Wow, where to start.... I just happened to stumble upon this website while searching for someone in our area who has a clue about building with SIPs. My family and I live in Joplin, Mo. and lost our home in the tornado on 5-22. We have been working with a Non Profit organization, as well as an architect who designed our new home for us. The weekend of Oct 28th a group of volunteers were able to get all of our walls up, but we cannot find anyone who knows anything about them to get our roof on. Our new home has been sitting for 2 weeks now with no roof, and we are terribly worried that any more rain will cause irreversable damage. Does anyone know of a contractor or anyone in SW Missouri, SE Kansas, NE Oklahoma or NW Arkansas that we could call?

Greetings,

Did you contact the manufacturer about this? Your biggest problem is getting the panels up there to the beam. I have a sips house and if I were to construct myself I would use a 2x4 attached across the panel, set back for the the over hang dimension. Be sure the outer walls are well braced and straight.

When going over the gable exterior/interior walls bow the roof panels UP about 1/2" above flat otherwise the panels will bow up and down from season to season and cause a drywall tape problem, plus loud cracking noises. Keeping a 1/16" gap between panels will help too.

Be sure to run a expand'g foam bead at the top wall between the top wall and roof panel otherwise you will have a condensation line at the drywall seam. Run a bead on the gable top plate too.

Is your foam eps or urethane? If EPS it will shrink. And you will have about 1/4" gaps around the edges.
The following will prevent any additional heat loss from this. Urethane shrinks too but I have no experience with it on SIPS.

I recently upgraded my sips house with a reflective insulation (RI)sheet by attaching 2x3 x 1/2" pads 16" c/c along the rafter line and attaching a 7/8" steel furring strip over the pads and then dry wall. My house does not go over 80 degs with out the ac on and a dark, unshaded roof on a 95+ deg day. You can use this method on the exterior walls. If you are going to use siding on the house I would recommend Alside's steel siding. The foil insulation will stabilize the panel temperature and help prevent seasonal flexing, especially the roof.

The RI will also help prevent moisture from getting between the foam and exterior sheathing which can/will cause the sheathing to buckle in the roof panels.