DIY SIP panels: manufacturing technology

What are SIP panels?

SIP panel (Structural insulated Panel) is a multilayer building material made from a pair of wood boards with insulation inside. The outer layers of this “sandwich” are made of moisture-resistant OSB, which provides it with the necessary rigidity. This makes it possible to build multi-story houses from such panels without reinforcing them with additional load-bearing structures.

SIP panel device diagram

It is impossible to make such a slab with the proper characteristics on your own. SIP panels made by yourself not according to standards can be used exclusively for covering a reliable frame. They cannot be used as a structural material for the walls of a house.

After gluing the oriented strand boards and insulation, the finished SIP panel is sent to the construction site or immediately cut to the required dimensions at the factory. In the second case, builders receive a set of parts from which they simply need to assemble a house like a constructor.

Scheme of construction of load-bearing walls made of SIP panels

The main advantage of this material is its high thermal insulation characteristics. With a polystyrene foam layer of 100 mm, their heat transfer resistance is higher than that of brick walls 2 m thick. To achieve similar indicators, foam concrete or log houses must have external wall structures of 50–60 cm.

It is possible to build a cottage from wood or brick with similar thermal efficiency parameters. But houses made from SIP panels have another advantage in this comparison. Their construction will simply cost less. Unless, of course, you run into overly enterprising builders with inflated panel prices. These people will ask for any house as if it were gold. And the materials themselves will be purchased cheap and of poor quality.

Advantages of industrial technology for manufacturing SIP panels

The advantages of SIP panels are described in more detail in a separate article; here it should be noted that the same materials (expanded polystyrene and OSB) are sometimes used in frame house construction. However, the combination of excellent performance characteristics of modern materials, as well as a proven manufacturing process, allows SIP to achieve a higher degree of reliability. Industrial production helps eliminate possible construction errors and minimize the negative impact of the “human factor”. Thus, the resulting building material is of consistently high quality - each slab released from production meets the standard. You can learn about the production process and features of the manufacturing technology of SIP panels at TERMOVILLA in the next section.

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Pros and cons of SIP panels

Among the advantages of a house made from panels are:

• Light weight - a square meter of structural slab with polystyrene foam as insulation weighs less than 20 kg;
• Minimum construction time - a house with an attic can be built in just 20–25 days; within three weeks it will be possible to take photos against its background for posting on social networks;
• High thermal efficiency - a slab of standard thickness of 17 cm is enough to build a warm cottage in the vast majority of Russian regions;
• Increased sound insulation of walls - all insulation used in the manufacture of building materials perfectly prevents street sounds from entering the house;
• There are no non-working seasons - cottages made from SIP panels can be built throughout the year;
• The assembly of the building is extremely simple - the purchased slab only needs to be cut into the necessary parts, and a couple of people will be enough to install them.

It's quite durable

Made in accordance with all technology standards, the panels are resistant to mold and mildew, and can also withstand significant transverse and longitudinal loads. To strengthen them, regular or laminated veneer lumber is inserted into the ends.

Among the disadvantages of the SIP panel are:

• Harmful in terms of ecology - adhesives in OSB and plastic in insulation can hardly be called environmentally friendly;
• Flammability - despite fire-retardant impregnations, a house made of this building material cannot be completely protected from fire.

The biggest disadvantage of a house made of SIP panels, like any other wooden one, is its susceptibility to combustion

Claims regarding the settlement of rodents in SIP walls are largely far-fetched. Rats in a private home can even chew through concrete walls. Insulation and wood chip boards are not a hindrance to them. But they definitely won’t settle inside the panel. Expanded polystyrene contains special additives that are lethal to them.

It’s hard to argue with the fire hazard of such a structure. But from this point of view, a house made of logs or profiled timber cannot be called completely safe. Wherever wood is used as a building material, it must be treated with fire retardants. This is the only way to reduce the risk of fire.

Reviews from panel home owners

According to the owners, the house is warm and comfortable. The only problem for residents is ventilation. Such cottages resemble a thermos with sealed walls. The ventilation system in them often has to be forced. There is not enough natural air flow. The walls made of SIP simply do not let him into the house at all.

