Michael,

I sent you an email offline as I am an hour north of you.

The most economical way to go is to consider a square home. You can actually find some plans on the Internet that specify SIPs. This may help especially if engineering is required and probably is. This way you decrease the outside square footage of the home which is upgraded with SIPs and is normally more expensive then SIP construction. I find that SIP roofs are more expensive but if you decide for a SIP roof, consider a shed style roof or a SW style home (flat roof) as there will be less cutting and fitting for these. Finding someone with a long trailer and something to load and unload panels will help reduce your costs. You can get the walls precut if you do not have a beam saw reducing your equipment needs on site. Or if you use raw panels, you might want to have someone consult with a beam saw so that you can acurately cut your doors/windows. They can be a real pain with a chain saw, circular saw, or Sawzall.

Michael ~

You might want to check out:
EH Systems
New Braunfels, Texas
830-629-2468
contact person: Wayne Wall ext 213
www.ehsystemsllc.com

Hey Bud,

Sorry I took so long getting back to you, I've been all over the net looking for places.  What size trailor would I need, I would like to do all the work I can myself.  All I want is a square home and the roof you mentioned would do.  Can these type homes be on pier and post foundation because it seems I will save alot of money going this way.  I can rent the auger at local H/Depot and cement mixer and do foundation as well.

Any further info, thanks.
Also do you have any photo's so I can see the type of work I'm lookin at.

Thanks

Michael, San Antonio

Where is there any SIP place locally to save shipping.

Michael,

Around here most foundations are concrete because they are cheap. We are probably more expensive here in the hill country and you can get a foundation for $6.50/foot installed. I am not sure your can beat that. With pier and beam and SIPs you are probably looking at $4-$5 in materials so you might be able to save doing the labor yourself. You would want at least 6" panels and need to support them every 8'.

Any 8' wide trailer over 16' will work and under if you can make two trips. The tricky part is the weight distribution. I hauled a load from Dallas and had issues hauling the jumbo 8' X 24' panels as they stack high quickly @ 6.5" panels and too much weight was loaded in back of the axel. I should have had them load the top half so that it would cantilever over the bed of the pickup. I had some issues with jackknifing when I got over 45 mph. So the people loved me on the interstate.

I considered SIPS for the home I'm getting ready to build, but decided to go with ICF blocks. The reason? With SIP you have to buy a lot of labor, i.e. the labor to fabricate the SIP panels, and the labor to set them up. You can't fabricate a SIP panel yourself, and they are large and bulky and you'll need a crane to off load them from a truck and stand them up. A local SIP mfr I talked to admitted the material cost is about 20 - 50% higher than conventional but that is offset by labor savings in erection. You end up being somewhat limited in the amount of DIY labor in the bare walls of the house.

Compare to ICFs. Material cost is less for the blocks. You can instill a lot of DIY labor in stacking them, doing the rebar, etc. You will need to hire a good portion, if not all, the concrete work. Wiring in exterior walls can be done more easily in ICF I would think. Box holes and wiring channels should be put in at the factory for SIPs.

Roof truss installation will the same for either system. You're probably better off to hire someone to fly the trusses and do the roof sheathing.

From that point on, both ICF and SIP would be similar candidates for the amount of DIY labor you can put into the house.

I could be wrong, but this was my conclusion when I was looking at which way to go.

Michael;

In your area contact Fred Ballard at Bluehorse construction they use steel sips,
http://www.bluehorsebuilding.com/about.htm