually noticed as soon as you guys have it framed you've already got a window unit go yeah yesterday afternoon at one o'clock we put a window air conditioner in because it's supposed to be 110 here on Saturday and the plumber and electrician want to come work yeah so we stuck a window air conditioner so they could yeah do that and we could have everybody here today and they can see the difference between outside and inside and yeah it you know with just a little twenty thousand BTU air conditioner it's yeah it's not a lot but it's making the difference probably two 2 500 square feet that's in there yeah or something like that well you know I think about like the I guess air tightness and that's a big big conversation in the industry we're all talking about air tightness and as energy codes have changed we're all having to build those I guess we could call them for today those leaky stick built houses we're having to air seal them but I feel like sips like kind of revolutionize the the industry in air tightness I guess your blower door test what are you seeing air tightness with what we've just seen today most of the ones that we've tested have been 0.2.3 you know or less yep and you know it's amazing you know my guys even want to be there when we're doing the blower door because they know that they've done the right thing too right so I think it gives them some you know some ownership in the project because they see well we can we can do this and that's what I like about working with extreme I mean they do a lot with building science when they do their Summits and they do the kind of their training right we don't we talk very little about panels at those it's more about all the other things that go with it to make the package work yeah you know the the bath fans the you know Mini Splits or whatever you're going to use to make everything a complete unit instead of we're going to sell you panels yeah and then you bring up extreme panel so let's talk about that so if you're a new Builder all right who a lot of the guys watching this video they're going to be well they're already in the industry they're getting into it and they're curious about sips so just pretend like you're talking to me because I haven't built With Sips before full transparency but you've built with a lot of different manufacturers I think you've you obviously have lots of years what makes them stand out and how do you get started like what's the process biggest thing is you know you give them a set of plans and let them do a take off of it I like the fact that with extreme I mean they send everything the nail package the weatherization package your Tyvek you know house paper I mean even the Milwaukee sauce yeah the Milwaukee sausage gun the nails the screws I mean if if you needed to put this house together you don't have to you know from here it's 35 minutes to go to you know yeah a place to get tools or screws or whatever you know so we're out here on the job site and you know if it's not in that trailer I don't want to have to go get it because it costs you money yeah yeah and you know not every other I've worked with two other manufacturers I mean I'd have nothing bad to say about their panels right other than quality control means a lot and with extreme I mean if I have a question on panels and how to make things better we you know me and several of the other builders will sit down you know if we have several of them here today that we all bounce those things off one another and say well if you would make the panels This with the tolerances when we're on site we're not trimming panels at the end and you know those things and they've listened and you know support the field support has been great I think as a builder when you have a vendor like that that you can really get a good relationship with it makes their product even better because not only are they continuing to advance what that they're building but they're also supporting you and your company and and honestly I bet if I had to guess these guys not only there's your support for things like the panels but you mentioned things like bath fans and ventilation and all the other things that go into a house like this yeah when we talk about Heating and Cooling equipment I mean if if they don't have someone there that knows they can connect me with that person that does yeah I mean I mean it's wonderful that they have that network of suppliers and stuff when they do those Summits it's tables all the way around the room of people that you know might be Windows it might be bath fans it might be you know high velocity heating and cooling you know different things that I don't see at my local heating and cooling place or whatever you know and it doesn't take anything special to do these it's just getting your people to you know the change isn't a four-letter word system yeah is you know my heating and cooling guy that's been doing mine has done them with me from day one in the first house he's like I don't believe you that that's what size the unit we're putting on there so you know my house he said should be a two-ton heat pump he put a three that would modulate down to run at 25 right to make him feel comfortable yeah he says I I come to your house all the time I've never seen it above stage two and it has five stages yeah so it's getting that comfort factor and it's going