Positive reviews

• 4 times stronger than wooden frames; 2 times warmer than wooden houses; 5 times faster in construction than houses made of brick and aerated concrete; have a usable area increased by 12% with the same building footprint; unlike frame houses, they do not have “cold bridges”; unlike gas-foam concrete, wooden and brick houses they do not shrink; unlike frame and gas-foam concrete houses, they do not contain volatile elements; are not subject to rotting, damage by insects and are much less susceptible to damage by rodents than frame houses; absolutely safe for humans and the environment, easy to finish, because... have perfectly smooth wall surfaces and corners. © SSergey, forumhouse.ru.
• I built a frame house with my father and friends in three months, it’s been standing for three years now, the flight is normal. © Revolt, forum.onliner.by.
• And I will build it myself from sip panels on chicken legs (piles) - it’s built quickly. and time is money. Build a house from silicate, and then cover it with polystyrene foam so that it is warm)) is there no fumes? + pour half the cost of the house into the foundation. Only sip. The main thing is to think through the supply and exhaust correctly. What else can you use to build a 120 sq. m house for 25-30 thousand? © LANTAN, forum.onliner.by.
• I have been building vulture panel houses since 2010, mainly in the suburbs, I communicate with former customers, everyone is very happy, the houses are warm, they are quickly assembled, the walls are perfectly smooth (finishing is a pain), over the years I have made slabs for myself and over the winter while at home I assembled my house and covered it. comments like it will fall apart are written by someone who built from blocks and spent a lot of money on time and nerves. build without hesitation, quickly, inexpensively, warmly, reliably. © sanik1975, forum.onliner.by.
• I don’t know how ECO-logical all this is, but it is quite logical that those who do not have such a house insist that such houses are bad, and those who have such a house insist that they are good. I have! Therefore, I will focus on the fact that before allowing these technologies (especially abroad), real experts in this matter assessed the risks. In general, I try to think less about how much harmful there is in our everyday life - what we eat, what we breathe, what we wear, what we use... And how much health we lose by conflicting (including virtually) I’m looking forward to the warmth and snow melting at the dacha so that I can start decorating our neat little house, which is waiting for us to devote time to it amid the avalanche of worries...© Forest Dacha, dacha. wcb.ru.
• I agree, this is modern technology, we started our activities with houses made of chopped logs, over time we realized that people want something economical, quickly erected and warm. I built it once and forgot about it. No caulking is needed. There is really one disadvantage of sip panels, poor sound insulation. But this can be solved with sheets of plasterboard during interior decoration. © alexandermos77, dacha.wcb.ru.

Negative reviews

• Now you will know what will really be left of your SIP home in the event of a fire. Nothing! To extinguish SIP at home, it took 5 fire department vehicles and 2 vehicles the next morning. © Vladimir Barinov, forumhouse.ru.

  
  A house was built 8.5 m x 9.5 m in 2 full floors

  
  The kids set the house on fire

  
  Everything burned completely

• Houses built using these technologies last 10-20-30 years, but unfortunately, not here, but abroad. Our conservatism in construction is still preventing new technologies, although in other areas we are accepting new technologies. © fabhouse, forumhouse.ru.
• 1. an unknown level of environmental friendliness. Some praise, others scare. It is advisable to completely insulate the walls from the living space with film or gypsum board or something similar, neutral for humans and not allowing air to pass through (this is my opinion and not knowledge), screed on the floor, suspended ceiling and seemingly insulated

  2. sound insulation

  3. in case of a fire, it is better not to extinguish it (if you are extinguishing it, do not breathe), this for a moment applies to almost all houses except medieval castles

  4. the house does not “breathe”, a ventilation system or ventilation is needed

  5. You can install a fireplace, but you will most likely have to heat it carefully. The house will immediately heat up to a high temperature, it will be hot, you will have to regulate the windows. © a5501040, dacha.wcb.ru.

• There was a TV program about houses made from SIP panels. Purchased people The owners spoke very flatteringly about their acquisitions. Through the phrase, you can hear the phrase ECO-house. No one will say why a structure made of resin and phenols is called an ECO house? © Maestro, dacha.wcb.ru.

Construction of a SIP house

For a house made of SIP panels to serve you faithfully, as it is written in the advertising leaflet, it is not enough to buy it and bring it to the site. Still, this is a frame house and it must be built correctly. The deceptive simplicity of the designer misleads both the customer and the contractor. In fact, frame houses are a very complex technology, the description of only the main stages takes 200 pages. If there is such a team that will fulfill all the requirements, then it is difficult to find craftsmen of this level in Crimea. The human factor during assembly is extremely high, and this is a problem on the peninsula.

It is not enough to create a convenient layout and drawings of facades in Archikad - to cut panels and calculate loads, you need a program that costs 13,000 euros. Only the program. Without it, the panels will not fit perfectly end-to-end, microscopic or quite noticeable cracks will appear, and the building may turn out to be fragile. During construction, the timber must not only be dry, but have 9% humidity - this is one of the basic requirements of the technology, which is almost impossible to comply with in many regions

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In order not to sweat, builders simply foam fairly large gaps with polyurethane foam - this is a violation. Quite often, crews make a blank box, in which they cut out holes for windows with a chainsaw, and reinforce the ceilings by eye.

In Canada and the USA, houses are built according to clear instructions. Rules for storing materials, transportation rules, and optimal humidity are prescribed. In Russia, this technology was simplified for consumer understanding, leaving only a low price. No one says that such houses must be built carefully, that every miscalculation will reverberate in a few years and cost money. Insufficient fastenings, brittle black screws, cheap wood for connecting beams - all these seem to be small things, but these things negate all the advantages of SIP houses.

Atmosphere and comfort

A house made of SIP panels is a thermos house. It is sealed and has zero vapor permeability. Such a house retains heat very well indoors, but only if the windows are tightly closed. If you ventilate it, it will get cold very quickly in winter. If you don't do this, you will become unable to breathe. The walls of a SIP house are light and do not accumulate heat at all, so all the heating work falls on the heating devices and your electricity bills. There is no such problem in inertial houses - a concrete or stone core perfectly accumulates energy and radiates it, heating the space inside. But this does not mean that you can immediately suffocate in a house made of SIP panels. This will not be noticeably felt - simply the concentration of carbon dioxide will increase, leading to drowsiness, lethargy, and decreased immunity.

