On Tuesday, August 4th, the SIPs panels arrived. The floor, walls and roof of our house were all on a single trailer:
The driver unloaded the panels and Tim directed where each set of panels was to be placed (around the house) in order to make them the most convenient to grab and put up in order:
Here you can see several piles of panels with the foundation wall just visible to the right of them:
You can see that the panels are kind of like an Oreo cookie; OSB on each side with foam in between. The floor is 10″ thick, the walls 8″ and the roof 12″ thick. Each panel is made ahead of time to assemble with other panels. They interlock and form very tight seals. The thick insulated walls along with the seals (greatly reducing air infiltration, a major source of heat loss) is what gives SIPs their incredible energy efficiency.
The installation crew has been delayed for a week, so we’re now expecting to have the panels installed starting on the 19th.
Now, Tim just has to finish the foundation before they get here 🙂 .