to take you know it always takes a little bit of time to get yeah people to work with you to understand that when you're building tight envelopes and efficient homes you have to have that mechanical guy that knows what he's doing otherwise unfortunately the the system itself like sips would get the bad reputation even though it's not that that's not the issue the issue is actually the bad Mechanicals going into yeah but Eric thanks for having us out man I will say I have been very impressed it's fun with watching all this go together and appreciate you guys are here because it's cool to you know share with other people yeah absolutely that's what I think is the key it's not just to continue building it's to you know teach other people and share that knowledge so real quick if if anybody's watching this video and they're trying to find somebody to help them with the install art you know because I know that you're not only a custom builder but you're also doing just sips installs too how do they find you what's the best place to reach you huh Facebook's probably the best or you know you can reach me through extreme panel if you talk to them about panels they have all of you know there's a network of builders that we all work together and you know if I'm not in that area and can't do it I mean I know of three others that they work with you know regularly that we can you know we all share that direction yeah so I mean that's how I would you know tackle it because we all have different skill sets and do different projects so it's you know nice to you know team up with them I know I'm going to Mississippi to do one I've been to Arkansas here I mean we kind of go a little bit everywhere but and that's why this system's great because you can go to Mississippi I've been here a week and two weeks and you're out or less I'm going to Mississippi for that house it's gonna be six days wow that's incredible and it's right on the coast so what better place to go for a week all right well thanks again for having us man let's go get some food sounds good all right so I think we've covered what we needed to in the field I hope you learned a lot about sips construction today because I know I sure have and with that being said it's time to get you back to Austin with Matt to take a little bit deeper dive in the sips panels okay y'all will is back from the job site and guess who he brought with him a couple of the extreme panel guys first off let me introduce to you Perry and Josh uh guys tell me what y'all do with extreme panel by the way I I've been with extreme for 24 years I've been in sales the whole time and uh I've it's been such a fun product to know and to get to know really really well and uh I've loved every second of my 24 years there so we got two decades of experience with you how about you Josh I've been with extreme now for 15 years just love and experience as well very cool so this is the first time you were uh will on a job site With Sips going on that's right tell me some of your thoughts now that you're back from Kansas what are the things that sticks out for you about the system that was that was impressed I have to say I was a little bit doubtful going out there thinking what are we going to be looking at um and honestly I had the wall system envisioned I had no idea what the roof system was going to look like that that really blew my mind if I'm being honest um but really the the takeaways for me was just the speed that they were able to frame that house that was incredible I mean just the the in the dry time was wild to me yeah um so that was a big one and because you're saving a ton of frame and labor just in speed and then the whole I guess the savings on the whole project just because of the speed of it and then really the fact that it's already insulated and most importantly air sealed as soon as it's put up so it's a really neat thing because like I said Eric was able to put a little Wendy unit air conditioner in that thing and keep it cool and then I mean it's hot in Kansas this time of the year just like it is here in Austin or back in Alabama and he like he said the plumbers sure had to come work at his job when it's a nice 70 degrees inside so yeah it was neat I have to think just the instant um air seal is so neat about um sips yeah so Perry I used uh early on the example of kind of a Yeti cooler you know high performance cooler with thick insulation that's continuous and a good air seal uh any anecdotal stories from your 20 years from people about their Heating and Cooling bills that you'd pass on to us we see it all every day there's there's never a customer that's called that's really not happy about their energy consumption because it's half at least of what it normally would be and I mean like our Factory we're just talking about in December 75 000 square feet for 300 bucks roughly to heat our buildings in Minnesota Minnesota your reactor is built from your panels 100 from our panels and your bill on 75 000 square feet of heated space in freaking Minnesota is how much it's around 300 to 350. sure yeah it's and that's an average of 20-foot ceilings probably too so the volume is incredible wow so yeah I mean our our customers are all happy and to have a build up in five or six days and to be air conditioning it the that's unheard of in normal construction you just don't have that that's pretty serious yeah Josh tell me about that cycle time when it comes to dry in because you know we've got an OSB panel here I don't think of OSB as being very waterproof right so we want to get this this house dried in what does that cycle time do for your builders in terms of being able to dry in well I mean once I mean the best part about our panel too I think is the zinc buried OSB okay you know having that outside skin and inside skin have the zinc buried in it so anti-fungal termite resistant carpenter ant resistant the dry in time is really you know probably 50 percent less when it comes to a Sit panel versus a stick build construction that's a big deal and and for the Nerds out there that are thinking uh you know I'm worried I'm worried about this expanded polystyrene core like what does that do for me Perry in terms of moisture movement being able to drive the building out that sort of thing what do you tell those folks well and this will actually take on some moisture but it only takes on so much there's moisture inside of it it'll float so it's actually that doesn't care about the moisture unless it just can't ever escape out of it and by being able to dry which we would always promote a surface on the exterior that would be able to dry that's the key is always keeping if it does get wet to be able to dry it out all right so that fast quick always having that that air movement on that outside and by dry you mean a membrane that has Vapor permians vapor permians is a big deal on the top of the skin say that there's moisture from the build that needs to get out if we put ice and water on top of this it's bonded right to it it can never Escape so it really has a hard time escaping so by using the right products on the top and on the outside we can assist the the moisture potential problem from ever happening so Perry actually now that you mentioned that I wonder if we can pull up the Drone footage that you guys took will last week because you guys were flying panels in place and there was a couple things I wanted to ask on that so in this image you're seeing it looks like a pretty darn big panel coming in which with a piece of equipment can you explain what's going on in that sure so in this case we have an eight foot by 24 foot panel it's pre-cut at at the top for the very Ridge of the of the way up at the peak and you can notice that lift plate that we're using that lift plate is one that we have made at extreme panel it's way over built and that come on from your factory that no we have them so you can remove them so there's 18 holes in that lift plate that you can put screws into and we simply use a two inch panel screw that works great we can lift it right from the top skin and as long as it's not a you know a 50 mile an hour 30 mile an hour wind day which it was windy that day so you can see that we got two ropes off of it um but by guiding that panel that way they can maneuver the panel however they need to do it there are people that like to put three and four lift plates on and they can certainly do that but in this case it's it's really easy to just be able to maneuver it that way and here he's got a sky track it's not a huge one but he has a a lift on or a extension on it that allows him to reach a lot of it about I would say 75 percent of our jobs are done with the sky track and then but a lot of guys prefer a crane they'll just set a crane up and they'll lift the whole thing into in the site so when the panels are that big you're not going to be lifting those by hand it's all done with machinery and putting that up and having it up in a matter of a minute or two that's 192 square feet of insulated roof put up in that amount of time holy cow now I'm seeing before that panel drops looks like a big old glue lamp talk to me about that process for the frame or installing that glue lamp is there metal connectors he's got to put on first like you know if we're building traditional framing I'm thinking about a hanger that needs to be special ordered from Simpson right what's that process look like and yes sometimes we have those in this case we actually had the pockets put right into the wall so our CNC cuts out that pocket perfectly ahead of time ahead of time at the factory so that's all done back in Minnesota and so then the framer just needs to trim that uh the Blue Lamp and cut the ridge to fit the right that Ridge is actually all done that out actually comes with that Ridge cut already in it so and then underneath that is a glulam column supporting that within our wall system so in that shot that you're looking at in that wall there's three pieces of glue lamb that would hold up three Ridge beams you're only seeing the two the one up the top and then this one mid beam yes but yeah it gives them ample support for that 8 by 24 panel and Matt on this clip you can see uh two different things going on we've got over the center ridge beam we have a white Vapor tape yeah so that white tape right there in between there what is this so what the it's it's actually Vapor tape it's a sip seal Vapor tape and that goes over the ridge beam it's an 18 inch wide tape and that will allow for no moisture to go through the ridge from the inside so after that panel gets put in that tape gets put up to the bottom of the panel and no moisture can get into that that's one of the most critical spots way up at the ridge all your moisture is going to try to go up through there so we eliminate that from happening gotcha um and then am I noticing that the framing on the Gable is already that's redone that's what we call a tail pocket system we can overhang the panel just like you have a two foot or three foot overhang up to six or even eight foot we've done with the panel wow gets to be crazy but we can also do it with typical framing we call it a tail pocket system like ladder framing but here they just had a small overhang coming out the front just to finish it off and it looks like a normal two by six fascia and then they'll just put a bar draft around there correct and you're done and now and now you've got a thinner eave profile that doesn't look like this big for instance 12 inch right that you might have had that come all the way out correct now now what is the blue roofing membrane and why is that down on one side but not the other well and they're simply going to get to it they put the other side of the roof on they immediately put this GAF deck armor on okay and the reason we like this JF deck armor product is because it's vapor permeable and it allows the moisture that could be trapped underneath that OSB skin to escape up and dry the skin yeah so that is critical it's very critical and then on this on the top of the roof we would actually promote a ridge vent so that air can flow up and it can moisture can escape out of that top of that sheeting if it needed to I love it now of course you can use whatever roof membrane you want on top but my build show nerds know that I would like to see a 1x4 rain screen oh yeah with a metal roof on top that would make a bomber assembly and and we would always promote airflow because airflow is the key because then you've got plenty of space if there was some moisture to dry out in there and then you've got also got that secondary barrier to make sure if anything gets past that metal roof that it's going to flow right out on that deck armor product from GAF I do need to ask you though what happens if somebody makes a big mistake and we get a roof link you know am I going to cause a structural issue because I've leaked on my OSB do you want to take that Josh yes I can take that um basically what happens is if that top skin ends up getting wet and moistures on there and you have to replace it we have fixes through through our facility to take off that psosb and then replace a new new piece of OSB in that section if we had to okay um it's the same thing with like remodeling you know if there's somebody want to add a wall system or I mean a window to a wall system basically we have we have fixes where we can add a header we can add um you know have have that have the components to uh add those headers within within a wall system so that's just the detail you're talking about that any roofing repair company or framer could follow your detail and fix that piece of Rider OSB correct that's awesome yeah that's actually a question I've been asked already okay yeah so I'm Switching gears here a little bit but you know as I see that roof panel will go in the first thing I think of is automatically you guys are going to have all of your HVAC systems in the air conditioned space because you've got a conditioned attic built in with your system I really like that but what's that going to do to my Mechanicals I'm suspecting we're going to have much smaller Mechanicals is that right Perry typically we're running at least half as far as the BTUs needed and your your AC load can be cut in half and you actually want it to be cut in half yeah because we're so efficient you need that equipment to run 100 efficient yeah if it's not running it's not efficient so people think that hey if my air conditioner is on for 10 minutes and it shuts off that's great no that's not true you really want it to run so it's the dehumidification process right gets going and that's the key for health of us and for the building itself yeah we want that unit to run for a long time right uh in effect we want to put that little Force cylinder engine in that runs a lot rather than putting a big V8 engine that's too big it isn't sized correctly that just runs for a short time cools it down but doesn't take care of that latent humidity right that latent moisture in there and that's one thing we do we work with energy Raiders to help us with sizing for wherever this house is what are the specifics that'll make that house work right that's a really big deal I love that conditioned attic space and I would like to see more builders in the South using your system because we've got so many attics up here that are really dumb that are traditional vented addicts that have duct work up in the attic space when it's 140 degrees up there and putting your ductwork your Mechanicals inside this attic with an r52 lid on top of that that also has really good air tightness I mean well didn't I hear Eric say that he's getting like passive house numbers from his builds when it comes comes to air tightness the one he had tested lately was like a 0.2 in the middle of Kansas without any specialized equipment or weirdo whatever tapes or sealants or the normal system yeah I mean it's a system that's really cool that really speaks to me I like that a lot well I'm thinking about Perry and Josh let's actually cut to