Structural Insulated Panels - Framed This House 4x Faster

on the build show today we're at my ranch project and we're going to be talking about a really cool pre-fabricated house system that we did with this house in framing now most houses that are framed are framed traditionally where you have a bundle of two by fours let's say that are delivered on site and the framer assembles those sticks into a structurally framed house but what you're seeing here is these panels were built in a factory and trucked to the site on 15 semis now this is not a small house this is 7 500 square feet or so but what you're going to find is this is a very high performance very well built and very well insulated house today's build show we're going to get into all the nitty gritty on this benson wood timber frame sips hybrid let's get going [Music] all right guys i call myself a builder and my name maybe is on the door but really this is the real builder daniel glaser good to see you brother yeah good to see you man looking really good out here man thank you so daniel let's walk these guys through this project in this system because this is a sips panel right a structurally insulated panel and we put it together like a big jigsaw but this is not like the traditional sips you know when i think of sips i think of some type of foam panel with maybe some two by structure and a layer of osb on the inside and the outside but that's totally different here isn't it yeah that's right i mean it is a panelized system so they do come in sections but each panel the wall assembly consists of a 5 8 sheet of zip on the outside the structural members in between are nine and a half inch eye studs okay so what we'd use for floor joists sometimes exactly um and then on the inside is a layer of 7 16 osb and then the the cavity fill is a dense pack cellulose got it so walls uh we've got nine inches plus of cellulose what's our r value roughly on this roughly 36 inches 36r that's a lot and then how about the roof system so the roof system is also dense packed cellulose it is made up they come in eight foot wide sections um and then there are glulam structure beams that basically go across and then there's the dense back cellulose in between that got it so that roof's probably a decent r value what are we around 50 or so in that yeah about r50 it's going to vary a little bit depending on the roof panel because we do have this kind of wedge-shaped design that lake plato came up with that's right it's got a a flat bottom but then tapers to um out to the to the eaves yeah now when you look at this from the outside daniel this looks like it could be a perfect wall house meaning a house that doesn't that really everything's fully taped from the foundation all the way to the rooftop and back down again right we're seeing some type of uh grayish tape between the panels and the foundation and then zip tape what's the gray tape i'm saying that yeah so that's exactly right so we have the connection between the slab and the panel is um sega fentrim okay and um the panels for the most part when they arrive are already taped with zip but then the sec the various sections as they get put together we tape those seams um and then we have some more sega products that that match the wall to the roof panel you can see the wig glove there but essentially it is it is from slab all the way up the wall across the top and back down to the slab it's all sealed with tape i've heard joe steverick say that you want your pencil to never leave the paper if you're if you're tracing that air barrier from one side of the house the other and that's what this has done which i think is perfect yeah and coming panelized already the way the pieces fit together it made it really easy to one tape any open seams that were there but also troubleshoot if any additional needed to be done yeah for sure now on the outside i'm seeing uh looks like liquid flash on all of your windows for waterproofing all four sides of that jam right yeah that's right we um decided that was the best way for us to waterproof those windows we did essentially two inches around the outside and then the full surface on the interior of the jam or the rough opening love it and then on top of the roof you've got an additional underlayment it looks like is that what i'm seeing here the shark skin that's on the roof yeah so after um the house got put together and all the panels were taped and any um there are some roof penetrations that we had up there those all got sealed then we used the shark skin to cover the entire thing later on there will be first strips and then metal roof on top okay good deal now daniel when you walk in number one the view is incredible out here at this property but the first thing i immediately noticed that i think people are wondering about is it appears to be no walls on the inside like this is a big barn almost right yeah that's right so it's a bit misleading um we are doing a finished topping slab in here that will have an integral color we've got a layer of so we have a structural slab yep and then we have a layer of two-inch insulation so this halo subterra is on top of slab on top of slab and then on top of that we're going to pour four inches of integral color and we have nearly no interior walls so that when we put that topping slab on we've got a nice big open space to fully uh trowel that out and make it look beautiful there and then we'll come back in and we'll add the interior walls later there are a couple of interior walls and those are for um yeah that makes sense and then you've got a couple posts that came from benson wood as well with this kind of cool bottom with an adjustable base that we're going to pour around i'm assuming that's right that adjustable base gets buried and those columns actually get buried inside of interior walls as well so you won't see those but they are there just for the support of the structure yeah now bensonwood old company they've been a long time i i watched ted benson in the 80s on this old house yeah i think of them as a timber frame company um how do you how do you relate that kind of timber framing to what we've got here well so i think the idea behind it is um what you don't see is the timber skeleton that holds this house up and so there are glue lamb um columns like these ones here you can kind of you can see the bottom of that beam right there you can see the bottom of the beam there and this one up here where at the end of each panel is a a glue lamp timber yeah got it and then on the inside these panels that are outside walls i'm seeing you've got what a two by three here that's right that comes pre-notched from those guys that's right so that this is our chase where we can run our electrical and our plumbing pre-notch so it makes it easier for the trades to get everything through no drilling really necessary no drilling and then um the finished surface will be gypsum that goes right on here right on top of this and then these hold downs that i'm seeing these are probably spaced per the engineer but those are actually into a framing member probably a solid framing member and these uh pieces that probably came from simpson were poured in this cast in the slab and then when that panel came down then our framers actually attached those to on right almost so you're right there is a framing member in there we actually drilled these oh we did the fact so that we could get the placement just right oh that was smart yeah so um with a big three inch long bit those got drilled out and then anchored with epoxy and then after it was cured they got tightened up and back to that concept that i was mentioning earlier of almost like a barn what i love about this is it is a big wide open space it enables us to have a really airtight shell on the outside really good waterproofing with that zip we do have some good overhangs here which is a little different than a house maybe like mine that i framed a perfect wall style or monopoly framing as i've called it but with these r36 walls and that r50 plus roof this big house is going to be really efficient isn't it oh absolutely it is and the overhang is speaking of they've got an integrated gutter and when it's all said and done they're about five feet wide is that right you got a five foot overhang plenty of protection that's really cool yeah and then i'm noticing all the interior is taped as well that's a detail that i first saw uh from benson when i did one of their projects but i saw it a lot when i traveled through europe like when i was in switzerland uh all the houses there had interior sheathing that was taped interesting and then some kind of a service cavity but it's pretty new for us on american homes we typically have sheathing just on one side yeah what do you think about that as a builder how does it work for you um you know i really like it conceptually it works great you know being able to control not only any infiltration from the outside in but it's a it's a sealed unit essentially yeah um and so you can really separate your interior from your outside yeah talk to me about the panels themselves when they came together how are they attached yeah so it's interesting so actually this is a great example here this is a seam um two different panels okay and so inside of this is like we talked about that glulam timber and so there are a series of lags that they put in and this is all prescribed in in um by the engineer okay um so they're attached this way um into those those timbers the roof panels sit down on top and they've got long screws i think they're 24 inches they go all the way down through the top there's a structural member there so they go through that and then anchor into the wall panel at the top wow every 18 inches or so i think holy cow that's wild so it's really locked in once it's together it's together it's really in there another detail that i really like that i saw on the house that i did with benson wood five years ago four or five years ago was this this is a a double gasketed seal sealer yeah were you around when they put this bottom plate down and then dropped them on yeah that's right so um essentially it's double protection that's why there's two there but this runs between the panel and the plate between every panel and between the wall panel and the roof panels wow so they're using that on top as well yeah so everything is not only locked together tight but it's also sealed so there's no infiltration there either that's wild and what's cool about this is you're not breaking into that cavity where the insulation goes and in fact we're fully insulated and fully watertight now right yeah that's right so when the trades come in and they run all their different mechanicals we're not getting into that wall panel at all yeah we're either living in this uh chase here or in the case of the ceiling um that's been all planned ahead of time so the ductwork uh has a spot to go yeah i like that this is a cool design by lake plato too with all the uh god what do they call those i forget the terminology for those but all the metal connectors are really cool looking that's gonna be really neat and those are all tightened up and we're all ready to go on those yeah that's right as part of the raising process um everything gets plumbed and tightened so again it's locked in place and it's not moving and then i'm seeing in all these panels there's some recesses that are happening in a few areas talk to me about those recesses and how we get electrical and potentially plumbing and electrical error and hvac in yeah sure so this um particular area being as large as it is with as many windows it is it has quite a bit of load that needs to be uh taken care of so there would be two main trunk lines that run in that recessed cavity there and then at every window you can see spaces go out so there'll be branches that come off with slot registers uh at the ends there and then that's what we're seeing is a slot register right there yeah and then once all of that is in place there'll be strapping across the bottom of that and then there'll be a flat ceiling which will be um some tongue and groove hemlock killer and this is the really the main family room kitchen space yeah as we go back towards the um bedroom master bedroom down this way or some of these other utility spaces there's also recesses in the ceiling that seem to be kind of random uh recesses talking to me about those yeah exactly so this is a different ceiling condition than we have in the main part um but this everywhere there's a recess like this it's either a for lighting or for fans exhaust fans things like that there will be an additional fur down of three inches so the wiring can run between that and the panel but we need a little bit more clearance for our light fixtures yeah so next up pour the slab and then the framers are going to come back brian and his crew right yeah to handle all the interior walls and then we're ready for trades um pretty fast compared to conventional framing when you say oh absolutely um surprisingly so we did the benson wood raising in the month of may and we got 20 inches of rain i forgot i forgot about that dimension yeah this is crazy um and it's july it's august yeah first week in august but given that uh we were able to raise the entire structure and tape and seal everything that we needed to um so short of getting the windows in making it weather tight essentially um in roughly 30 days that's amazing with the crew of five five framers and what's our what's our total square footage under roof for that um it's about 7 500. 7 500 square feet in 30 days fully airtight fully insulated uh and almost ready for trades we're doing this secondary step where we've got these interiors to frame and then we're ready for trades that's right so very very fast yeah extremely fast impressive yeah however there's a pre-construction time and there's a factory time absolutely built on that can you talk to that about about that at all yeah so um the panels themselves so the design phase started a long time ago and they get through all of that and then it goes into construction in the factory they package all of those pieces individually they're all labeled and marked and they've got plans laminated plans that come with the building um and they ship those down so we got i think 15 semis full of panels from new hampshire from new hampshire that's right um luckily we're on on a big piece of land here so we had a lot of lay down space um but yeah so they build those panels and um mark them all and ship them down yeah big thanks to hugo on our team who spent a lot of time in pre-construction absolutely making sure everything was coordinated that we have we need the guys at positive energy which is a mechanical designer worked with benson wood to make sure everything was laid out mechanically so then when we get into trades we know exactly what's happening on this yeah all the meps are totally laid out and ready to go yeah it was a huge effort for everyone to collaborate on that yeah and uh and bill wood uh who was our framer who did the rough framing uh and his crew uh worked with two guys from bensonwood who came down and had some prior knowledge and also actually built some of those panels what was it like having those guys on site yeah it was really it was fantastic um they worked really well with our with bills guys um and to see with just a handful of guys the coordination we had um justin who was the the captain yep and he wrote from bensonwood and he ran the ship and um basically we had he was coordinating with two of bill's guys and then he also had brandon and reed who were from bensonwood as well and so brandon was running the telehandler reed was getting straps and run things back and forth and they they it was it was really impressive to watch very impressive daniel i don't really want to get into cost because it's hard to it's hard to quantify all these costs in comparison to stick framing it's definitely more is it 2x more i don't know for sure what the what the costs are but from your perspective what are the main benefits for both us as the builder and for the client for building with this system compared to us conventionally framing it and and working on kind of normal construction methods sure i would say one of the big benefits is the amount of planning that goes into it before we even start and so so many of the details have been thought through and figured out so that when we do start construction there really aren't pro well we didn't encounter any problems that's right and so that was huge right um but then the speed with which we could put it together and knowing that we can have this place sealed and insulated as quick as we can it was just i was blown away by how fast it came together yeah and for me to get a house that you know you could get a passive house rated uh easily with this system uh depending on what windows and doors you ended up choosing we're going to be near passive house on this build with really high precision and a really good value i think for our clients so even though this is not an inexpensive process i think there's a lot of benefits and the last benefit that i want to mention is i think speed is an underrated thing uh you know i'm in i'm finishing my personal house under construction i'm going on probably 18 months right now yeah uh it's been a slog getting through it uh and to to think about going from foundation to trades coming in in six weeks or eight weeks in a normal or six weeks on a really detailed 7 000 square foot custom home that's that's unheard of that's incredible yeah and that pre-planning makes all the difference now when we're on the job site yeah absolutely daniel great job man thanks a lot man love it guys if you're interested in working with bensonwood i'll put a link in the description great company it's not my second build with them and even though we're many states away things worked really really well with these guys and it helps have an incredible builders like daniel and the craftsman that we've used here our concrete guy our framer our plumbers our electricians all these guys on my team worked really really hard to get there stay tuned for more on this one i'll put daniel's instagram feed uh below so you can follow daniel he's posting from the job site and of course if you're not a subscriber guys hit that subscribe button below we've got new content here every tuesday and every friday follow me on twitter instagram otherwise we'll see you next time on the build show [Music] you

Channel: Matt Risinger

Views: 69,756

Rating: 4.9389439 out of 5

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

Id: JhrnYZoSck8

Length: 19min 3sec (1143 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 14 2021