Jigsaw SIP house

Although we still have some time as we haven’t been able to secure a builder yet we are progressing with the wall and roof panel ordering.

As our SIP’s (Structural Insulated Panels) for the wall and roof are all pre-fabricated and cut to the exact dimensions Panel Layout Drawings are created by Formance to determine the cutting dimensions and lay-out of all the different panels.

Basically the structure of our house is going to be put together like a big jigsaw when all the panels arrive on site with an IKEA type manual with numbering on the panels to slot them all together.

As the standard width of the panels is 1220 mm our home is designed on this grid to make efficient use of the standard sizes (full width or half width panels).

Love the way the drawings are shaping up. The blue lines are the splices between the panels, the purple lines the wire chasing channels and yellow crosses the windows. As we need to fix the loft floor to the panels we have a few cut outs which after floor installation will be filled with SIP panels as well.

South, West and East wall panel group and details

Still happy we chose this building method as we can achieve high insulation values (R5.5) and with everything precut to precise dimensions also an airtight envelope that will keep its energy performance for a really long time.

So many buildings are still under-insulated or damp here and now that winter is settling in it just sucks having to spend another winter in a cold rental home.

In the 2018 NZ government census one of the questions was if you have mould in your home larger than an A4 sheet of paper. Shocking a question like this needs to be asked but probably more shocking when the results are known.

The census results are not published yet but the BRANZ 5^thhousing condition survey shows 49% of homes had visible mould and this was most commonly observed in houses lacking effective heating, ventilation and insulation.