this section of the guys putting the wall up because I think I'd like to hear you guys kind of narrate what's happening in the scene in terms of how the panels go together what's going on with that ceiling what's happening in the city so what they're doing there is they're actually adding a sip seal to the joint and they're creating a picture frame on the foam itself and they're also putting ceiling at the seal plate to create a gasket at the joint and what's happening there is they're going to actually lift that panel up in the air and there's um there's a box blind insulated box spline at the Joint already so that's basically gonna be like a tongue and groove fit at that joint and that's what this is right here on the display this is that box exactly right gotcha yeah and that that uh bottom plate that's anchored to the concrete that's just traditional two by material right it's a slab on grade we actually place a treated base plate and we anchor that to the concrete and then we'd add a two by six on top of that um treated base plate and it's recessed inch and a half at the bottom and slides over the top of that two by six and rests on top of the treated got it OSB so that way the bottom of your OSB is actually at least an inch and a half off the concrete and you're seeing kind of like this top plate here A Wider piece on the bottom and then inside that assembly is sandwiched in there another two by six base exactly right yeah now can you guys also do walls and thicker sizes as well I mean basically we we offer from four inch panels up to 12 and a quarter inch panels 12 and a quarter inch walls you know that's serious we've done it before we're doing 51 on the wall we're doing several of them right now in Minneapolis coming up here this this year you could probably heat that one and is my heating system how about how about roof thicknesses up to 12 and a quarter up to 12 and a quarter R51 basically but if you wanted to you could also add a couple inches of rigid foam in the top deck too right if you wanted to get an r100 roof assembly your r75 that would be no big deal otherwise you can also go to a neopore foam okay graphite foam and that adds a graphite within the foam it gets you a higher value to get GPS phones exactly right so that'll give you um a graphite in the foam which gets you an r60 on that roof holy cow that's wild cool stuff and then when it comes to weather Bearer on the outside basically we've got this OSB scan which is really airtight to begin with we're not worried about necessarily air tightness but we want to make sure that it's water uh proof uh water resistant I guess technically is the right term we're not building a submarine here that's waterproof right I assume probably most people are using traditional house wraps is that right yeah I mean we offer we offer a weatherization package is what we call it and we offer a Tyvek I'm a drain screen it's just rain screen um basically it's crinkly yeah it's crinkly and it creates a drainage plan behind the behind the siding it all really comes down to what siding you're going to use if you're going to use Hardie board LP smart side all right you know we I want to make sure we ask that question before we deliver that product to the site to make sure it's um what the what the um the colliding needs and for my nerdy Builder friends watching this I would love to see somebody take this extreme panel and do a prosco r guard on top of that a format applied system sure yeah this would be the perfect substrate to do a fluid applied on top of like the r guard you know use the joint and seam which is the pink one at all the bottom joints where it meets the foundation as an extra built and suspender seal uh do the body and the orange fluid applied like I've made a video on not too long ago which is uh I think they call it the r guard and then um boy all of your rough openings could be done with the fluid pot as well because that would have no issues on this expanded polystyrene foam as well and make a really bulletproof system I like that a lot what have we missed guys we talked about amazing cycle time we talked about big panel size I know something I was going to ask you Perry talk to me about strength of your wall panels compared to your traditional framing you know this this is size kind of like a two by six is this as strong as or stronger even than a two by six assembly it's actually stronger than a two by six uh our engineer has told us a 2 by 10 16 on Center is what you would compare that to Holy Cow so that and no one builds that way I mean we just don't hardly yeah so two to three times stronger than a conventional stud frame wall Shear walls I mean why wouldn't you build an interior wall if you needed a Shear wall on the inside build it with these panels because it's all sheathing you know we have states where you're worried about wall bracing where they're just sheeting a corner well this is perfect for the shear because it it's all about wall bracing yeah and uh you know when this gets put together the Fasteners are what the engineer has used but the Sip seal that we use adds way more strength it can almost take the Fasteners out and that sip seal is going to hold this thing which is not calculated in any of our numbers right so that's pretty wild you know what else isn't calculated any of your numbers I bet the ability to put