All Canadian and American houses are built immediately according to a project that provides for built-in forced ventilation. These are thick air ducts throughout the house, which are laid during the construction stage - two channels in each room through which air is supplied and exhausted outside, an expensive recovery system. In order not to raise the cost of houses, companies often do not talk about this and sell projects in which such ventilation is not even provided. People move in, do the finishing touches, and then realize that they need to do air ducts, which means they have to redo the renovation again. This will have to add several hundred thousand more to the budget - both for repairs and for an expensive forced ventilation system.

Fire hazard

First of all, the decoration and furniture in the house burn. The material of the walls is secondarily important. It determines whether the box will stand until the firefighters arrive and how quickly the fire will spread throughout the house. If you go to YouTube, you will see how SIP manufacturers using miniature burners try to set their stoves on fire. If you set it on fire, put it away, it goes out, buy it because it won’t burn. Lit. During a fire, when temperatures are much higher and their exposure is constant and prolonged, OSB board burns well.

According to the technical regulations on fire safety requirements (Federal Law No. 123-FZ of August 22, 2008), OSB-3 belongs to the 5th class of fire hazard of building materials (KM5).

1. Flammability group according to GOST 30244 – G4 (highly flammable). 2. Flammability group – B3 (highly flammable). 3. Toxicity group of combustion products according to GOST 12.1.044 – G4 (extremely dangerous).

That is why it is considered mandatory to finish OSB with at least one (preferably two) sheets of drywall. Only after this the flammability group of the walls rises to the normal G1 level. You can build, but it’s better to take care of safety in advance. If your SIP panel is finished with plasterboard, painted or plastered, with wallpaper or tiles on top of everything, an open fire will not reach the pressed wood as quickly, but if it does, it will burn out much faster than advertisers of SIP houses claim. And under the OSB you have polystyrene foam, which does not burn on its own - this is true, but it melts perfectly and emits harmful styrene under the constant influence of the high temperature of the fire.

What's the result?

Houses made from SIP panels are good houses. This is excellent technology that works and lasts for decades. But a happy outcome only happens when SIP panels are built by a smart team on a smart, not cheap project. In vulture houses, it is imperative to install forced ventilation with a recovery system; they must use high-quality panels with genuine certification. The construction of such houses must be monitored especially carefully, because every little detail matters. As a result, if you follow the technology, a house made of sip panels with an area of ​​more than 100 square meters is not much cheaper than a monolithic house made of stone or a monolithic house made of tecolite blocks.

Types and characteristics of the panel

The insulation in structural insulation panels can be:

1. Expanded polystyrene.
2. Polyurethane foam.
3. Basalt mineral wool.

When choosing a material, it is necessary to compare all the pros and cons of these heat insulators. In terms of price, the cheapest option is polystyrene foam. However, it is also the first in flammability. Despite all the sellers’ assurances about its safety, not everyone wants to live in a house made of polystyrene foam.

Mineral wool, in contrast, does not contain formaldehyde and has a fire hazard class of “NG”. However, it is heavier in weight. A house with composite walls made from it will require a slightly more powerful foundation. But in mineral wool you can safely lay cable channels for electrical wiring.

Polyurethane foam is the most durable and has the lowest thermal conductivity of the listed insulation materials. Mineral wool is prone to moisture accumulation, but will not catch fire. However, the classic of SIP technology is polystyrene foam. It is easier for manufacturers to work with and is inexpensive.

Panel size table

Panel characteristics table

The working process

For simplicity, I will divide the work into 4 stages:

1. Preparation of materials and tools;
2. Foundation construction;
3. Walling;
4. Installation of the upper partition and gables.

Materials and tools

The following materials are used for work:

You can purchase a ready-made house kit made from SIP panels. The set will contain everything you need to build the structure; all you have to do is assemble everything as a construction set according to a detailed diagram. The cost of such a kit can range from 400,000 to 2,000,000 rubles, depending on the project and size of the building.

House building tools:

• Construction level and pencil;
• Screwdriver . The tool is additionally equipped with bits of the required configuration;

A screwdriver allows you to quickly tighten a large number of screws

• Hammer . Will be used for drilling holes in the foundation for fastening base panels. The kit must include a drill of the appropriate diameter and length;
• Gun for polyurethane foam . There is a lot of composition to be applied, so choose a high-quality and reliable tool with the ability to adjust the feed;

A spray foam gun allows you to apply the composition quickly and economically

• Electric saw or chainsaw . If you need to cut sandwich panels, then you cannot do without this tool. If you only need to cut bars, then you can get by with a circular saw.

The electric saw allows you to cut SIP panels and timber very quickly and efficiently

Foundation construction

I will consider the work from the moment when the foundation has already been erected and has gained the required strength. That is, you must fill it in advance.

The foundation of SIP houses is assembled like this:

Construction of walls

This part of the work is done like this:

Installation of partitions and gables

This stage looks like this: