Peter,

I can't provide you with a cost analysis of the two, but from my experiences as a building contractor, spray in foam applications are very expensive compared to a SIP frame system. We do use spray in foam
in some of our ceiling applications where we have flat ceilings and a SIP roof system doesn't make sense. A full cost of a 6 1/2 inch SIP panel (in California, where everything costs and arm and a leg) frame, would
be $ 9.50 per sq. ft. which covers all the associated costs of fabrication, sales tax and shipping. Figure what your material and labor costs are with stick frame (yuk! can't believe the words stick frame came out of my
mouth without throwing up) construction and add in the cost of the spray in, see what your square foot costs come up.

The Panel Guy

Thank you for the feedback. I am building the home in Canada near Ottawa, Ontario. The SIP panel supplier I am looking at is Thermapan. They have quoted me a cost of 5.55 per sq ft for a 6 1/2 inch thick panel with 5 5/8 inch EPS with an R value of 29.147 and using 7/16 OSB. Shipping will run about 1700.00.

The spray foam provider has quoted me $1. 25 per inch per sq ft. Then of course you would need to add on the OSB board and 2X6 studs. Based on material the SIP would appear much cheaper. 

So excluding instalation the SIPs appear cheaper. My builder has only built one SIP home and did not find them any faster after allowing for cutting out windows. He also said the electrical was much slower. He has recommended going with the spray foam as it gives us more flexibility. We are building a 2 storey country style home with a main floor approx 2400 sq ft, second floor approx 700 sq ft and a full basement that will have a walkout from a large rec room and 2 bedrooms.  Since my property faces a river and I have maximized the southern exposure, I will have a fair number of energy efficient windows on the southern exposure. Bottom line is that the south wall (70 ft) is likely best framed. I am now leaning to using SIPs where practical and then spray foam elsewhere. What I really need to do is get a firm quote based on my house plan, as there may be a fair amount of waste with the SIPs as we cut them to meet our design, driving the SIP cost up. 

This is all new to me, so please feel free to challenge my assumptions.     
   

Peter,
For < $6 per sqft you can get completely fabricated SIPS with all of the lumber preinstalled. No onsite cutting, no onsite waste. The panels will go up fast. Look around a bit more.

Hi Peter,

I am in the same boat as you same type of house as well. On a lake up north in Hearst.I am looking at all icf or icf foundation Sip walls. I can do all of the framing or sip work myself. I have price out the spray as well and although it might be easier to run electrical that to me is the only reason to stick frame. Not reason enough for me. I have also priced out thermopan. To get back to the previous post from jc, there is a company in Barrie that sells Insulpan. They pre fab all the sips. I have to send them a plan and see what price they come up with. Having never done sips before it might be worth any extra cost if any. If you find anything interesting please pm. I will do the same I hope to have my plans off to them next week. Good luck.

I would appreciate if you ley me know the Insulplan quote. Who are you looking at for ICF and have you received a quote? Also, I would be really interested to know if you have done any reseach on windows. I am currently leaning towards Themotech windows out of Carp, Ontario. Only challenge is they do not offer all procduct types such as french patio doors and double hung windows.

Correct me if Im wrong but you need to figure in a foam sheathing of some type to address the thermal bridging issue on a sprayed home to compare it to SIPS effeciency.
Mark

Hey Peter,

I have the price PDF from Thermopan in Fort Erie. If you want it let me know I can forward it to you. Since you already have your quote it might be of no use to you. It as the prices 4x8 to 4x16 and different r values. I am going to go with the 8.25 in wall. Much colder climate here. I haven't looked into windows yet I just decided to build a few weeks ago. It is a big concern as my house will be facing north, strong winds off of the lake. I will look into Thermotech. Perhaps we could combine our orders to get a better price. Just a thought. I think I will try to go with triple pane. Not sure how much better they are for the $$$. More surfing required. If you wish to talk give me a shout always good to here some one else's ideas. Cheers.

Dave Hueston

705 362 1163

Here are a few thoughts when building in Ontario.

SIP pricing is generally higher than comparable panels in the U.S. We are getting ripped-off up in these woods.

You may want to re-think about building with ICFs in a very cold climate like Hearst or Ottawa. ICF is very expensive and all it really is....concrete poured wall with styrofoam on both sides. Ontario code says you need basement insulation (EIBS), but that is usually accomplished by attaching 2" foam panels on the exterior of a poured or block basement wall. One of the major claims by the ICF manufacturers is the idea of 'thermal mass'. Unfortunately, that concept works against you in a very cold climate. Thermal mass won't protect you in sub-zero temps for long extended periods. In essence, the concrete loses any heat that has been retained and starts to retain coldness........effectively your house becomes a huge frozen popsicle. If you decide to go with ICF basement, you will need to cover the styro immediately with drywall since Ontario code will not allow you to have an exposed flammable wall.

Remeber, we are talking about very cold temperatures up here. Water is a major enemy. Water always wants to be a liquid and not a vapour. Therefore water vapour will always travle from warm to cold. Here's what happens with ICF main walls in the winter. The interior of your house will be warm and relative humid will be adjusted to a comfortable level. Your house will be airtight and a Ventilator will supply fresh air. The very freezing cold outside is VERY dry air (drier than the Sahara desert). The HVAC will add moisture to your interior with a humdifier (as required by the settings). Otherwise your wood furniture will crack, wood floors will shrink, your lips will be dry and chafed and your lungs will eventually feel like you have asthma. OK....the interior water vapour will try to get out to the cold and it will hit the frozen ICF exterior wall and condense.. Hopefully, you are not just depnding on that measly styrofoam from the ICF block as your sole interior insulation. Hopefully, you have also added a 2x interiuor wall with additional insulation. What is that going to cost?

A lot also depends on what you are going to have for an exterior covering. Here are two examples:

1) If you are planning to have a brick or stone exterior, then SIPs become a more logical alternative. Your basement wall will be extra thick because of the support ledge that is required for the brick. Adding exterior foam insulation to your wood walls makes them very thick indeedy. SIPs takes care of everything in one step, just add brick.  Of course, you'll still have the age-old problem of the thermal-bridge where the concrete foundation meets the wood. Nobody has really been able to solve this problem effectively except by addition of spray on the interior in this area.

2) If you are planing to have some type of siding as your exterior finish, then you could go with SIP. But also you can have a stick-frame as a perfectly viable alternative. Essentially, a 2x6 wall is built flush with the concrete or block foundation. 2" foam is attached to the exterior of the foundation walls and the same 2" foam continues up the wall to the roof line. In essence, this nullifies the thermal bridge by the 2x6 studs and also nullifies the thermal bridge between the masonry foundation and the wood wall. A 1" layer of closed-cell foam is applied to the interior walls, which provides the air-sealing. The rest of the space is filled with batt insulation. There is nothing wrong with batt insulation except that it permeates air and water vapour (so does concrete).

Unfortunately, in Ontario, SIP panels are WAY over-priced. On the other hand, lumber and building materials are priced way lower than they are in the U.S.

You would think that SIP panels here would be lower priced accordingly......but such is not the case. I guess the few local panel suppliers up here are a bit greedy........and forcing people to consider ways of being creative stick-frame builders instead of SIP supporters. It's a shame!

It is a shame for sure. I know for an absolute fact that the sip manufactures have been able to get sheets of 7/16 osb for as low as 5-5.50 a sheet in the last yr. That would be a max $11 for the shell and that would leave $127 for the styrofoam in a 8.25 in sip. So they are making a killing. I can only assume the market is good because I was told by one dealer there is no movement in the prices. It is what is is. I have access to trucks crossing the border, perhaps it would be cheaper to get them for the US. Even if it is the same price it would be worth it to me just let some dealers wake up. Just like the auto industry. A little strong dollar pricing per sey.

Thank you for the sound advice. I think my builder would echo you recommendations. The approach of 2" foam attached to the exterior and 1 " of closed cell spray foam for the air tight seal and batt insulation for the rest would be a very economical approach. I will fisrt have to price the 2 " foam. Do you happen to know what the R value would be with this approach?  

DIY;

Most SIP mfg, are not using 4 x8 sheets of OSB from the Home Depot, but in all fairness please factor in,
cost of glue, labor to unload, assemble, re-load the cost of the warehousing and manufacturing buildings, cost of laminating, presses or vacuum bags. Cost of office staff, including purchasing agent, acounting department, plant foreman , sales staff, marketing costs, cost of financing.

I assure you, you are getting a fair price

Nobody can argue that there is a 'cost to munufacture' SIP panels. I guess we could get an accountant to really determine what those costs would be......material costs, capital costs, sunk costs, marketing costs, depreciation, profit margins, etc, etc.

The real question here is.....Are Canadians being screwed on SIP pricing versus their U.S. brothers. I believe the answer is a resounding YES.

SIP panels in CANADA are over-priced.

The system of stick-frame with exterior foam board and interior pray foam plus batt insulation will have an R-value in the 20's.

However, consider this:

R-Value is a grossly misleading measurement. It is a laboratory test rating under ideal conditions. With this test, batt insulation or blown fiberglass scores very well because of the  trapped air mini-pockets. However in the real world, batt insulation is not as effective because it freely allows for air and vapour penetration. So to make batt insulation perform remarkably well, a home builder must make sure that air penetration and vapour movement is virtually eliminated.

If air and vapour are eliminated, it is surprising how little insulation is actually required. In fact, there is the Law Of Diminishing Returns. You can keep adding insulation till the cows come home and each inch of insulation added will be less and less marginall effective......essentially it gets to a point of a waste of money and effort.

Here's an example. Consider a really hot cup of Timmy's coffee. Timmy's serves their coffee in paper cups. The cup is hot (poor paper insulation). Many people ask for a double-cup and that works quite well indeed. Now you have an air-space between the two paper cups and air is not a great conductor of heat. This analogy is similar to batt insulation. Now take that same hot coffee and pour it into an 1/8" thick foam cup. Not only is the foam waterproof, but it also insulates that heat very well indeedy.

Now imagine a 1" thick piece of foamboard. Virtually 8 times the thickness of the cup. If you had a mug of 1" foam, you could hold that hot coffee for a very, very long time.

More important is to keep it air and vapour tight and that means meticulous sealing and caulking of all the seams and plates. If you add 1.5" foamboard on the exterior (or 1" foamboard with foil backing to eliminate radiant heat gain/loss) and continue that with 1" of interior spray foam, then add batt to fill the rest of the cavity, then cover with gypsumboard (no plastic vapour barrier), you will have a structure that will score over the 80 Energuide test (probably score close to 90) which rivals anything that SIPs can do.

This is not a shot against SIPs. I think SIPs are great. They use too much foam but thats a combination of needing the thickness for structural purposes and also a marketing sales point because most people will immediately focus on the R-Value.

The major problem with SIPs in Ontario, Canada is the high costs associated with construction. Not only are SIP panels priced way too high in Canada but it is very rare that framing  crews will give you any discount when building with SIPs, even though it's a lot faster than stick framing. In fact, you may find that framers will charge a 'preium' for SIP installation. This info doesn't apply to our U.S brothers so please ignore this posting.

Thank you for your unbiased opinion. Beleive it or not, my builder who is also a close friend told me basically the same thing. Unfortunately I got all hyped up on SIPS and ICFS and have spent alot of time reaching the same conclusion.

Okay, so my decision is to go with the 1.5" foam board with with foil backing, 1" of closed int
erior spray, batt insulation and drywall, paying close attention to detail.

Now on to my window choices which is even more difficult, confusing and potentially more expensive. 

Building green economically is no easy feat.

 

I am working with a builder who is not familiar with SIPS and is trying very hard to push me towards spray foam. The builder used one of their spec homes and sent the plans to a panel company for a quote. They had recently built this home and had the numbers using typical construction methods. The builder contacted me and basically told me that it would cost approximately $3500 more if I had framed the exterior of the house myself using SIPS like I want to, compared to them building the house using spray foam insulation. There are a lot of details invloved that I could include but would not be of any real value to this conversation. Its hard for me to believe that this could be true. I've done a lot of research and talked with numerous people that all say that SIPS and spray foam are pretty much in line as far as cost is concerned. It just proves to me that a person really, really needs to get invloved in every detail of the house build if you're looking to maximize your dollar.

600rmk;

Most builders hate to get out of their comfort zone and if forced to, they will tell you its going to cost more so you will get discouraged.
My advise is to find a progressive thinking builder, that sees this as an opportunity to learn something new that will set himself apart from the tens of thousands of builders out there doing the same old same old.