a picture or maybe even a cabinet wherever you'd like right I wonder if people are like oh man this is amazing I don't have to block for anything it's pre-blocked right cabinet guys absolutely love it because I can screw that that cabinet right to the wall yeah you know really comes down to the um the fasting schedule to screw that how much weight you want to put under that wall one of the things on our checklist is always to add blocking in bathrooms for future Ada bars accessibility if whatever that's about right and that's just no more no yeah all right we've talked about a lot of really top-notch things some really cool things there's got to be some downsides and one of them that comes to mind that I'm worried about is how do I want an electrical it's really not a big deal and a 10-minute conversation with the electrician will go a long ways in because he's just scared they've never seen it before they simply don't know that we have a grid system of of chases throughout the wall and throughout the roof and then you know we're trying to take the electrical plan for the lighting and we're trying to accommodate that as much as we can so we can we try to take the fear out of it for them and then they realize it's really not that big deal my hole's already made I just got to go find it and utilize it gotcha so yes there it's different because they can't see it but in actuality it's it's not any harder yeah that makes sense now all the interior walls are traditional probably two by four Stick framing so the electrician's gonna frame and wire or not frame why are those traditional air right but but how does that work with the um with those chases you mentioned like this hole that I'm seeing in this top plate yep is that coming from you guys so this hole here actually was put in by the the contractor on site because we have a vertical Chase right here so having that cut by the contractor so the electrician has that access is really nice and if it were me there's one every four feet a vertical Chase I would cut one every eight to twelve feet so that you know he has access into a certain segmental wall but not overdoing cutting the holes into that is that what those red lines were that I saw we have those all marked the factory just takes a marker just to signify there's a chase behind it that's all from the inside so you know that's there okay that makes sense so really it's it's uh it's not longer necessarily an electrical in fact they may actually be drilling less we even have bids to come back in less and that's that's reality I mean it it uh it's not that big of a deal and we got to take the fear out of it for them and we have some really cool Lighting systems that we've been introduced to that we'll talk about that are really fun because you're not running 110 in the roof you're doing 18 gauge wire oh wow so it's really cool low volt low voltage and literally low volts you're talking about putting the drivers in a closet and then running thermostat wire up into the roof that's crazy it's cool stuff so none of that heat is in the roof and at the light yeah so introducing things like that into this system is what we're kind of all about what can we do to improve are already great sip system what products can go in it that are better that's pretty cool Josh talk to me about waste you know is is there uh much panel cutting is there much dumpster use uh you know what can we expect on the job site in terms of waste from your system with extreme panel you know a lot of things I think everything kind of shows up pre-cut your headers are all pre-made your header supports are all done all your window will window bucking materials there um you know the pile of waste on a job site really could fit into a 40 gallon garbage container which you're going to see with the Kansas City jobs I mean there's very minimal waste dang so that's pretty impressive yeah and the quietness of the job site too I mean there's just not any really cutting and trimming and all that I mean it's just it's just basically it shows up like a big Lego set put together on site so you're not and did I hear you one you didn't even have a compressor on that job that you're at is that right they had a few battery operated nail guns yeah that's it that's right that's holy cow it all comes with how about screws because there is a fair amount of structural screws in this job those are coming from y'all as well yep we'll have like for the roof it'll be a long panel screw from 11 to 15 inches 18 inches long that is a big screw yeah and then we supply for like the plating instead of just nailing it down we Supply a three inch like a CTX lag screw so the engineering that we do up above and beyond what it's engineered for is just extreme doing what we always have done that's pretty awesome always supplying the hold Downs within the panels too yeah that all becomes with the package so the Builder's not running to a job or run into a big box store to grab hold Downs that's fantastic good stuff guys let's switch gears because you actually brought with you a builder developer uh who is switched to using extreme panel from some traditional and he's actually going to get into some of the costs and the dollars involved in his project and why he made that decision uh so that being said let's reset and get Matthew over here yeah Matt thanks for joining us brother sure appreciate it so by way of introduction Matt you are a builder developer in Alabama actually not too far from will give us a quick background on who you are yeah so I work for navigate affordable housing Partners we're primarily a Community Development organization um our bread and butter is Workforce and affordable housing our mission is to create a better mousetrap for housing to make up for the lack of affordable housing in our communities yeah um so we're focused on Innovation and bringing housing to Market in a more efficient expedient way and you've recently made the swap to extreme panel and have a bit of an understanding between traditional construction and extreme panel talk me through that yeah so one of our pilot programs we're doing right now is we really wanted to test the panelized system against traditional stick building so we built three houses two of them were sip houses and one was a traditional stick framed house all the same floor plan all the same layout so it was really good test of Apples to Apples comparison about out what's the speed to Market what's the Energy Efficiency what's the cost of construction all of those things to factor into how do we get scalable infill development in a lot of our communities so talk me through the traditional one uh peer and beam construction it sounds like where you are with traditional like to buy let's say floor joists and then two by four two by six construction we wanted to create it as close as we could using traditional materials so our exterior walls are all two by six construction okay which would be an upgrade from the typical 2x4 construction you you would see in our product and then our roof is two by twelve double packed insulated bat in there so we really wanted to build as closely as we could to really really test the value of the sit panel and what did you find I'm curious so initially right out of the gate we got a 0.79 ACH 50 blower door test on our ZIP panel and that was without even trying so that's just a testament to seal and that is tight and the air tightness of that and using a pretty traditional Window and Door package I'm assuming right it was all off the shelf so it's our local hardware store picking up vinyl clad Windows um so we really didn't even try to make these uh really airtight but we kind of knocked it out of the park 0.79 that's amazing exactly and uh talk to me about some of the metrics in terms of how long it took to build the houses traditionally versus with extreme panel sips and then also I'd love for you if you're willing to give us some comparison on cost yeah absolutely so the two houses we built we built them in a weak Blitz Perry came down from Minnesota to help kind of lead the charge we had both of the houses completely done in four days total um two houses in four days two houses in four days how about that it's incredible was that awesome very it was awesome it was so much fun and the best thing was I had brought two other guys from Minnesota and uh one was trading himself so it was really two guys that knew it knew the system and Nathan Hoekstra from Iowa we can give him Kudos on coming down and the first thing he does is unloads a semi right on a Sunday and we have these huge panels eight foot by 24 that he's offloading there's a there's a telephone or a power line above we have all these constraints but Nathan just okay got it and we have a small site and we just started unloading panels and it worked really well within an hour or so we had probably two hours three hours we had two trucks unloaded with two houses there and so everything was on site ready for us to go yep and uh and this is pure and beam construction which means that even the floor system was from you guys too right yeah we made a panel floor uh it was an eight inch thick floor um and they were all like eight by 16 foot panels so we had an r33 floor deck built over the pier and beams and literally that was what an hour and a half and that the first floor was down and then we started getting ready for walls and and literally about three quarters of a day the wall walls were up and then the next morning a ridge beam got set and the roof panels went on and how big were these houses they're 31 by 38 1200 silver yeah conditions so single story houses as well holy cow that's fast man dang and Matt the thing I like about that is most crawl spaces in the South are absolutely disgusting and there's huge communication meaning you know traditional let's say two by eight floor system that most people are framing on pier and beam all that nasty stuff in the crawl space the air uh the moisture the crawly things that are down there they migrate up to the house and in your system you've got huge R30 plus would you say it was yeah r33 or 33 continuous insulation in a really tight air seal also no duct work down there right aren't your Ducks going to be in the Attic yeah all of our duck works in the conditioned space and we have drop ceilings above the bedrooms and that's where we run all the duct work so those houses are super healthy and super efficient for your homeowners that's a really big deal and to think that this is relatively affordable housing too yeah and that's the important thing to you know the clientele that we serve is you know there don't have the resources to fix a lot of problems so the durability that comes with the sit panels is just incredible they're not going to have to go back and fix things that are falling apart yeah or the Energy Efficiency we haven't really even talked about that but we're saving hundreds of dollars a month just by having a good tight shell in insulated space so that can be applied to the cost of construction or the mortgage payment which is building Equity into the communities which is drastically important so in other words if you have a let's say a hundred dollar electric bill rather than a 250 electric bill that 150 savings could be used for better construction right correct yeah and you're building equity on your on your purchase that's the largest investment people have is their house yeah so instead of sending money to the power company or sending money back into our into our house I love a map talk to me about the real like where the rubber meets the road dollars though what did you find on a dollar comparison yeah so we again we built very comparable uh houses as close as we could to each other we found that the using this the sit panel was about 10 percent higher total construction cost okay um and a lot of that is yeah the material was more expensive than framing but my my labor rate my man hours were 30 of what I would use on a traditional framed house how about that so that's really where you make up the cost savings so 10 more what's that like a half million dollar build so it's 50 000 bucks what are we talking what are the real numbers yeah so we're about 200 square foot little under 200 a square foot in our market so it was 20 bucks more square foot maybe let's say right that's not bad at all or in uh in your case actually you're we talked about this earlier your panel system if you I hope you don't mind me talking about this uh it was like forty to fifty dollars a square foot per framed foot is that right your package was like 45 000 bucks maybe yeah something like that for 1200 square foot house if you think about the cost of your spray foam contractor let's say all the lumber all the wastes all the additional labor on traditional framing plus now you get to use smaller mechanical systems I'd be willing to bet well that even though Matt's saying this cost ten percent more that if you really did a comparison for the houses that you and I build especially with bigger houses and more square footage you know the more square footage you build typically the cost per square foot goes down a little bit I do want to bet well that's less I agree with you I think we have to look at the air barrier too because remember when sips goes in it's already air sealed that that part's done but you and I have spent lots of money on products time and effort building our houses in labor to air seal to air seal the air seal so if you factor that in alone I guess or you factor the air sealing techniques that you and I are used to using in with the traditional framing that you're using for your comparison I mean that's a big difference I think that it's it's truly an inverse of what he saw yeah instead of 10 uptick I think we'd actually see it being cheaper I'm super glad to use the same techniques yeah so Matt how can people learn more about your project yeah so we're on the internet navigate housing.com there will be links all over the pages uh specifically this project is goldmeyer Heights that's the community we're working in we're a community-based organization operated and kind of a the lower income communities of Birmingham so all of our information is on the website and plenty of ways to get in touch with us that's awesome Perry and Josh you just left a minute ago thanks for making the trip down to see us and will a huge thanks to you for making the trip to Kansas uh to see the job site uh to summarize if you agree I would say I'm really impressed we got to build one of these man absolutely yeah I am very impressed with it overall and I think getting our hands on one in the in the future would be really nice I think that's going to happen sooner rather than later guys big thanks to extreme panel for sponsoring of course you can learn more on their website extremepanel.com but here's what I'd recommend you know guys like Perry and and Josh they're not sales people really they're they are Builder um Liaisons for lack of a better term I mean this guy's been with the company 20 plus years they totally get your problems your construction your concerns maybe your apprehensions call them you got a set of plans that you're working on they could give you a ballpark price they can help you figure out how can I navigate from doing this traditionally into doing your panels systems and as we said earlier a really big deal that they can help you out with mechanical design that can help you find a frame Carpenter they really have a Solutions based company this is not just a panel company so huge thanks to these guys for sponsoring guys if you're not currently a subscriber hit that subscribe button below you know we've got really nerdy content every Tuesday and every Friday falls on Tick Tock or Instagram otherwise we'll see you next time on the build show foreign [Music]

Channel: Matt Risinger

Views: 183,142

Keywords: Matt Risinger, Build Show Network, The Build Show, Build

Id: D9c-11oWSP4

Length: 62min 42sec (3762 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 19 2023